Biola University's Unwavering Commitment to our Mission Fidelity

Dear Biola Community,

Every once in a while, it is prudent for us to take a look at the language of our Biola University Handbooks (Employee and Student) to make sure that the tone and wording reflect the substance of our unchanging biblical standards. Also, such moments provide us the opportunity to consider how we might live even more robustly into these standards.

After recently revisiting our student Community Standards in the Student Handbook relating to sexuality, gender and marriage, we can see places where the wording may not have adequately reflected Biola's unwavering commitment to our longstanding biblical orthodoxy on these topics. With ample input, we have clarified some of the policy language to ensure there is no ambiguity about our long-held biblical positions. This should also communicate an assurance that all curricular, co-curricular and policy implementations at Biola are fully aligned with our Theological Positions. This updated policy language remains consistent with our Articles of Faith and our Statement of Biblical Principles on these important issues. I have shared this with our Board of Trustees in writing and will talk them through these changes in November.

Let me be clear: our theological convictions have not changed. We are simply finding places in our policies to articulate them with greater clarity. It has been said that clarity is kindness, and that is certainly true when it comes to every opportunity given us to communicate our enduring Christian convictions.

For well over a century, we have held faithfully to biblical teaching, even as we recognize that many of our positions are increasingly countercultural. As I take stock of Biola and our enduring commitments, so many examples reinforce our historic commitment to mission fidelity:

• We were early among colleges and universities to add clear statements into our biblical principles about marriage and gender, when these were increasingly viewed as evolving paradigms.

• We stand with abiding American ideals as established in our United States Constitution, including the freedom of religion, with our rights to live into our deeply held values anchored in the love of God, as countercultural as they may seem.

• We have been at the forefront of advocacy at both the state and federal levels to preserve our religious freedom to hold God-ordained positions on sexual ethics and life's sanctity from conception, even joining other religious institutions to persuade appellate courts to protect and uphold religious freedom and autonomy. One such case was Garrick v. Moody Bible Institute, where we argued that institutions should have the right to hire and fire people consistent with the religious tenets of the institution and that institutions must remain free "from secular control or manipulation."

• We were one of the few colleges to file suit in a previous White House administration to be able to keep abortifacients outside of our health insurance policy coverage.

• Unlike most colleges, we do not have an LGBT club or a similar advocacy group. Instead, we offer a ministry led by our pastoral staff and a Biola theologian who make themselves available for structured conversations with students who want to discuss their same-sex attraction. We do so to care for them, to help them steward their sexuality in a biblical and God-honoring way and to shepherd them as members of the Biola community where we all seek to live faithfully as those who find our identity in Christ.

• All of what we do on human sexuality is done on the foundation of living in accordance with Biola's community standards on sexual behavior as we hold to God's high and holy calling of sexual intimacy in the context of marriage between a man and a woman. The university requires all students to maintain these sexual ethics as they pursue holiness and wholeness.

• In 2014 our Board of Trustees unanimously adopted a position about gender/sex grounded in the teachings of the Bible and in the Protestant evangelical theological tradition that birthed and still guides Biola. This position affirms that God's original and ongoing intent and action was the creation of humanity manifest as two distinct sexes, male and female. It continues to guide our policies and practices today.

Many other long-standing practices affirm our faithfulness to historic Christian orthodoxy:

• Our thirteen Articles of Faith have not changed by one word in almost a century, and the Board of Trustees spends as much time focusing on our mission fidelity as it does on other matters of our operations. All of our policies are based on and implemented in accordance with these conservative theological positions.

• All Biola faculty, staff and students are professing Christians, making this a rare university in the landscape of global higher education.

• All of our faculty are required to affirm annually their personal agreement with our Articles of Faith and Statement of Biblical Principles which includes our clear statement on biblical sexuality. For professors to work at Biola, they in good conscience and by contract must wholly support Biola's clear position on these matters.

• All staff must regularly express their alignment with our Theological Positions. Only one other college I know holds to such a high standard for all faculty and staff.

• We are the only ranked national university that requires every undergraduate student to complete the equivalent of a Bible minor, grounded in the inerrancy of Scripture.

• For over 90 years, we have suspended classes for three days each Fall to hold a Bible Conference required for our undergraduate students, where they are steeped in the teaching and trustworthiness of God's inerrant Word.

• For nearly 100 years, we have suspended classes for three days each Spring to hold a Missions Conference, declaring the Great Commission alive and well at Biola University and not replacing global missions and evangelism for a gospel-less social justice.

• All of our students are required to attend chapel, and we are among the few colleges in America to still hold this expectation, with chapels focused rigorously on biblical preaching, prayer and worship, not on promoting fashionable ideologies or some watered down therapeutic gospel.

• In the past five years, all of our chapel speakers have been vetted by the President's Council for Spiritual Formation and Development, ensuring that each chapel speaker understands, respects and honors our guiding theological positions and biblical principles.

• Over a year ago, we created a new council reporting to the President focused on living into our Board-approved theological statement called Unity Amidst Diversity, keeping our value on the dignity of each "imago dei" member of this community rather than grouping people into certain labeled categories.

• In August, we welcomed one of the largest undergraduate classes in years declaring a major in biblical studies, and we have welcomed the largest incoming class in our history of graduate students at Talbot School of Theology, reflecting our appeal to the rising generation desiring a biblically grounded education.

• Our approach to every cultural and policy issue - for our long history - has been to think biblically about everything. We have avoided taking formal positions outside of our Articles of Faith and Statement of Biblical Principles other than to commit to grappling with every issue based on God's Word.

• For our entire 117-year history, Biola has stood for mission fidelity amid a sea of institutions that have drifted from their founding convictions. We have not ceded - and will not cede - our deeply held biblical convictions.

None of this is new, but from time to time I need to restate what we believe and how we have lived as a community of teachers and learners since the Bible Institute of Los Angeles was founded on the corner of Sixth and Hope streets in 1908. The message brightly proclaimed by those iconic neon signs is as true today as ever, both for Biola and for the world: JESUS SAVES.

Like any college or university, we are imperfect with occasional things done or said that may not meet our high standards. But we press on, learning from and working through these situations as we always have. At the end of the day, we want to be known as a university at the highest levels of educational excellence that is also committed to a high view of Scripture, to glorify the exalted and resurrected Christ, to preserve the way God intended things to be, to long for the Holy Spirit to anoint our community with conviction and courage and to focus our attention on how to think and live biblically as a faithful witness to the world.

All of our policies are and have been based on our deeply held theological convictions, and we implement these policies across the campus for undergraduate and graduate students alike in how we experience life together in community. This includes housing assignments, off-campus behavior, curricular decisions, chapel programs, co-curricular activities and the like.

To reflect for a moment on the big picture, I just returned from Indonesia with ten men and women from Biola's Board of Trustees, meeting with leaders to discuss ways to be more involved in Bible-based Christian education and in advancing the Great Commission to reach the nations with the Good News. I have been deeply moved these past few days by the task at hand to share the saving grace of Jesus to the world, meeting with those in remote Papuan villages who have spent years translating the Bible into local languages so that those who don't know Christ will come to know him, and those who know him will be discipled in him. Truly, what God is doing in the world is so inspiring, and I want us to be following him where he leads us in advancing his Kingdom.

In that spirit, I assure you, as I have in the past and will in the future, that we will keep the Bible in Biola - as we have for nearly a dozen decades - bringing glory to God and, in so doing, advancing the gospel for the cause of Christ.

In Christ,

Barry H. Corey

President