So, hours at Christianity Today made the news public that Dr. Pahl was relieved of duties for not being a tee-totaler on the whole Historical Adam and Eve bit, the president of the University resigned
Some, generally a really conservative policy advocate, was very happy:
I can only imagine… (HT to someone no names because…)
Anyway, Cedarville has fired tenured professors before, it seems…. (see here for the full story: chronicle1)
The termination of two tenured Bible professors last summer at Cedarville University has plunged the Baptist institution in Ohio into months of turmoil and intrigue. It has also prompted the American Association of University Professors to open an investigation.
The imbroglio has occurred against the backdrop of a deeper theological debate within the university over degrees of certainty about the truth of the Bible. But the divide is not merely over doctrine. Last week, a grievance panel at the institution reached a split decision in favor of one of the fired professors, citing administrative missteps as part of its rationale.
The climate at Cedarville was decried openly in a letter written by prominent past and current faculty members and published in January. The letter, which was circulated to the university’s professors, administrators, and trustees, described what it characterized as a climate of fear at Cedarville, where many faculty members worry that tenure means little. “There is a general reluctance on the part of faculty to disagree” with the administration “for fear of retribution,” the letter said.
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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Interesting that the article you link to says that the previous incident, in 2007, was because the professors were too conservative.
FIRST, LOVE the mansion. (Didn’t know you blogged! Love the old mysteries).
Wow… that article is a lot of double talk. The doctrinal statement is a pretty conservative one – http://www.cedarville.edu/About/Doctrinal-Statement.aspx. Still, not sure where the assurance/certainty argument fits in.
Looks like a lot of unrest.