Kingdom Glimpses - Biola University

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P R E S I D E N T ’ S P E R S P E C T I V E
Vinyl Obituaries
The new President’s Administrative Council will guide the university forward. Back row,
from left: Greg Vaughan, Adam Morris, Chris Grace. Front row: Carl Schreiber, Barry H. Corey,
Greg Balsano, Irene Neller, Gary Miller.
Do you remember your first vinyl? Or do
you even know what they are, those of you
under 35?
For the better part of the 20th century —
beginning in the late 1940s — the vinyl record
was the main medium for commercial music.
The life of the vinyls began to die out in the 1980s
with the advent of digital media, and their full
production was considered flat-lined by 1990.
But vinyls carried my music growing up.
In the late 1970s I got my first three LPs:
Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty; Best of the
Doobie Brothers; and — lest you think I had no
evangelical fiber — Keith Green’s For Him Who
Has Ears to Hear.
I could sing the better part of those albums
word for word, playing them over and over
again on my Emerson stereo I saved for and
bought with my paper route money.
One song on the Doobie Brothers vinyl, side
two, was called “Jesus is Just Alright.” When my
profoundly spiritual father heard me playing this
song one day, he confronted me by saying,
“Barry, Jesus is not just all right.” He was right.
These black disks carried my songs. I would
put them away carefully in their square sheaths,
ever vigilant not to scratch the surface lest they
begin to skip and play “Jesus is just, is just, is just”
— which, by the way, my father would have
thought more theologically correct.
They also depended on a needle that tracked
the groove to pick up the impressed analog songs.
That stylus had to be kept clean from dirt and dust
— one more way that audiophiles preserved the
purity of the music.
But the vinyl was the method, not the message.
And the music was the message, not the
method. In order to get a hold of the message, I
needed to have a method to carry the message.
For me, it was the vinyl, a 20th century
medium that for all intents and purposes is now
dead. Now, I know there are still a few purists left
who have hung onto their vinyls, playing them on
preserved equipment. There are even companies
that still produce vinyl LPs, the long-playing
records.
But the LP is R-I-P. It is dead, departed, life -
less, kaput, gonzo. That method has died.
But we still cherish the message.
As we enter our second century of Christ -
ian higher education at Biola — having just
completed a celebratory centennial year — we
Neph Trejo
do so asking questions: What is our message
that we dare not change? And what is our
method, the way in which we do Biola, that
perhaps needs to change?
What will we cherish and what will we
change? I have thought a lot about that question
this year, and I have talked with many
about this question. As part of my goal to “hit
the ground listening” this first year, I held 105
different meetings to listen — one-on-ones,
small groups and larger groups — with a focus
on grappling with where Biola is and where we
are going.
Along the way, I’ve thought about what is the
purity of our music that we must never jettison,
and what is the casing — or the method of how we
deliver the music — that we might consider
changing for the sake of improving what we do.
I have promised the Board of Trustees and
this community, and I have stated before God,
that Biola embodies a principled core that I will
guard and champion. Some of our core convictions
include these:
● We will be a university that holds high God’s
Word in all that we do and all that we are.
● We will be a university where we invite the
Spirit of God to permeate our community in
real and renewing ways.
● We will be a place where students matter to us
because we see in them the future, so investing
in loving and serving them will continue to be
our hallmark.
● We will be a university where we strive for ex -
cellence in teaching and scholarship, known
far and wide as a leader that champions biblical
integration and intellectual vigor.
● We will be a university where mediocrity is un -
acceptable and we will strive for the highest
standards and professionalism in every degree
pro gram, department, school, building, per -
form ance, exhibit, competition and publication.
● We will be a university that lovingly serves
the world, courageously taking on the major
challenges of our day where we are most suited
to do so.
B I O L A