BJU Alters Official Statement about Chuck Phelps

Please Note: Bob Jones University quickly took down the revised statement about Chuck Phelps and reverted it back to the original statement. Please see below the screen cap that reflects the changes that were made. Thank you.

We just reported that the official statement regarding Chuck Phelps had been taken down. Now it has reappeared, but is significantly altered. Lets take a look.

Here is the original text:

Bloggers have posted a wealth of information about this incident and how Dr. Phelps handled it. Dr. Phelps has been accused of not reporting the crime to officials, sending the girl out of state to hide the situation, harboring a criminal and protecting a sexual predator. We believe that the biblical way to approach this information is to get all the facts before judging Dr. Phelps or his actions, including going directly to him for answers to questions.

While the University maintained regular contact with Dr. Phelps since the matter came to light, we have recently spent time on Dr. Phelps’ website—drchuckphelps.com—and reading what the bloggers are saying. To verify facts and get our questions answered we called him and he answered our questions. After speaking with him and weighing the criticisms against the facts, we have concluded that some of what is posted on the internet about this incident is true, but the majority is a little bit of truth mixed with a lot of opinion and speculation.

And here is the altered text:

Bloggers have posted a wealth of information about this incident and how Dr. Phelps handled it. Some of what is posted on the internet about this incident is true, but much appears to be a little bit of truth mixed with opinion.

Did Dr. Phelps do everything perfectly? No—nor would anyone make perfect judgments in similar circumstances. He has openly admitted this on his website. Bloggers have been quick to judge and condemn Dr. Phelps. But a biblical approach would be an attitude of forbearance toward a Christian brother—not recklessly making accusations of crime or cover up against a man of good reputation before gathering the facts. The biblical principle is to go to the person directly and get facts before reaching a judgment.

For a detailed breakdown of the original text please see my previous post. So what changed? First they took out all of the accusations we have against him. My guess is so that they were not spreading the "rumors" directly from their website. If they don't say the words than hopefully people won't take the time to look it up for themselves. As if this post won't this post will be all they need and they'll just stop here. Word has it that until Monday's chapel a lot of students on campus didn't even know about this issue, but after the chapel a lot of those very students were mortified to learn about the issue.

The next part they removed is, "While the University maintained regular contact with Dr. Phelps since the matter came to light." My guess is because this made them look complicit. Of course BJU is linked to Chuck Phelps at this point, but the above statement makes it sound like they've been giving him advice all along.

They then removed the link to Chuck Phelp's personal website. If you recall originally I said that it was convenient they included his website and no one elses. Maybe they do read my blog over on 1700 Wade Hampton (Kidding of course). In reality I think again this comes down to complicity.

But here is the kicker. They removed any and all notion of calling Chuck Phelps personally:

To verify facts and get our questions answered we called him and he answered our questions.

Of course BJU has made this a big deal. They even reference principals that may be taken from scripture. We have no obligation to call Chuck Phelps, but Bob Jones University insisted that we cannot make an informed decision without doing so, and Chuck Phelps has been more than happy to talk to us (at least until recently). Unfortunately the more he talked the worse he and Bob Jones University came out. There are even reports that Chuck Phelps has harassed some of the people who called him. What is surprising is that Bob Jones University insisted that we talk to him. They insisted that if we talked to him we'd come to a different conclusion. That seems to have backfired. Either Bob Jones University didn't ask the right questions or Chuck Phelps didn't answer them the same way...or maybe he did and BJU thought those answers, you know the ones that make him look bad, were sufficient. Either way it seems that the orders to call Chuck have been recanted.

Well I guess you can't win every time. Here is hoping that you continue to bless him with your calls.