“The devil sure got ahold of you!” – Steve Troxel, November 1970
In the fall of 1969, I had come to OBU, as many freshmen do, assured that – when it came to God, salvation, the hereafter, and so forth – I had all the answers. After all, I had been in Southern Baptist churches all my life, from Cradle Roll to Youth Choir; walked the aisle at 10 to profess my faith in Christ and was baptized. In my teen years, I was a leader in my youth group, even being elected “youth pastor” one year during Youth Week. My life had revolved around the youth group and, especially, Youth Choir.
I had grown up hearing the Bible preached and taught with literal and traditional interpretations that – to my mind, anyway – weren’t to be questioned. Everything I had been taught at church was fact, and that was that. Oh, in the very deepest recesses of my mind, there were questions and doubts, but I kept them there and refused to entertain them. After all, questions and doubts were threats to my faith . . . to my salvation.
Then I arrived at OBU. I met new friends, especially upperclassmen, who had started questioning the teachings of their home church and their parents. I remember one particular conversation the spring semester of my freshman year. Warren Palmer, a fellow freshman who had arrived at OBU with much the same fundamentalist faith as mine, had started seriously questioning his beliefs. He challenged me, saying that these things we had been taught about the Bible, about God, about Jesus . . . they were open to question. Well, I was having none of this. I remember saying to him, “No, no, these are facts.” Whether the six-day creation, Adam and Eve, Jonah being swallowed by a big fish, Noah and the flood, Jesus’s virgin birth, Jesus’s resurrection . . . whatever the subject, they were all facts to be taken literally and not to be questioned.
Perhaps, after being challenged by Warren and others that freshman year, there were questions and doubts in those deep recesses of my mind; perhaps, like magma before the eruption of a volcano, they were pushing slowly upward, building pressure on me to start thinking for myself. But I had somehow kept a lid on them . . .
. . . until the earth-shaking eruption on that morning of November 12, 1970, when – as a sophomore – I entered the classroom in Shawnee Hall for my 2-hour Western Civilization class. That morning, Dr. Bill Mitchell taught from Inferno, the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.
In teaching Dante’s Inferno, Dr. Mitchell uttered four words: “There . . . are . . . no . . . absolutes.”
And in that one moment, the pillars of my “faith” crumbled to their foundations. I had walked into the class that morning still believing I had all the answers. I walked out after class, having nothing but questions . . . and doubts . . . and fears.
Other than those four words, I don’t recall anything else said in that 2-hour class that morning. I don’t remember the context of Dr. Mitchell’s utterance. All I know is what came to my mind when I heard him say those four words: “He’s right. I can’t absolutely prove any of this stuff I believe about God, Jesus and the Bible. They aren’t facts, after all.”
The change in my thinking . . . in my life . . . was that dramatic. When I walked out of that class, I no longer believed there was a supreme being we call “God,” much less that Jesus was God’s son sent to save us from our sins.
I had lost my “faith.”
I was confused and fearful. It’s scary when the whole foundation of your life falls apart. Late that afternoon, I was in Ron Russey’s room, telling him about my experience. Ron lived next door to my roommate and me, and was the resident assistant for our section. He had become a good friend over the past year. He was a 5th-year senior, a ministerial student who was president of the OBU Ministerial Alliance that year.
While Ron and I were talking, a friend from across the hall, Steve Troxel, walked in, noticed we seemed to be in a pretty serious discussion, and asked what was going on. Ron told him about what I had experienced that morning, and the confusion I was feeling. This “friend” (and we really had become pretty good friends over the past year, or so I thought) looked at me and said, “Boy, the devil sure got ahold of you!” Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heels and walked out.
I don’t think I ever spoke with that “friend” again. At least I hope I didn’t!
No, the devil didn’t get “ahold” of me that morning. Instead, it was God who, in a touch of divine irony, had used Dante’s Inferno to knock the props out from under the thing I called “faith,” because God knew I would never be of any use until I lost that cocksure belief system and began searching for God from ground zero, searching for an authentic faith, ultimately one built on relationship and trust, not facts. And I didn’t give up on faith or give up on the possibility of God being real. I was searching.
It took me several years of searching and struggling before I could again claim faith in God and Christ. I remember praying this prayer many times: “God, I don’t know if you’re there. But if you are, please don’t give up on me.”
God heard my prayer and graciously granted it. God put the right people in my life, beginning with Ron Russey being on the spot that very day to listen and understand. The next week, he even called a section meeting to tell the guys that my experience had made him realize that he had a responsibility, as resident assistant, to listen to our concerns and to help give us some direction.
And Ron did give me direction – he directed me to Jerry Barnes, pastor of University Baptist Church across the street from the OBU campus, who became instrumental in helping with my search and, ultimately, helping me find my way back to Christ but in a much deeper and more authentic way than before. I went to Jerry and told him honestly that I no longer believed in God, much less Christ as God’s son, and Jerry said, “Come join our church.” Jerry wasn’t one to stand on ceremony, he just wanted to be the presence of Christ to me, binding up my wounds, helping me to heal. He met with me once a semester after that to hear about the progress of my search and help suggest some next steps.
God also blessed me with wonderful parents who were not judgmental but were understanding, patient, and loving. My daddy, a longtime Baptist minister on the staff of the SBC Home Mission Board, even told me that he understood what I was going through because he had gone through a similar period of questioning and doubting when he was young. He told me that this was something I needed to figure out for myself, but also assured me that he would be there if I ever wanted to ask him questions or just talk about it with him.
Ron Russey and my roommate, Cary Wood, among others, helped me to learn to think for myself and to struggle with faith issues, especially in late-night bull sessions in the dorm. Warren Palmer, Phil Brown, and others often joined in the discussions.
Ron was a great friend to me until his untimely death in a car accident in 1979. Less than 2 months before his death, Joanna and I visited the church he was pastoring, and I sat next to Ron on the chancel during the morning service, as Ron had asked me to sing a solo that morning. I was devastated at the news of his death just a few weeks later. I flew to Oklahoma for his funeral in Hobart, where he had grown up.
I remained close friends with Jerry Barnes and his wife Bobby through the years. Jerry passed away in January 2017.
We have stayed close to Cary and his wife, Susie, through the years. Joanna and I attended their wedding in 1974, and they attended ours in 1976. After attending Jerry’s funeral in Miami, OK, in January 2017, I stopped along the way and spent the night with Cary and his wife, Susie, at their lovely home. The three of us spent that entire evening talking over old times as well as catching up on the years since. They’re very special to me.
Those were the folks who played key roles during my faith struggle, and God has brought an uncountable number of people into my life since then, people who have helped me to learn and grow in my faith, people who have given me opportunities to serve.
The point is that a journey with God began on that day 55 years ago today . . . a journey that continues today and will continue until God takes me out of this life and into the next.
In November 2020, on the 50th anniversary of that experience, I wrote in greater detail about where that 50-year journey had led me. Click here to read that post.
That moment in Western Civ 55 years ago was truly THE seminal moment in my life. It led to a deeper understanding of God and a deeper relationship with God. It led me to begin thinking for myself in other areas of life besides faith. Most of all, it freed me to begin growing and learning, and that has continued for the rest of my life.
However, it was not the only seminal event of my years at OBU. Some of my old OBU friends have vowed never to set foot on campus again because OBU is not the place we knew as students. I’m not here to criticize them or take them to task. Each of us needs to make those decisions for ourselves.
For me, though, I will continue to return to OBU on occasion – as I did in October 2023 when our Class of 1973 was inducted into the 50-Year Club in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of our graduation. I return NOT to celebrate the OBU of today but the OBU that made a difference in my life, in so many ways.
Two other seminal life events at OBU are particularly memorable, and both occurred my senior year.
In September 1972, I still had not begun thinking for myself politically. I tended to believe whatever the president of the U.S. said. So when Nixon held forth on the latest developments in Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, and Watergate, I took his pronouncements at face value, and I planned to cast my first presidential vote that fall for his reelection. I was a resident assistant (RA) in Brotherhood Dorm that year. One night in September, several of my fellow RAs cornered me in the dorm office and insisted that I take a look at what Newsweek and Time were reporting about the Watergate scandal. I started subscribing to these two magazines and getting informed. In November, I cast my first presidential vote for . . . George McGovern, the Democratic nominee. I’m as proud of that vote as any I’ve ever cast. From then on, I’ve tried to stay informed and vote accordingly.
That same month, I was approached to be one of the first non-Chinese students to pledge the Chinese Student Association. I had several Chinese friends, was very close to the Chinese community at OBU, so I was glad to accept their invitation. The initiation for the non-Chinese pledges was to learn to speak some Cantonese. We would each be assigned one of the Chinese students – dubbed our “big sister” or “big brother” – to teach us Cantonese. Later that fall, or early January, we would engage in a contest to see who spoke the most authentic Cantonese. One evening in the Brotherhood Dorm office, Warren Lee, a fellow RA, and president of the Chinese Student Association, told me that he was assigning Joanna Wong as my “big sister” to teach me Cantonese. He made it very clear that he was trying to “set us up.”
Well, Joanna and I soon began meeting in the University Center for her to teach me Cantonese. Long story short, I won the contest – hands down – which was judged by Jaxie Short, a missionary to Hong Kong who was home on furlough that year and serving as OBU’s missionary-in-residence. She was also the sister of Eunice Short, OBU’s liaison to international students. Little could Joanna and I imagine, when we began meeting together, that less than four years later, Eunice would be giving us the reception following our wedding at University Baptist Church. It was in January 1973, at the party celebrating the induction of the new Chinese Student Association members, that I decided to ask Joanna on a date. We went on our first date – an OBU basketball game, followed by a late meal at the Grubsteak – about 2 weeks later. Another life-changing event! I’ll forever be grateful to Warren Lee for setting me up with one who became the love of my life, my life companion.
So OBU is meaningful to me for those seminal events. But there’s so much more. So many wonderful friends whom I met there – Cary and Susie Wood, Warren Palmer, Mike Kent, Bernest Cain, Randy Kraft, Everett and Becky Maylen, Phil and Debby Brown, Larry and Chris Teague, Ron Russey, Layne Smith, Audrey Roach, Randy Ashcraft, Eunice and Jaxie Short, Harold Drake, Dean Warren Angell, Dr. Richard Farley (my voice professor and a wonderful friend), Pam Furgerson, Harold Drake, the Ware triplets; Chinese friends like Warren Lee, Danny Tsoi, Peter Cheung (who was groomsman at our wedding), Lam Yuk Ling, Daisy Chu, Ruth Chen, Diana Barclay, Daniel and Shirley Chow, Daniel and Wendy Lee; and so many more (I’m feeling guilty because of all I’m leaving out).
It was because of OBU – and Joanna – that I got a job at Southwestern Bell in Shawnee in March 1974 and met Bob Morris, who would be my best friend for the next 48 years (until his passing in 2022) and best man at our wedding.
Jerry Barnes’s influence has stayed with me for the rest of my life – a pastor who appreciated my questions and doubts, and whose preaching made me dig for a deeper understanding of God and scripture than I had ever known.
So I always find myself overcome with emotion when I return to OBU. It’s not the same OBU today – the trustees, and thus the administration and faculty, answer to the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, which was taken over by fundamentalists in the wake of their takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1990. So the faculty is bound by the repressive (and unBaptist) 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, which is wielded as a creed. When I was there, we were encouraged to wrestle with our faith, to question, to challenge the teachings of our youth. It’s not that way anymore. OBU students are indoctrinated with rigid SBC doctrine. Faculty that dare question the creed face threats, intimidation, and ultimately firing.
Nevertheless, when I “proudly stand on Bison Hill” (lyrics from Hymn to the Alma Mater), I look at Raley Chapel, then glance over to Brotherhood Dorm, take a walk over to Shawnee Hall (where I sat in Western Civ that morning), and remember how God – not the devil – “got ahold” of me one morning and how God used people on and around that campus to help me in my faith struggle . . . and how God has walked every step with me since, even when the ground has been rocky and the way ahead has been dark.
I’ll forever be indebted to Joe Dell Rust, my music minister at Bethany Baptist Church in KC, MO, when I was growing up, for influencing me to go to OBU. Joe was an OBU grad, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps as a church musician (a career that was stopped dead in its tracks when I lost my faith). I’m also indebted to Richard Lin, our music minister who preceded Joe while in KC on sabbatical from OBU to study for his doctorate. It was our family’s dear friend, Richard Lin, then a music professor at OBU, who provided the character reference that was a key to my acceptance for admission to OBU.
Thanks be to God for the presence of OBU in my life.