Thirty-five years after he made them, Bob Jones III, one of the country's most influential evangelical Christian leaders, has apologized for comments calling for gay men and lesbians to be killed "as the Bible commands." 
 
 Jones, chancellor and former president of Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., issued the apology Saturday, calling his comments in 1980 "antithetical to my theology and my 50 years of preaching a redeeming Christ." A petition on Change.org filed by BJ Unity, a nonprofit organization of LGBTQ alumni of the private evangelical college, has sought the apology since 2012. 
 
 In 1980, Jones and other leading evangelical ministers supporting the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan visited the White House to demand that President Jimmy Carter not extend protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to gay men and lesbians. In remarks to The Associated Press, Jones was quoted as having said: 
 
 "I'm sure this will be greatly misquoted. But it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel's day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands." 
 
 In his apology, issued through the college his grandfather founded in 1927, Jones, 75, said: "I take personal ownership of this inflammatory rhetoric. This reckless statement was made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago. ... I cannot erase them, but wish I could, because they do not represent the belief of my heart or the content of my preaching. Neither before, nor since, that event in 1980 have I ever advocated the stoning of sinners." 
 
 BJ Unity accepted Jones' apology, saying in a statement: "We are grateful that Bob Jones III has taken responsibility for these words; words that have caused deep harm for many more people than any of us knows. This means a lot to us because it represents the beginning of a change in the rhetoric and conversation." 
 
 Bob Jones III became president of the university — a must-visit stop for conservative political candidates throughout the 1980s and 1990s — in 1971. Since then, it has rescinded a ban on black students and a prohibition on interracial dating. Jones retired as president of the school in 2005 but remains its chancellor. 
 
 IN-DEPTH ||||| Former BJU president Bob Jones III issued a public apology Saturday for anti-gay comments he made in 1980 calling for homosexuals to be stoned. (Photo: FILE) 
 
 Former BJU president Bob Jones III issued a public apology Saturday for anti-gay comments he made in 1980 calling for homosexuals to be stoned. 
 
 "I take personal ownership for this inflammatory rhetoric," Jones said in a statement. "This reckless statement was made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago." 
 
 His statement came after the university earlier this week received a 2,000-signature petition asking Jones to apologize for the anti-gay comments he made to the Associated Press while at a White House press conference. 
 
 BJUnity, which offers support for past and present lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender BJU students, mailed the petition Wednesday, Jeffrey Hoffman, the executive director, said. 
 
 "We are grateful that Bob Jones III has taken responsibility for these words — words that have caused deep harm for many more people than any of us knows," BJUnity said in a response Saturday afternoon. "This means a lot to us because it represents the beginning of a change in the rhetoric and conversation." 
 
 BJU Chancellor Jones was president of the university in March of 1980 when he and a group of fundamentalist ministers went to the White House with 70,000 signatures on a petition opposed to extending provisions of the Civil Rights Act to homosexuals. 
 
 "I'm sure this will be greatly misquoted," Jones said. "But it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel's day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands." 
 
 Saturday, Jones called those comments "antithetical to my theology and my 50 years of preaching a redeeming Christ." 
 
 "Upon now reading these long-forgotten words, they seem to me as words belonging to a total stranger — were my name not attached," he said in a statement. 
 
 "I cannot erase them, but wish I could, because they do not represent the belief of my heart or the content of my preaching. Neither before, nor since, that event in 1980 have I ever advocated the stoning of sinners." 
 
 He added: "I apologize for the reflection those remarks bring upon Jesus Christ, Whom I love; Bob Jones University, which I have loved and served; and my own personal testimony." 
 
 According to the AP, the 1980 petition urged then-President Jimmy Carter to oppose any presidential action that would legalize homosexuality within the federal government. 
 
 "We are here to tell the president that homosexuality must not become a protective way of life; an alternate life style," Jones said in the AP story. 
 
 He added that Carter, "who claims to be a Bible-believing Christian," is not fit to be president and that there is "no question that Ronald Reagan is the unanimous choice of Bible-believing people all over the country." 
 
 Staff writer Lyn Riddle contributed to this report. 
 
 RELATED 
 
 BJU investigation announcement to be made Thursday 
 
 Bob Jones University issues response to GRACE report 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://grnol.co/1Hfu8Lr ||||| 
 
 Bob Jones University campus (photo courtesy of BJU). 
 
 A former president of Bob Jones University, a conservative Christian school in South Carolina, has issued an apology for a statement he made in 1980 on stoning homosexuals. 
 
 BJU Chancellor Bob Jones III was president of the university in March of 1980 when he and a group of fundamentalist ministers brought to the White House a petition signed by 70,000 people who opposed extending provisions of the Civil Rights Act to gays. 
 
 “I’m sure this will be greatly misquoted,” Jones said in 1980, according to the Associated Press. “But it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel’s day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands.” 
 
 Bob Jones III (photo courtesy of Bob Jones University). 
 
 On Saturday, Jones, 75, issued an apology in response to a petition for him to do so that received about 2,000 signatures. 
 
 “I take personal ownership for this inflammatory rhetoric,” he said in a statement. “This reckless statement was made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago.” 
 
 “It is antithetical to my theology and my 50 years of preaching a redeeming Christ Who came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved,” Jones said. “Upon now reading these long-forgotten words, they seem to me as words belonging to a total stranger — were my name not attached.” 
 
 Jones said in the statement that he wishes he could erase his earlier words. 
 
 “The Bible I love, preach, and try to practice, does not present today the stoning of sinners as God’s way,” he said in his statement. “Its message is the good news that Christ Jesus was condemned on behalf of sinners to rescue all of us from condemnation and judgment by His willing sacrifice, for He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 
 
 BJU, with about 3,000 students at its campus in Greenville, S.C., has carved out a significant space within fundamentalism after its leadership parted ways with evangelist Billy Graham, an icon of more mainstream American evangelicalism. Graham briefly attended Bob Jones, but the evangelist distanced himself from the school’s more strident form of Christianity. 
 
 BJUnity, which offers support for past and present lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender students, mailed the petition Wednesday, said Jeffrey Hoffman, the executive director, according to the Greenville News. 
 
 “We are grateful that Bob Jones III has taken responsibility for these words — words that have caused deep harm for many more people than any of us knows,” BJUnity said Saturday. “This means a lot to us because it represents the beginning of a change in the rhetoric and conversation.” 
 
 In December, school leaders apologized to victims of sexual assault. The school also received national attention when then-presidential candidate George W. Bush visited in 2000, prompting the school to drop its ban on interracial dating, which it had unsuccessfully tried to defend before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983. 
 
 The university has been historically a family-run operation. Bob Jones Sr., Bob Jones Jr., Bob Jones III and Bob Jones III’s son, Stephen Jones, have all served as presidents. A year ago, Stephen Jones resigned because of health concerns and was replaced by Steve Pettit, the first non-Jones family member to lead the school. 
 
 Want more news on religion? Read more from Acts of Faith: 
 
 Here’s what we know about the faith of Sen. Cruz, who’s set to announce his 2016 bid at Liberty University 
 
 Justice Ginsburg has released a new feminist take on the Passover narrative 
 
 Here’s why a vote on gay marriage from Presbyterians matters
– Bob Jones III, a former president and current chancellor of Bob Jones University, is apologizing for comments he made 35 years ago, NBC News reports. In a push against Civil Rights Act measures for gay people, Jones called at the time for "the swift justice … that was brought in Israel’s day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands." A petition has called on him to apologize for the comments, and this weekend, the 75-year-old did so, the Washington Post reports. "I take personal ownership for this inflammatory rhetoric," he said, noting that it was "made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago." The statement, he said, now seems like the words of a "stranger": "It is antithetical to my theology and my 50 years of preaching a redeeming Christ Who came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." The petition was the work of BJUnity, a support group for LGBT students at the school, the Greenville News reports. The apology "means a lot to us because it represents the beginning of a change in the rhetoric and conversation," the group says. The school recently faced controversy when rape victims said it called them sinners; in December, it apologized for the treatment of victims, the Post reports.