Biola has only as much integrity as her students.

From the Campus Issues folder on BUBBS to philosophy classes, from Commons to the off-campus parties, a sentiment floats in the consciousness of Biola students. Biola’s administration – ResLife, Student Development, and even President Corey – lack integrity.

I beg to differ.

The rants and rumors have got to stop. Unless someone has something constructive to say, something valuable to offer, we students risk not only our place at the table of ideological feedback, but also our own spiritual good. The validity of our Christian walk rests on our ability to exercise self-control and encourage the Body of Christ. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to use in edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers,” Ephesians 4:29.

Criticism should be expressed when it is well-founded and appropriate. “[There is] a time to keep silence, and a time to speak,” Ecclesiastes 3:7. Commendation should be offered at all other times.

What kind of Christian rats on every authority figure in his or her life; parents, Campus Safety, professors, the provost, RAs, the president of the United States, chapel speakers, the worship leader at church or a Metzger suit? Red tape or not, I must admire any man or woman who chooses to relish a job dealing with paperwork and pushing a pen around all day. “Obey those who have the rule over you and submit yourselves, for they keep watch over your souls as ones who must give an account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you,” Hebrews 13:17.

I argue contrary to the popular belief that administrative bureaucrats are who make Biola strong or weak. In the world of academia, Biola holds only as much respect as her students. Not her faculty or her staff. Her students.

Biola is only as strong as we students are. Only as loving. Only as memorable.

We establish her credibility with the quality of our studies, our gossip and our internships. We control her destiny with the number of our dollars, our votes and our prayers. We determine her integrity with the frequency of our substance abuse, our cheating and our fornication.

When one student submits a plagiarized paper, she flagrantly violates both God’s law and the Biola contract to which she pledged her fealty. When another student drinks at home on the weekend, he deliberately defies God’s authority structure and the Biola contract to which he gave his signature. When a different student engages in sex – oral or otherwise – she grievously desecrates God’s creation and the Biola contract to which she inscribed her name. When another student hides his weed habit, he purposefully abuses God’s handiwork and the Biola contract to which he promised submission.

But the proverbial buck doesn’t stop here. When you or I refuse to report a breach in contract or an illegal act, we become accomplices in deception. Our duty as Biolans is to inform the authorities God has placed over us. Our responsibility as Christians is to serve notice to the devil that he has no place in our lives, among our friends or on our campus.

If there is anything we students should discuss or demand, it should be our own personal integrity and communal testimony. As long as we improve, recover, upgrade, enforce, facilitate and develop these, we have something to crow about.

God’s mantra goes, “Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king,” 1 Peter 2:17. Bellyaching is not part of this holy prescription.