. I found out about this a couple of years ago, when John McCain was criticizing Bush for speaking at BJU, but did you know that they've got a museum with one of the best collections of Italian baroque paintings in the world? That's not a joke -- check it out.
In case you never heard of it, Bob Jones is a fundamentalist (their word) university that banned interracial dating until four years ago, and lost its tax-exempt status because it didn't want to admit racial minorities. The school's president, Bob Jones III, has said that "The Roman church is not another Christian denomination. It is a Satanic counterfeit, an ecclesiastic tyranny over the souls of men, not to bring them to salvation, but to hold them bound in sin and hurl them into eternal damnation. It is the old harlot in the Book of Revelation, the mother of harlots." As you can tell, they aren't really into the ecumenical thing, though they say they love Catholics. Love the sinner, hate the harlot, I guess.
It seems like the media get more excited about BJU being anti-Catholic than anybody else. I don't see why they come down so hard on obscure institutions that have peculiar folkways and have practically no effect on society at large (see: The Citadel, VMI). They're the ones who are always squawking about "diversity," but any time they find a manifestation of diversity they don't like, they go bananas. Personally, I respect the heck out of BJU for sticking to what they believe in the face of constant harassment. (Before you ask, no, I don't think interracial dating is sinful, any more than I think the Pope is the Antichrist.) Imagine if their zeal were channeled into more worthy pursuits.
