Please read: Let There Be Light - Leadership Transfer
Until further notice, I hereby rescind my use of the Let There Be Light platform (including blog, Facebook, and Twitter) to protest recent changes at Cedarville University. The LTBL platform will now be exclusively alumni-run, and I encourage everyone interested in developments at the University to follow their posts and make subsequent judgments regarding Cedarville’s identity and vision.
My goal in all of this is to honor my Messiah by following him well and furthering his Kingdom with justice, unity, and true peace.
Let it be known that I am bitterly disappointed with the direction in which Cedarville University is currently heading. Unless its leaders frankly and forthrightly admit their agenda for the future and their recent decisions including the firing of Dr. Carl Ruby, I cannot in good conscience recommend Cedarville to any prospective students. If CU leaders are willing to get rid of people like Dr. Ruby and yet unwilling to admit that they’ve done so, that’s not just disingenuous - it’s dangerous.
I also cannot recommend a place which holds un-scholarly documents as the White Papers as official explanations of its doctrinal stances. I cannot recommend a place where people like Dr. Michael Pahl are not allowed to teach, and where good evangelicals are “reviewed” by ad hoc doctrinal panels. I cannot recommend a place where my mentors are harassed for being forthright with their students. If Bob Gresh’s words are true and men like Mr. Scharnberg want to return Cedarville University to the “real Cedarville” of 19 years ago, I cannot support such a move. That’s not the Cedarville I’ve known and loved.
My resignation from Let There Be Light does not change these personal opinions. However, I do pray that Cedarville might change and thrive, so that one day I can gladly and sincerely recommend it once more.
I will continue to use my own personal social media outlets to express my views freely and openly. For now, as a current student of Cedarville University, I will content myself with asking questions, trying to make sense of all this, and encouraging the members of the CU community who have had the biggest impact on my life.
With people like Carl Ruby, Chris Williamson, and Bill Rudd gone, we’re quickly losing leaders at Cedarville who will advocate for these types of concerns. I’m therefore convinced that my time left at Cedarville will be better spent on encouragement than advocacy. Although I am unsatisfied with the recent decisions and direction of my University, there are still many good and godly women and men here whom I’d like to uplift and affirm before I graduate.
Although I will no longer be a contributing member of Let There Be Light, I ask you to join with me in always calling for transparency and justice within our respective communities. The justice-filled Kingdom of God is being built one context, one community at a time, all over the world.
I do not regret founding Let There Be Light, nor do I regret my efforts to make Cedarville a more just community by striking a prophetic pose as a student with relatively little to lose. I’ve not done it perfectly (see my Open Apology), but speaking truth to power will always be necessary.
Our God is a god of justice, peace, and unity. There can be no true unity or peace without justice.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Grace and Peace,Joshua Steele