Save the AG > On the Board Merger

The consensus on both the EU and CBC campuses is that they do NOT want to become merged. In the corporate world, all hostile takeovers (mergers involving parties that do not want to be merged) start when leadership plans are laid in secret. The preparation may take months. Leadership then announces to the parties involved that they will be physically combined into one new business. They say, “This will be better for everyone.” The parties being merged are angry and lash out. Because they want to “cool things off”, leadership then makes an appeasement announcement. There are promises that everyone gets to keep all their own stuff (their own campus, board of directors, board of administrators, and especially their own mission). Everyone breathes a large sigh of relief. But Wait!

If our leadership is unsuccessful at forcing an immediate merger process, the backup plan is to convince all of the schools’ students, faculty and alumni to accept the promise that all the affected schools will get to keep all their own stuff (their campus, their own administrators and especially their mission); all the commission will ask for is a single board of directors (centralized system of governance).

The new board of directors starts out as a combined board of 60 (20 from each of the three schools). As time goes on the goal is to whittle the board size down to a normal size of 20 that represents the constituent base of the newly merged school. If Evangel (professional students at 1600) comprises 2/3 of the student population, and CBC (ministry students at 800) comprises 1/3 of the student population, then Evangel is represented on the new board by a 2 to 1 margin. As the new board of directors begins to vote, the interests of the majority will always win over the few. For example, Evangel needs $100,000 and so does CBC. When there are limited funds (and there always are), the majority will win by a 2 to 1 margin. The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few. As time goes on, the school will take on the identity of its majority, and thus CBC will eventually be voted out of existence.

This is why there is no exception to the historical rule that bible colleges merged under universities are eventually voted into religion department status. Already we are seeing a downward trend of ministry graduates produced by our former Bible schools turned university. Harvard and Yale and many other formerly great institutions of Bible training are now tolerant of everything EXCEPT anything Christian.

Studies on mergers show that the promises of those pushing mergers are almost never kept.

In the corporate world, mergers that fail do so for three common reasons :
1. When clashing cultures (professional versus ministerial training) are being merged.
2. When finances are cited as one of the main reasons to do so; the commission report cites A/G's “financial vitality” as one of the three main reasons to merge. (In fact, the report says the merger will cost $100 million!)
3. When neither of the merged parties is included in the process (none of the three schools was consulted; the commission only reported its work periodically without taking input from those most affected)

As you can see, the Springfield school merger is a case study in how not to do a merger!

Have we become so “wise in our own eyes” that we cannot see the dangerous path we are bent on heading down? Vote NO to both the merger and the contingency plan of a single governing body (Board of Directors). May God help us all!