An Island in the Lake of Fire: Bob Jones University, Fundamentalism, and the Separatist Movement [Paperback]

The Religious Right's most dogmatic and resolute faction has its roots in three generations of the Bob Jones family of Greenville, South Carolina. An Island in the Lake of Fire is the first in-depth history of this militantly separatist, ultrafundamentalist dynasty to be written by an "outsider" with the Joneses' cooperation. Mark Taylor Dalhouse focuses on Bob Jones University (BJU) and the three colorful, charismatic Jones patriarchs, who, in succession, have led the school.

Founded in 1927, BJU has a student population of five thousand; in addition, it boasts thousands more loyal, well-placed alumni not only in pulpits and Christian day schools across the country but also in elective offices and major corporations. Through their BJU network, and by their vigilance as self-appointed theological watchdogs, the Joneses have, since the 1950s, played a pivotal role in defining the extreme limits of American religious and cultural conservatism. Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell (whom Bob Jones Jr. labeled the "most dangerous man in America") are among the leading figures who have not measured up to BJU's fundamentalist standards.

The defining doctrine at BJU, says Dalhouse, is separation from secularism in the modern world. Drawing on interviews with Bob Jones Jr., Bob Jones III, and others at BJU, as well as on hitherto inaccessible archival sources at the school, Dalhouse discusses the school's separatism in light of such factors as its refusal to seek accreditation and the stringent codes of dress, conduct, and even thought to which BJU students submit themselves.

Attuned to the ironies and contradictions of the Joneses' separatist enterprise, Dalhouse points to the high proportion of accounting and financl#*