Moody Blues

The story sounds like something out of a movie.

In 2017, a talk show host on the Moody Radio Network blows the whistle on the leadership of one of American evangelicalism’s flagship institutions, the Moody Bible Institute (MBI). On Jan. 9, 2018, she escalates the pressure with a hard-hitting headline on her blog: “A Luxury Suite, Questionable Loan to Officer, & Gambling: The Disturbing Truth About Leadership at MBI.” Moody within hours fires her and sends a man to her house to seize her laptop—but she is on her way to Mexico, with the computer.

The next day, though, Moody’s board of trustees meets and decides it’s time for “a new season of leadership.” President Paul Nyquist and COO Steve Mogck resign. Provost Junias Venugopal retires. And whistleblower Julie Roys reports the board’s action. She tells WORLD she’s “grieved over what’s happened” to MBI, glad about the resignations and retirement, but convinced that “unless there are changes at the board level, the Institute will be in the exact same place 5-10 years from now.”

So, even though the saga is not over, the Moody board’s action is still a man-bites-dog story within the usually slow-moving world of higher education. As the news spread, Christian leaders asked questions: What are MBI’s problems? What forced the hand of the board, and where does Moody go from here? Is the drama likely to be repeated at other institutions as financial and theological pressures grow? WORLD had been investigating MBI during the weeks before the board decision, and we have some findings to report.

From 2012 to 2017, the number of students applying to MBI fell from 1,316 to 947—a 28 percent drop. MBI for more than a century has emphasized theological education for students who desire to enter full-time vocational ministry: “Those are the students we still give priority to,” said James Spencer, vice president and dean of Moody’s undergraduate school. Today, though, many young Christians look to secular careers and speak of ministering informally within their professions.

Professors are a college’s front line. Facing the enrollment downturn, President Nyquist last December announced a layoff of “about 10 percent of Moody Global Ministries personnel.” But the faculty was disproportionately hard-hit: 34 of MBI’s 112 full-time faculty members, almost one-third, learned their contracts would not be renewed. (MBI does not give professors tenure.) “Education is certainly about the faculty,” Spencer acknowledged, so Nyquist’s attempt to minimize the extent of the body count by saying “10 percent” did not go over well.

Professors in music, sports ministry, and Bible/theology were hit hard….Moody’s decision to slash faculty but leave untouched the number of executives at the vice presidential level or above—19—also did not sit well. WORLD examined 15 leading Christian colleges and saw Moody listed almost twice as many executives as Cedarville, the Christian college in that group with the second largest number—10. Moody differs from other educational enterprises by having big publishing and broadcast divisions, but subtracting the three executives in charge of those leaves Moody still looking top-heavy.

Alongside the financial-concerns sit theological ones, although those are harder to pin down. Roys charged administrators were allowing professors who deny the inerrancy of Scripture to teach and write curriculum. Richard Weber, one of the 34 professors whose contract was not renewed, has documented some theological drift, but he did not make his account available to WORLD. Moody VP and -theology professor Bryan O’Neal said any claims that MBI allows faculty members to abandon Biblical -inerrancy are “false. All of our faculty affirm inerrancy annually when they sign their annual contract. It’s explicit. … There is no drift. It is always possible that an individual within an institution does drift or lean, and then that has to be examined and corrected.” 

On theological drift, MBI’s O’Neal is right to say even “little things are important.” The particulars of the definition of Biblical inerrancy are crucial to getting many other things right. Meanings of words must be fought for and guarded, not just to keep a ship afloat but to have it heading in the right direction.

https://world.wng.org/2018/01/moody_blues