The New York Times reports today about a fundamentalist Christian college courting controversy from within by changing the statement of belief its faculty must sign. Here’s the nub of the matter for Bryan College — named for Scopes Trial/Cross of Gold star-turn William Jennings Bryan:
Since its founding in 1930, Bryan College’s statement of belief, which professors have to sign as part of their employment contracts, included a 41-word section summing up the institution’s conservative views on creation and evolution, including the statement: “The origin of man was by fiat of God.” But in February, college officials decided that professors had to agree to an additional clarification declaring that Adam and Eve “are historical persons created by God in a special formative act, and not from previously existing life-forms.”
To their credit, both students and faculty are objecting to the change, but what got me was this defense from the president of the college as to why it was so important to rein in creeping strands of inquiry:
Dr. Livesay said that Bryan’s leaders were determined to proceed with the clarification.
“I don’t think you have to believe the Bryan way in order to be a strong evangelical,” he said. “But this is Bryan College, and this is something that’s important to us. It’s in our DNA. It’s who we are.”
Res ipsa loquitur.
Image: Michaelangelo, The Creation of Eve from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, 1509-10
wenchacha
Jesus wept.
ulee
Welcome to 1393. God willing it will be a good year.
raven
To go to work in any state agency, including state colleges and universities, in Georgia you have to sign a loyalty oath.
scav
Fiat fatue!
beltane
Wait a minute. What is someone who believes that Adam was created by Mr. God out of a lump of clay doing talking about something, anything, being in his DNA? The Bible does not mention DNA and neither should Mr. Livesay (where do these names come from by the way?)
beltane
@scav: How many fundies can fit in a Fiat anyway?
Iowa Old Lady
Oh, hee. In their DNA!
scav
@beltane: I think they’d melt in an European car in any case, so lots.
Emma
@ulee: Not bloody likely. http://timelines.ws/1300_1399.HTML
the Conster
It’s almost like some people take pride in their ignorance.
Baud
Um… Wasn’t Eve created from a preexisting life form? Namely, Adam.
Cpl Cam
Know what else is in your DNA? 98% of a chimpanzee, you mook.
scav
@the Conster: So proud they need the proper diploma to announce it to the world. Testify!
BGinCHI
DNA: Divine Numerical Algorithm.
Fixed.
beltane
@Cpl Cam: Chimpanzees must be embarrassed to share so much DNA with idiot humans.
PsiFighter37
William Jennings Bryan was the 3-time DEMOCRAT nominee for president, libtards! Stop being so racist.
jl
@ulee: Naw, man, that is insulting. Religious thought in Europe had advanced far beyond Bryan College theology by 1393.
ulee
@Emma: Can’t get it but I’m sure
God was on the case and assisting those in harms way.
the Conster
@scav:
Bryan College – “we’re proudly dumber than those poseurs from Liberty University!”
jl
@Baud:
” Wasn’t Eve created from a preexisting life form? Namely, Adam. ”
Good catch. My Bryan College fundamentalist faith lies in ruins.
Amir Khalid
As a general rule, do Christian universities like Bryan College admit only Christian students and hire only Christian faculty? I can’t see an institution that demands signed statements attesting to such beliefs being otherwise, but I’d like confirmation.
Cpl Cam
@beltane: I’m sure the bonobos passing around bananas and handjobs know who the more “advanced” species is…
Walker
I worked at a conservative Catholic University for years. Not quite as conservative as Stuebenville or Christendom College, but close. We had many faculty discussions about what the Magisterium did and did not allow you to say in class. It largely did not affect me in STEM, but I cannot imagine how you would be humanities professor at such a school.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Well, they’re only, or only supposed to be, supported by the public through the magic of tax breaks. And subsidized student loans, I guess.
Of course, some local governments have gone much, much further.
If they say all their instructors are ministers then the terms of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with respect to employment as well as Equal Protection don’t apply.
Walker
@Amir Khalid:
There is no one answer to this. Some do, many do not. I worked at a very conservative Catholic university that had a significant Muslim population (go figure).
Anoniminous
@Cpl Cam:
And half of the difference has to do with Chimpanzee’s superior sense of smell. Knock that out. Add another 2 rounds of neural development in their cortex and – voila! – something very close to human results.
Schlemizel
@Baud: WIN!
as for Byran college:
“You shall not press down upon the brow of scholarship this crown of evolution. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of DNA.”
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
Generally speaking, yes. Technically, anyone willing to sign the pledge could be hired, so in theory a Muslim or Hindu who’s willing to follow their rules could be hired, but usually only other Christians are willing to do it. Frankly, these are usually “Bible colleges,” where the main purpose is to mingle with other Christians and possibly go into ministry, not get an actual college education.
ETA: IIRC, such pledges also include stuff like “I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior” etc.
Quaker in a Basement
@Cpl Cam: Chimps everywhere take special pride in the other two percent.
burnspbesq
@Cpl Cam:
There’s a special circle of Hell reserved for nit-pickers like you.
Anoniminous
@Walker:
I infer you didn’t teach Biology. Although as despicably loathsome as I find the Roman Catholic Church they are nowhere near as ignorant, brain dead, or anti-science as low church Protestants.
danielx
Irony, thy name is Livesay.
Mnemosyne
@Walker:
Usually, though, Catholic universities don’t make the students sign pledges to adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church (though they often enforce it in other ways), and the teachers don’t have to be professing Catholics to be hired. The teachers may be restricted in what they can say or not say, but they usually don’t have to sign a pledge professing a specific set of beliefs to get hired.
(I went to a Jesuit university for grad school, which was conservative but not really what you meant by “conservative Catholic” because, well, they’re Jesuits.)
burnspbesq
@Baud:
There’s a special circle of Hell reserved for nit-pickers like you.
srv
You people better be careful with these kinds of stories as the Wingularity nears. At some point, you are going to break the internets.
Belafon
“It’s in our DNA.”
It also seems like the college’s position is…evolving.
jl
@Baud:
” Wasn’t Eve created from a preexisting life form? Namely, Adam. ”
Oh shit, I forgot. You, sir, have revealed yourself to be a Yahwist. Obviously, Bryan is of the Priestly school, where A and E were created together.
Anyway, amazing that anybody could think that two very contradictory and inconsistent creation stories strung one after the other, probably to satisfy two different Jewish traditions, could be literally, actually, historically true.
I also just noticed that in the middle of the fruitful and multiply, subdue and dominion stuff, there is a command to ‘replenish the earth’. I’ll send Inhofe a note and ask him what that bit is supposed to mean. Maybe Satan slipped that part in.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: A serious church connected university (e.g. Georgetown) would not require such a thing. It takes its reputation a scholarly institution too seriously, plus research money would dry up pretty quickly. OTOH, the kind of schools Mnem mentioned want only their own kind. I was not previously aware of this particular school, but I suspect that it closer to the latter type.
cmorenc
BTW: One of the most unintentionally hilarious statues in the entire USA is in the lowest floor of the LDS visitor’s center in Temple Square in Salt Lake City (I think it’s in the north rather than south visitor’s center building). It is a white marble statue of Adam and Eve regretfully departing the Garden of Eden – dressed as if they’re on their way to a Toga party.
Lizzy L
It took until 1950 for them to do it, but the Catholic Church Magisterium accepts Darwinian evolution. The 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church (I’m looking at the paperback edition) is very clear that not everything in Scripture need be understand literally. It speaks about the symbolism of biblical language. The six days of creation are considered symbolic, not literal. Catholics may believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis if they wish, or not — it is left up to the conscience of the individual Catholic.
However, somewhere, Thomas Aquinas is reading the statement from Bryan College and giggling uncontrollably.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
One of G’s friends from high school has the honor of being a bible school dropout. He’s still an evangelical, but much more on the Fred Clark/Slacktivist side of the slate.
jl
Lewis Black on the Old Testament
Lewis Black – The Old Testament
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGrlWOhtj3g
scav
@jl: A&E but what of the fair Lilith? She is of the same earth as Adam, not the beribbed bebotoxed trophy wife.
raven
Jesus, the polls have been closed for an hour-and-a-half and zip results!!!!
raven
@scav: Do they still have the Lilith Fair?
RareSanity
@Belafon:
Did you put on sunglasses toward the end of typing that?
Belafon
OT: Please take a couple of minutes to go see Return of the Jedi as done by David Lynch (link to littlegreenfootballs), who was asked by Lucas to direct the third film. A group called C-SPIT made the video.
scav
@raven: Only her hairdresser knows. Because she’s worth it.
JPL
@raven: I have not linked to the Secretary of State site yet but the early returns show Kingston according to the AJC. The Savannah area must of reported. imo
Omnes Omnibus
Bryan is ranked #22 in USNR rankings for regional colleges in the South.
raven
@JPL: Yea, you would think little Clarke County we be counted pretty quickly. We have a couple of hum dingers going here.
BruceJ
@wenchacha: Jesus did a spit take, more like…
stickler
@Amir Khalid: Amir, I would think that — given the various clauses in the Civil Rights Act, and the strings attached to Federal student loan funding — it would be very difficult indeed to keep any college’s student body restricted to members of one religious sect. In fact, unless they reject Federal student loans entirely, it should be completely impossible.
So no, it’s not common and it should be practically impossible.
ulee
@raven: Blame the oldsters. It’s all the rage these days.
JPL
@raven: Yup .. I just went to the Secretary of State and no reports from Clarke and no reports from the Atlanta counties that are suppose to support Handel.
Michelle Nunn won though
BBA
William Jennings Bryan said:
but he also said:
They don’t make rural populists like they used to.
Roger Moore
@beltane:
Before or after they’ve been run through a homogenizer?
jl
@scav:
” A&E but what of the fair Lilith? She is of the same earth as Adam, not the beribbed bebotoxed trophy wife. ”
Your are engaging in prideful questioning of authority which is leading you into confusion and doubt. Your soul is in danger. You got some cold ones in the fridge, now is a good time to drink ’em all and calm down. Watch some sports.
raven
@JPL: Kingston and Perdue big here, if the fucking idiot doctor Broun can’t win here he’s toast.
Emma
For when anyone in the endeavor to prove the faith brings forward reasons which are not cogent, he falls under the ridicule of the unbelievers: since they suppose that we stand upon such reasons, and that we believe on such grounds.” – St. Thomas Aquinas
Belafon
@raven: Here’s a link.
ulee
When I was a teenager I saw a man wearing a yellow dress in the mall. I thought it was hilarious and told it to everyone I could tell. My grandfather looked at me skeptically and said, “Well, to each his own.” He taught me a lesson that day. Good person.
JPL
@raven: haha.. So who do I vote for in the runoff between Kingston and Perdue?
raven
@Belafon: Thanks
Villago Delenda Est
As long as you toe the Divine Line, you can have academic freedom.
Otherwise, STFU, heathen scum.
raven
@JPL: They are pretty much the same.
PsiFighter37
@BBA: They all became Southern Republicans and converted to the religion of Big Business
Roger Moore
@Walker:
I suspect the way to do it is to adopt a medieval approach to the humanities. For most of the material, the professor’s job is to teach the students the truth and the students’ job is to prove they have learned it by regurgitating what the professor has told them. The only area where students are likely to get much chance to show any independent thought is in rhetoric.
JPL
@raven: I don’t think a dem has a chance but I do think if Michelle is going to win, it would be against Kingston. His comment about kids mopping the floor for lunch was awful. (paraphrasing)
scav
@jl: Soul? Any soul I have is either Northern and vinyl or leather and trod upon. Not close enough to a good fish market to make it any more confusing than that. Prideful? My passport’s indeed been stamped in all the circles, and I’ve favorite B&B’s in a few.
Dolly Llama
@Amir Khalid: It’s been some years ago – like 15 or thereabouts, but, yes, I had to sign such a statement to teach a journalism class at my local missionary mill. Had to tell them how I had come to Christ, the whole nine. I lied like hell. The students needed decent journalistic instruction and I needed the bread.
raven
@JPL: yup
Roger Moore
@jl:
And you have proven yourself to be a believer in the documentary hypothesis, which fundamentalists are not willing to accept. The Books of Moses were written by Moses, not assembled by a millennium later.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
He wrote them while sipping a margarita on a Red Sea beach.
JPL
@raven: In a perfect world Nunn would make an ad showing kids mopping floors and bullies mocking them. Instead she’ll give a lengthy comment on why he’s wrong, that will be taken out of context.
also.. yes I’m cynical because I live in GA.
Lizzy L
@Villago Delenda Est: Heretic! It was a pina colada!
jl
@Roger Moore:
” not assembled by a millennium later. ”
If a millennium had written it, there would be more snarky dialogue, and snotty supercilious hipster observations. I find your millennium hypothesis very hard to believe.
Roger Moore
@scav:
Not Rubber? I have a Rubber Soul, and it’s fantastic.
raven
@JPL: I have three friends running for the same council seat so I’m really focused on that. They gerrymandered Athens so the progressive and African-American areas are in the same district.
joel hanes
@Villago Delenda Est:
toe the Divine Line
Oh Blinding Light
Oh Light Divine
I cannot see
Look out for me!
ooof
Hello, dear friends, and welcome to Pastor Flash’s Hour of Reckoning.
With Organ Leroy, at his organ again. I’m deacon E. L. Mouse —
but dear friends, in these days of modern times, when you can’t tell the ACs from the DCs —
well, aren’t we all yearning for someone who can turn on a little “stopping power” ?
Dolly Llama
@raven: “Packing and cracking.” That shit ain’t nothing new. Good to read you here and keep up with you. Not been commenting much, but good to see you.
? Martin
I’ve never understood legislating belief.
I’m perhaps an odd atheist, especially given that I did go to a religiously affiliated college in spite of never being a believer, and I like going to seders and masses and all that. But I sometimes get the sense that I have greater respect for belief than many believers. The only point for having such a contract is to reassure some 3rd party that you are willing to say that you believe something, and my guess is that for many people it’s really an expression that you’re willing to lie about your beliefs. Seems awfully counterproductive to me.
Ian
@PsiFighter37:
Little remembered today was William Jennings Bryan was a progressive (for his time). While he held views compatable with todays fundamentalists, he also wanted to erase the gold standard. He wanted to help the economic situation of farmers by debasing the currency of the powerful and wealthy (his famous Cross of Thorns speech).
Bryan was also outspent ten to one in the 1896 election, something that people who live in todays Citizens United era can appreciate.
He was a flawed charecter, but I think he is a valuable part of US history. The politicians who followed in his wake created much of the historical ‘Progressive” period between 1900-1920. Today we unfortunatly remember him as the witness who broke down in the scopes trial.
raven
@Dolly Llama: backatcha
raven
My council race is tight as a tick and only my polling place is not in!
TriassicSands
@the Conster:
“It’s almost like some people take pride in their ignorance.”
Almost? These guys are like some birds of paradise doing courtship displays — only instead of beautiful plummage, they’re showing off their stupidity and ignorance. Dancing up and down, they cry out, “Look at me, look at me, I’m an idiot!”
If this bozo admits to the existence of DNA, and then scientists show him just how similar human and chimp DNA is, does he simply write it off as coincidence, deny that scientists got that part correct, or fabricate some other Biblically/divinely inspired explanation?
gnomedad
That was my first car — a 1970 Fiat Voluntastua.
GregB
Nice to see Karen Handel sucking pondwater and joining Liz Cheney in the everybody hates me club.
Punchy
How does one teach biology at said school? Wipe out all chapters on DNA mutation, microbes, antibiotic-resistant pathogens, and immunoglobulins?
JPL
@GregB: Her votes are suppose to come from the Atlanta counties which are slow to reporting. If Nunn is to have a chance, it would be better against Handel.
Omnes Omnibus
@Punchy: Some of the bible bashers accept micro evolution, but not macro.
raven
@JPL: Here’s a map by counties.
JPL
@raven: I’m shocked on how many counties supported Broun. We live in strange times.
scav
@Roger Moore: Souls of Rubbers! Well, that is rather theologically racy, I’ll have to check them out. Circa ’69 by any chance?
raven
@JPL: He only got 31% in his home county.
TheMightyTrowel
FYWP just ate a long comment about how a Buddhist friend of mine got around these sorts of crazy restrictions while teaching at a uni which insisted that archaeology was a sub-discipline of bible studies.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Is Kingston the craziest one? Or is impossible to really say?
Keith G
@Ian: WJB was perhaps the most prominent voice against American imperialism in the 1890s.
Petorado
I wonder if any heads would explode down at Bryan if it was explained to them that a system ensuring that only the most pure anti-evolutionary “evangelical DNA” survived among the professorial class at their institution was a form of social Darwinism?
Walker
@Anoniminous:
They never interferred with the Biologists. Conservative catholics, by and large, do not have a problem with evolution.
Their primary concern was history. No non-clergical faculty was ever permitted to ever say what the Church believes or what the Church did believe. This is a lot of fun at a school that was a Great Books, Western Tradition school.
JPL
Kingston and Perdue are the least crazy but truthfully they are repubs and now a days, it’s measured in millimeters.
raven
@JPL: The two MD’s and the woman.
Amir Khalid
@TheMightyTrowel:
I do hope you try again. I’m dying to know what ingenious trick your friend came up with.
JPL
@raven: haha.. It’s still measured in millimeters. Truth be known, if a Repub takes the state as expected, he will fall in line and do as told.
raven
@JPL: You checked out this preacher Hice over here? What a moron.
JPL
@raven: Who would have thought that they would vote for someone to the right of Broun. That is a tight squeeze.
GregB
@JPL: Lies from the pit of hell!
TheMightyTrowel
@Amir Khalid: she spent 2 days driving up and down every street in the small texas city where the university was based making a list of every church and its denomination. She went on the internet, found a tiny, devout hard-line protestant denomination that was not represented and wrote a passionate letter to the head of the bible studies department about how that specific denomination spoke to her so loudly that she found it inconceivable a church was not present in said small Texas city. She declared herself convinced that she could not possibly conceive of attending any services except the ones offered by that small weird denomination and hoped that her lack of attendance at the godless services available wouldn’t hinder her prospects in the department. they ate that shit up.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: She took the liberty of bullshitting them.
Anoniminous
@Walker:
I know RCCs don’t have A Thing with evolution, should have made that clear in my post. My bad.
I am, however, rolling my eyes at, “No non-clergical faculty was ever permitted to ever say what the Church believes or what the Church did believe.” It is impossible to teach Western Civilization without referring to Augustine and Aquinas and to hand-wave around the fact “the Church” did believe their writings is, well, hand-waving.
raven
Well, my two friends in runoff!
Anne Laurie
@stickler:
The point of these Believing Academies is not to reject students of non-compliant faiths, it’s to insist that all students follow the required forms and shibboleths. A Muslim student who was willing to attend mandatory BA chapel/religious instruction, or an Orthodox Jew who didn’t mind not being able to get kashrut meals, would (at least in theory) be welcome to attend Believers Academy. In fact, some ‘traditionalist’ non-Christians are happier at Christian schools where drinking, dancing, and mingling between the genders is discouraged than at ‘permissive’ schools where other students may not understand why anyone would choose to restrict their own behavior.
But the schools aren’t allowed to take Federal money — not even at second hand, through state scholarships for their students — and still tell students they have to attend religious classes or pledge to stay virgins. That leads to decades-long court battles for schools like Hillsdale College, which started before the Civil War as a place where free Blacks and women could get educations, but has since devolved into a fundamentalist veal pen where even state scholarships are rejected for fear of Big Gubmint interference.
J R in WV
@Ian:
He wanted to help the economic situation of farmers by debasing the currency of the powerful and wealthy (his famous Cross of
ThornsGold speech).Cross of Gold, not thorns. I actually have an election poster from one of his runs from my Great Grandparent’s farmhouse where it is quite explicit.
Tehanu
@Roger Moore:
I’m assuming you’re being ironic, unless you’re actually arguing that Moses wrote the description of his own death.
@joel hanes:
Small mistake in the 2nd line. You could also have quoted “Marching to Shibboleth:” “Oh, we’re marching, marching to Omaha, With the buckram and the cord!”
Ian
@J R in WV:
Thank you. You are quite correct. Ian + a few.
sm*t cl*de
“But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
jonas
@Amir Khalid: Pretty much SOP at fundie schools like Byant, Bob Jones, Liberty, etc. I can’t see how they have accreditation, however, not from the usual sanctioning bodies, anyway.
jonas
@Roger Moore:
In 6th C. BC ancient Hebrew, by a guy trained and raised by…Egyptians.
Betty
Don’t know if it is still the case, but Messiah College in PA used to make instructors pledge not to dance!
Barry
@Amir Khalid: “As a general rule, do Christian universities like Bryan College admit only Christian students and hire only Christian faculty? I can’t see an institution that demands signed statements attesting to such beliefs being otherwise, but I’d like confirmation. ”
No, they hire only ‘Christian faculty’ (and staff) and admit only ‘Christian’ students, where ‘Christian’ means ‘their own sect’.
Talentless Hack
Michelangelo likes his women a little on the chubby side.
C.V. Danes
Also, you know, that Jesus was white, and occasionally likes to show up on pieces of toast and whatnot to let you know he’s still around.
swbarnes2
@Lizzy L:
Not entirely. Catholic teaching still includes belief in a historical Adam and Eve.
From that 1950 encyclical
The encyclical is clear, they don’t think the whole Original Sin doctrine works unless all humans are descended from a single couple. Modern genetics tells us that at its smallest, the human population was a few thousand.