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LTRP Note: Lighthouse Trails has been reporting on and challenging Moody Bible Institute for several years because they have been progressively promoting and turning to contemplative spirituality via Spiritual Formation programs. And yet, in our dealings with them, they have always denied doing this. As we have pointed out so many times, once a school begins going down that path, liberalism (or what we call emergent) and a twisted view on the Gospel and the Bible are the byproducts. Perhaps Moody leadership thought they would increase enrollment by becoming trendy, culturally relevant, emerging, contemplative, and liberal. They forgot one thing – God doesn’t bless the mixing of truth and error – in fact, He judges it.
The following article was posted in November of 2017. On January 10th, the Broken Twig blog posted a new article titled “Moody just accepted resignations of President Paul Nyquist, Provost Junias Venugopal & COO Steve Mogck.” While replacing Moody’s leadership may solve some of their problems, if the school doesn’t acknowledge their embracing of the contemplative prayer movement, they will not climb out of this hole but will continue falling further into it.
By The Broken Twig blog
“We’re in a storm.” That’s the reason President Nyquist recently gave for a nearly 30 percent drop in enrollment at Moody the past four years, which has caused the institute to close its Spokane campus and cut more than 20 faculty in Chicago. Nyquist took no responsibility for this dramatic drop in enrollment, which occurred on his watch, but attributed it to a nationwide trend – a “college bubble” that is bursting. He also pointed to a changing culture that rejects Christ and His Word and fails to raise children interested in a Bible education.
While it’s true that many have predicted that the future pool of college applicants is shrinking, bursting a bubble that’s prevailed for decades, it doesn’t explain Moody’s dramatic downturn in such a short amount of time. In fact, total fall enrollment in post-secondary institutions from 2013-2015 decreased only two percent nationwide. During that same time period, applications at Moody plummeted from 1,300 to 1,040 – a 20 percent drop! . . .
Enrollment at Moody was steady until 2013 when it began to plummet. In September of that year, Moody changed its longstanding policies regarding alcohol, smoking and gambling. In fact, the policy position was so startling, even the New York Times wrote a piece documenting the change. (Broken Twig removed this link.)
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