Hello Lighthouse Trails:
Our daughter is a junior in high school and has been receiving college flyers in the mail from secular as well as “Christian” universities. She received the following flyer in a packet.William Jessup University flyer and have attached it as it mentioned “Spiritual Formation Groups” that are used to “reconcile issues surrounding faith.”
When our daughter first received information from this university several months ago, I looked up on your website to see if it was a school using questionable New Age ideas. I did not see anything on William Jessup University, so I kept an open mind and thought maybe this one might be OK. Apparently not, so I am sending you this information so you can possibly add it to your list.
Thank you for the great work you do to inform Christians.
A concerned parent
OUR COMMENTS:
Thank you for alerting us to the contemplative/emerging affinities of William Jessup University. According to the WJU website, the mission of the university states: “In partnership with the Church, the purpose of William Jessup University is to educate transformational leaders for the glory of God.” The 130 acre campus is located in Rocklin, California, and in 2014 the school had nearly 1400 students with growth having doubled in three years.1
As our reader above has stated, the school, unfortunately, has been integrating Spiritual Formation (i.e., contemplative spirituality) into the life of the students. For example, emergent-ideas promoter N.T. Wright will be speaking at the school on May 28th 2015. The lecture is being presented by WJU’s Bible & Theology Department.
Another example of the direction William Jessup University is going can be seen with a January 2015 William Jessup Chapel service that presented emergent activist Shane Claiborne. Claiborne is a disciple of Tony Campolo and shares his ideas and beliefs, many of which contradict Scripture. Not surprisingly, WJU’s chapel is titled Deeper Jessup Chapel. Deeper is a term often used in association with the contemplative prayer movement.
In another WJU chapel service this year, Carl Medearis, author of Muslims, Christians, and Jesus spoke. According to a World Magazine article, Medearis is:
. . . an advocate of several ideas associated with the “insider movement” . . . The movement generally questions the need for outward “conversion” to Christianity as long as someone has a personal relationship with Christ, and “contextualizes” Christian teaching and practice for Muslim cultures by finding common ground between the two.
What Medearis is advocating is called the “new” missiology. Roger Oakland discusses this new way of doing missions in his book Faith Undone: the emerging church—a new reformation or an end-time deception. Sad to see Medearis addressing students at William Jessup University. Most likely the founder of WJU would be dismayed to see the direction his school has gone. Other chapel speakers this year include bridger Francis Chan and contemplative proponent J.P. Moreland. It looks like students at William Jessup University are getting a dose full of “new” spirituality teachings during chapel. Needless to say, WJU is now being added to Lighthouse Trails’ Contemplative Colleges List.
