Head, heart, and hand : John Brown University and modern evangelical higher education / Rick Ostrander ; with a foreword by George Marsden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ostrander, Richard, 1965-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

John Brown University--History.

John Brown University.

Christian universities and colleges--United States--History.

Christian universities and colleges.

Brown, John Elward, 1879-1957.

Brown, John Elward.

College presidents--United States--Biography.

College presidents.

History.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiv, 277 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

John Brown University and modern evangelical higher education

Place of Publication:

Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 2003.

Summary:

A native of Iowa with very limited formal education, John Brown settled in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, joined the Salvation Army, and underwent a religious conversion. He became and remained throughout his life a traveling evangelist, one who embraced the tenets of fundamentalism: he denounced modernism, evolution, and liberal Protestantism and believed that "smug professors" had transformed most colleges into citadels of religious infidelity.

In 1919 Brown and his wife committed their three-hundred-acre farm in Siloam Springs as the site for what is known today as John Brown University. Brown's vision was to educate the poor rural children of the Ozarks in a morally wholesome spiritual environment and instill in the students his fundamentalist religious faith and his conception of what constituted significant work.

JBU was, for a time, considered to be a "family business," but it is clear from this study that John Brown was flexible and practical-minded enoughto make changes that allowed his creation to outlast him and to become a reputable academic institution. He provided a vision and foundation that John Brown Jr. and John Brown III, his successors, used as a base to strengthen JBU in a variety of ways so that today it has received national recognition as an educational institution of high quality. The success of JBU, though, has not been accompanied by a sacrifice of its ideals. The vision of the founder still exerts a potent influence.

This work places the story of JBU within a broad historical context and is careful to explain how it both resembled and differed from other Christian colleges in the same religious subculture as well as how its stance within the evangelical framework evolved over the years.

Head, Heart, and Hand is a comprehensive account of all facets of John Brown University's history, from its founding in 1919 to the present day. In an era that witnessed the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Revolution, and other momentous events, JBU has adapted while maintaining its evangelical character. The history presented here is viewed in terms of the times, the place, and the religious subculture in which the institution was born and evolved.

Head, Heart, and Hand deftly connects the story of John Brown University to the larger currents of American education and religion.

Contents:

The "laughing evangelist"

Creating a new kind of college

From John E. Brown College to John Brown University

College life in the early years

Foundations for growth

Emerging from the founder's shadow

Decades of turmoil and transition

A third Brown presidency

New leadership, new directions.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-265) and index.

ISBN:

1557287619

OCLC:

52121395