By Lee Duigon
September 6, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
September 6, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
A professor at a seminary has been
fired for being in a room with a “homophobic” book.
Don’t laugh:
it’s true. The Interdenominational Theological Center, in Atlanta, recently
sacked an internationally-recognized expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls for this
exceedingly vague transgression (see The Layman Online, Aug. 27). But it seems his real crime was
to fail to instruct his students in the “womanist theology, postcolonial
theology, and LBGT theology” demanded by his insane department head. Obviously
the poor sap mistakenly thought he was at the seminary to teach Christian
theology.
Once upon a
time seminaries existed to train young people to be ministers, elders, and
scholars in the service of Christ’s Kingdom. (Burst of maniacal laughter in the
background) I know, I know—it seems fantastic, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, it’s
true. Seminaries used to teach Christian theology. You could look it
up.
ITC is a
seminary run by half a dozen Protestant denominations working together,
including the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Methodist Church, two
rather prominent flatline churches. It has some 450 students, most of them
African-American. A number of these students come from fairly conservative
church communities, not knowing what they’re getting into.
ITC is about
as conservative as Hogwarts. I will not say the faculty members ride around on
broomsticks and dance nude around basalt monoliths in the dark of the moon. But
with some of these denominations, the PCUSA in particular, it wouldn’t be
surprising if they did.
Fighting his
dismissal, the sacked professor says the higher-ups at ITC had it in for him
because of his “evangelical” beliefs. He says they harassed him over “my
conservative religious ideals, intimidating me, slandering my character, giving
me poor evaluations,” and even changing the grades he gave some of his students.
Perhaps this practice of changing students’ grades to get at the professor is
one of the reasons why ITC last year had its accreditation suspended and is at
risk of losing it altogether.
The department
head who got the hammer dropped on the professor is one of the PCUSA’s most
outstanding kooks, a distinction not easy to achieve. Flatline churches crank
them out by the hundreds, stocking their synods and assemblies with ignoramuses
who shred the Bible, hate God, and are on a jihad for same-sex so-called
“marriage.” The poor professor had the misfortune to work under one of these
witch-doctors. The moment the two of them wound up in the same department, his
days at the seminary were numbered.
ITC, of
course, is committed to diversity. This means that any deviation from the party
line will be visited with stiff reprisals. ITC is committed to academic freedom:
as long as not a word of Biblically faithful teaching slips into it, any
professor is totally free to teach pseudo-Christianity until the cows come home.
He’s probably even free to worship the cows. ITC is committed to tolerance, as
long as you don’t express any opinion that they will not tolerate.
The department
head was out to get this guy, and any excuse would do—even something so absurdly
trivial as being physically present in a room where a student could pick up a
book deemed “homophobic” by one of the nuts who run the place. If it hadn’t been
that, it would have been something else: failing to sacrifice nine black puppies
to the Goddess, say. Heaven knows what they would have done to him if he’d
rashly said, “Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only Savior of mankind.”
Shot him, maybe.
Here is a
seminary that holds up as virtue behavior which the Bible calls abomination.
It’s not about tolerance. It’s not about “justice.” It’s about forcing
Christians to endorse activities which they believe to be sin. And even their
endorsement is not enough. If you operate a photography business, a bakery, or a
print shop, it’s about forcing you to take part in those activities: otherwise
some “human rights” commission comes along and destroys your livelihood. You
can’t decline to film a lesbian “commitment ceremony,” or custom-bake a cake
with two little plastic bridegrooms on it, or print up cards and flyers
advertising the event. You aren’t even allowed to remain silently aloof from
it.
So now we have
a Dead Sea Scrolls expert out of a job because he wouldn’t dance around the
pseudo-Christian maypole. Maybe he can latch on with another seminary—if he can
find one that isn’t making war on the Bible and everyone who believes in
it.
Are there any
Christian seminaries left?
Lee Duigon, a contributing editor with the Chalcedon Foundation, is a former newspaper reporter and editor, small businessman, teacher, and horror novelist. He has been married to his wife, Patricia, for 34 years. See his new fantasy/adventure novels, Bell Mountain and The Cellar Beneath the Cellar, available on www.amazon.com
Website: LeeDuigon.com
E-Mail: leeduigon@verizon.net
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