From Inside Higher Ed:
When Dwayne Walker went up for tenure this past academic year at Southwest Baptist University in Missouri, he was invited to a luncheon with members of the Board of Trustees. There, he says, trustees questioned him on new faith statements adopted last year by the university.
The trustees asked how he taught creationism in his classes. Walker, an assistant professor of social work, replied he did not teach the topic, as it was not relevant in his discipline.
What about homosexuality, the trustees asked. Is it always a sin? No, Walker told them, not necessarily. He further “suggested it may be that categorizing all ‘homosexual behavior’ as a sin is not a productive way to reach people for Christ,” as he recalls in a written statement he submitted as part of a complaint to SBU’s accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission.
“One of the trustees stated that my answer was ambiguous,” Walker wrote in the statement. “I agreed and stated there is much ambiguity in this area in our culture right now.”
Things Walker said he was not asked about include “my tenure packet, my profession (social work) or anything else related to the service to my university.” Letters from his tenure packet that he submitted as part of his HLC complaint show that the faculty vote in favor of his tenure was unanimous (23 in favor, zero against, three abstentions), and that he was highly recommended for tenure by his dean and department chair based on his strong record of teaching, scholarship and service to his university, community and church.
The strong support from colleagues and supervisors was apparently not enough. A March 11 letter from interim SBU president Brad Johnson says that Walker was denied tenure because “concerns existed regarding the effectiveness in ‘carrying forth the mission of the university,’ … particularly in your alignment with the University Statements of Faith and University Principles and Expectations.”
Walker was floored.
“I’ve been a Southern Baptist my entire life, I’m a deacon in a Southern Baptist church, but I am no longer aligned with the faith statement of the university simply because of that one belief,” he said. “I don’t necessarily believe that everyone who is gay or lesbian or non-heterosexual is living a sinful life. That apparently is enough for them not to grant me tenure.”
The denial of tenure to Walker is not an isolated story. It’s part of a much broader dispute about theological orthodoxy at SBU and alleged efforts by the Missouri Baptist Convention to bring the university under closer control.
Last year the board approved new governance documents that name the Missouri Baptist Convention as the sole corporate member of Southwest Baptist University, a member being defined under Missouri corporation law as an entity that has the right to vote for the election of a corporation’s director or directors.
The changes to the governance documents — which are being challenged in court — also narrow the range of acceptable religious beliefs for professors and administrators, stipulating that the university “employs faculty and administrators who affirm, teach, and live in a manner consistent with and not contrary to” the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
Theology, ministry and philosophy faculty must separately affirm the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which says “the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God”; the Danvers Statement, which affirms distinct, divinely ordained gender roles for men and women and man’s “headship” in the family and in church; and the Nashville Statement, which holds that God designed marriage to be between a man and woman and states that “it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism.”
There is a lot more to this story. Read the entire thing here.
Thanks to Brian Kaylor of Word & Way for bringing this to my attention.
The death of Christianity in the U.S.
Christianity has died in the hands of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism ceased being a religious faith tradition following Jesus’ teachings concerning justice for the betterment of humanity when it made a Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence. The beauty of the gospel message — of love, of peace and of fraternity — has been murdered by the ambitions of Trumpish flimflammers who have sold their souls for expediency. No greater proof is needed of the death of Christianity than the rush to defend a child molester in order to maintain a majority in the U.S. Senate.
Evangelicalism has ceased to be a faith perspective rooted on Jesus the Christ and has become a political movement whose beliefs repudiate all Jesus advocated. A message of hate permeates their pronouncements, evident in sulphurous proclamations like the Nashville Statement, which elevates centuries of sexual dysfunctionalities since the days of Augustine by imposing them upon Holy Writ.
.. Evangelicalism’s unholy marriage to the Prosperity Gospel justifies multi-millionaire bilkers wearing holy vestments made of sheep’s clothing
.. Christianity at a profit is an abomination before all that is Holy. From their gilded pedestals erected in white centers of wealth and power, they gaslight all to believe they are the ones being persecuted because of their faith.
.. Evangelicalism’s embrace of a new age of ignorance, blames homosexuality for Harvey’s rage rather than considering the scientific consequences climate change
.. Evangelicalism forsakes holding a sexual predator, an adulterer, a liar and a racist accountable, instead serving as a shield against those who question POTUS’ immorality because of some warped reincarnation of Cyrus.
.. Charlottesville goose steppers because they protect their white privilege with the doublespeak of preserving heritage
.. The Evangelicals’ Jesus is satanic, and those who hustle this demon are “false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
.. You might wonder if my condemnation is too harsh. It is not, for the Spirit of the Lord has convicted me to shout from the mountaintop
Why I Won’t Sign the Nashville Statement
But I take it that such a narrow focus is not simply a rhetorical problem: it represents a failure to bring the statement up to the minimum standards for biblical, ecclesiastically centered judgment of those who are wrong.
.. Even if the statement draws the boundary in the right place, then, it inherently and intentionally obscures the fact that whether evangelicals embrace the “spirit of our age” is not a decision before us: It is a decision that has been already made. A “secular spirit” manifests every time an evangelical pastor remarries someone who was divorced without cause. It comes to the surface every time an evangelical couple pursues in vitro fertilization, and so undoes the “God-ordained link” between the reproductive organs and the union of the couple’s love. Every time an evangelical couple “feels the Lord calling” them to surrogacy, there the “spirit of our age” appears. And yes, it happens every time an evangelical utters the damnable phrase, “Well, I’m an evangelical, which means I’m okay with contraception”
.. An anthropology that affirms the theological significance of bodily life will weigh equally against a whole host of procreative practices that do not come up in this statement. Such practices are as deep and fundamental rejections of our bodily and sexual life as gay sex and transgender surgery are.
.. the spectacles and obvious disputes this statement responds to are the sideshow, not the main action.
.. Such a principle means the difference between affirming gay marriage and allowing IVF or any of the other practices which are part and parcel of the same ideology is irrelevant. The Church of Jesus Christ does not get a pass on its standards of holiness.
.. Yet God’s revealed will is for chastity within marriage as well. There are more forms of wrongdoing in the sphere of sexuality than directing one’s sexual desire toward a third party. It is possible to reduce a spouse to an instrument of one’s pleasure, or to engage in intrinsically wrong acts together.
.. While the gang at Spiritual Friendshipare capable of defending themselves, I take it that the denial of Article 7 is explicitly aimed at ruling out the subversive retrieval of “gay” they have been working on the past few years. While I am more than happy to accept many of the other boundary lines, I do think it a prudential failure in the face of the crisis this document outlines to pre-emptively winnow our ranks of those individuals who agree with our conclusions about the integrity of marriage and the morality of same-sex sexual behavior, but disagree about the meaning and significance of a “gay identity.” Paradoxically, while the minimalist approach is (presumably) aimed at generating consensus from the largest number of people, it does so only by cutting out from our midst some of conservative Christianity’s most eloquent and informed defenders.
.. I think there are actual Bible verses that indicate as much.
.. a statement from churchmen that asserts that a particular view of sexuality is essential to the faith must acknowledge our own complicity and entanglement in the very spirit that is being denounced. Otherwise, it fails to bear the authority of the Gospel it proclaims, an authority which stems from the confession of our sins and the proclamation of Christ’s saving work.
The Denver Statement
WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in God’s male & female image, and that all human beings share this image of God in common but express it differently in body and spirit. WE DENY that we as human beings can fully conceive of the glory of God’s image or rightfully believe our language can define its limits. Therefore, we deny those who do not conform to society’s gender norms are outside of some kind of “divine plan”.
.. WE AFFIRM that there is no longer male or female but all are one in Christ Jesus our Lord.
WE DENY any self-conception that presumes one is capable of knowing God’s holy purposes for other people, and that such self-conceptions can be consistent with the Gospel of grace, love, and mercy as demonstrated in holy scripture.