Lessons From a Whiteboard: How One Christian College Prank Revealed a Much Bigger Problem
Some conservative religious institutions are built not on teaching people how to think, but telling them what to think — and punishing deviation.
1. The Trickster in the Classroom: A Whiteboard, a Drawl, and a Final Exam
Every now and then, one moment from your past becomes the perfect parable for something much larger. For me, it happened during a small, twenty-student class in pastoral theology — a class already infamous among a few of us for its lack of substance and its fixation on decorum. We spent weeks being told that the secret to successful ministry included things like wearing a three-piece polyester suit and imitating the exact mannerisms of a famous Southern Baptist pastor.
Our professor — who had a deep Missouri-southern accent — referenced “W.A. Criswell” constantly, but always pronounced it, with absolute conviction, “Dubba-ya Aye Krizwail.”
Four of us, equally exasperated, not by the drawl, but by the content, processed the absurdity in private conversations. Humor becomes a survival mechanism when rigor disappears.
When the final exam finally rolled around — our escape hatch — I slipped into the room early. The white marker board was pristine. An invitation. With a flourish, I wrote in large letters:
“Remember, kids, always say Dubba-ya Aye Krizwail.”
The professor passed out the exams. No one noticed my handiwork. About thirty minutes in, my closest friend — one of our four “Musketeers,” a fellow partner in crime — looked up, read the message, and began trying (unsuccessfully) to stifle his laughter. I could feel the chair behind me quietly shaking as he tried to control himself.
We finished the exam and left.
When grades came out, I discovered I’d been dropped from a solid A to a B in a class where the deepest theological insight was “pastors should wear polyester suits.” That was the moment I stormed into the dean’s office, unannounced and done with the charade.
The dean informed me that after we left, the professor discovered the message. His reaction was volcanic. He threw all the finals into the trash and lowered the grades of the four of us he assumed were responsible.
The dean offered sympathy but no remedy. I walked out with him chasing me down the hallway, calling my name.
But I was finished. I graduated with honors despite the B — and carried with me a lesson I’ve never forgotten:
Sometimes the “orthodoxy” institutions defend most fiercely isn’t theological at all. It’s cultural, political, or simply personal ego wrapped in religious language.
And that moment, humorous as it was, foreshadowed far bigger issues I would later encounter.
2. The Bigger Picture: When Christian Institutions Stop Teaching Christianity
When I first enrolled at that Baptist Bible college in Missouri in 1984, I was quintessentially “one of them.” I’d grown up in a good Fundamentalist church. I believed what I was supposed to believe. I expected my Bible college to reinforce that.
But on day two, everything shifted.
I connected with my Old Testament professor, and we were assigned John Bright’s A History of Israel. It was rigorous, scholarly, and honest — and it opened an entirely new world for me. I went from comfortable Fundamentalism to a hunger for actual learning, wrestling, and nuance. I wanted to be challenged. I wanted to be wrong sometimes. I wanted truth, not indoctrination.
But as my mind expanded, the institutions around me began contracting.
That Bible college — and later the Baptist seminary where I earned my graduate degree — were entering what was politely called the “conservative resurgence.” Students, however, recognized it for what it was: a Fundamentalist hostile takeover. Professors were pushed out. Intellectual rigor gave way to ideological conformity. Theology was increasingly framed in political categories: conservative, moderate, liberal — words that are not theological at all.
By the time I visited the seminary again in 2009, the hallways that once echoed with debate and exploration were silent. I walked past office after office; nobody greeted us. The ethos had changed entirely.
And the shift wasn’t accidental.
3. The Political Entanglement: When Religion Sought Power
By the late 1970s and early ’80s, certain factions within American evangelicalism began to see political power not just as compatible with their mission, but as essential to it. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority in 1979 was the watershed moment. From there, a steady stream of efforts emerged to enlist government as a partner in “Christian cultural goals.”
But here’s the problem:
Whenever the church aligns itself with politics, it dis-aligns itself with theology. More bluntly, it self-destructs.
That’s why I eventually stopped using political labels in religious contexts. For twenty-five years I refused to describe anyone or any church as conservative, moderate, or liberal. These words cloud spiritual meaning. They shift attention from the Gospel to the culture war. They turn fellowship into faction.
Yet when I attempted ministry again in an SBC context years later, I discovered that those terms had become the only language some people understood. They weren’t descriptors — they were badges of belonging. Secret handshakes. Tests of loyalty.
And if you didn’t fit the system?
You were out.
Which is why, when I first shook the dust off my feet in 1998, I wasn’t angry — just done. They didn’t want me, and that was fine. My path had moved toward something deeper and freer than ideological uniformity dressed up as spiritual authority.
4. A Prophetic Lesson: What Happens When Institutions Reject Their Reformers
Historically, reformers and prophetic voices have always been rejected first by their own communities. Institutions prefer stability to truth, predictability to growth, and conformity to curiosity.
Looking back almost forty years, I now see the whiteboard stunt for what it really was:
A moment when humor exposed what rigid systems cannot tolerate — the smallest crack of independent thought.
The irony is that I wasn’t trying to undermine the institution; I was reacting to how trivial and performative the course had become. My handwriting on that board wasn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake — it was my summary of the class. A personal “final exam,” written in dry-erase ink.
And the institution responded exactly the way rigid institutions do: with punishment rather than reflection.
But those early experiences shaped me. They pushed me beyond labels. They nudged me toward deeper faith. They taught me that Christianity flourishes in honest inquiry, not in forced orthodoxy or political entanglement.
If my story can encourage or challenge another Bible student — or anyone puzzled by the merging of Fundamentalism and political power — then maybe that whiteboard moment, silly as it was, now serves a much higher purpose.
John writes at Experiential Christianity, a Substack exploring spiritual renewal, prophetic discernment, and freedom from cultural idols within the Church. His heart is to call believers back to intimacy with the Father above all else.
Oh boy, this took me back! Im surprised you didn't mention the "all-knowing " fellow students obsession with the "nephesh hya," or the book imperative to say, "Thus Seth the Lawd." Good times, good times.