Re: [asa] Can God Love Darwin, Too?

Charles,
Thank you for the input; it is certainly useful to get the perspective of an
insider in cases like this. Frankly, however, what you describe is in many
ways more disturbing than reports I've seen in the media. Are you saying
that the college president stepped into remove a member of the faculty from
a core course and restrict the use of that professor's book on campus, when
that professor's teaching was 1) consistent Nazarene doctrine 2) consistent
with how the material has been taught for the past few decades and 3)
consistent with how the material is being currently taught by his
successors? If so, it appears he has thrown his faculty member to the wolves
for the sake of appeasing a "vocal minority." Promising to reverse the
situation when the situation grows less volitile seems like it will 1)
encourage said minority to make darn sure the situation stays volitile and
2) offers no guarentee to the people currently trying to teach evolution in
that environment. I can only hope they didn't turn the course over to
someone without tenure.
 
__
Louise M. Freeman, PhD
Psychology Dept
Mary Baldwin College
Staunton, VA 24401
540-887-7326
FAX 540-887-7121

-----Original Message-----
From: "Charles Carrigan" <CCarriga@olivet.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>, "<PvM" <pvm.pandas@gmail.com>, "<Ted Davis"
<tdavis@messiah.edu>
Cc: "Kevin Brewer" <kbrewer2@olivet.edu>, "Priscilla Skalac"
<pskalac@olivet.edu>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:36:23 -0500
Subject: Re: [asa] Can God Love Darwin, Too?

Secondly - I would like to take this opportunity to shed some light on the
events that have been occurring here at ONU regarding the removal of Rick
Colling from teaching the general biology course here this year. Rick and
the university have gotten some pressure from anti-evolutionists since the
publication of "Random Designer" a few years ago. In the book, Rick
basically tries to argue that evolution is compatible with Christianity.
Although the majority of our constituents have no problem with our science
here, there is a vocal minority that leans strongly toward Young-Earth
Creationism. I believe that 2 members of the University's Board of Trustees
are against evolution being taught at ONU, but most are not. The Nazarene
Church has a tradition of a "big tent" approach to science from the theology
standpoint, and so not many in leadership positions are so strongly opposed
to evolution that they would ask for a professor teaching it to be removed.
Dr. Bowling has written about this and made that case very strongly that
Rick is not outside the bounds of Nazarene doctrine & tradition. When one
YEC advocate asked Pres. Bowling if there were any YEC scientists here at
ONU to 'provide balance', he stated that ONU doesn't have anyone like that,
and that he doesn't think there is anyone like that in the entire Nazarene
educational system. However, the pressure against Rick has been building.
This past summer, President Bowling met with the natural science faculty and
explained what he was asking from the Biology Department and why. It was
clear to me that he was attempting to help the situation die down by
removing Rick from the "bull's eye". In my opinion, he was doing his best
that he thought necessary for the university and for Rick. I strongly
support Pres. Bowling's decision here. The hope was and is that, after some
time, the turmoil that is out there will subside; in Pres. Bowling's words,
he was attempting to "make peace". However, I am not sure that Rick saw it
this way, and the article in Newsweek has come since that meeting. I was
very disappointed that the Newsweek article chose to state that Pres.
Bowling "banned" the book from ONU courses. While I suppose that is
technically true, the word carries with it too much baggage. Pres. Bowling
stated that it was certainly possible that things could change in the future
if the situation were to become less volatile. I was disappointed that the
article was phrased in ways that made the good name of Pres. Bowling and ONU
look bad, because it discredits the good science that is being taught here
by many of our professors. In my opinion Pres. Bowling has been one of the
greatest advocates for the science faculty here. He gave a message in
Chapel in Jan. of 2006 where he discussed science & faith; I can send a copy
of this to those who are interested.
 
Here are a few important facts that were not mentioned in the Newsweek
article:
1) the science of an old Earth/Universe has been taught at ONU for at least
40 years that I know of - I'm sure it goes farther back than this but I'm
not aware of who the faculty were before that time. ONU has been around for
100 years, but has not in all of those years offered college level science
courses.
2) Other faculty members here at ONU have taught these same scientific
concepts for many decades, and there has never been this kind of reaction to
any of them.
3) Pres. Bowling made it very clear to us in the early Summer meeting that
he was not in any way attempting to alter the content of the Gen. Biology
course that he removed Colling from - Colling's removal from the course is
not a content issue.
4) None of the other books out there that talk about science and
Christianity have similarly been "banned", such as those by Falk, Collins,
Young, Polkinghorn, Murphy, Ramm, Miller, etc.etc.

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Received on Thu Sep 13 17:24:16 2007