Fools, Damn Fools, and Creationists...

[pyrephox]

An absolutely beautiful screed post from Discovery Institute mouth piece "Evolution News". Francis Beckwith Denied Tenure at Baylor University

Now, first, I'll share a few choice quotes:

"But Beckwith has a problem: His views are out of sync with the left-wing ideologues who control much of American academia. First, he is a prominent critic of the morality of abortion, and his work on this issue is cited all over the place by other scholars (including in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic)."

and

"Several years ago, mathematician William Dembski was accorded similarly raw treatment by some of Baylor's close-minded secular fundamentalists."

Now. Let's take a look at Baylor University in Texas, shall we? From their webpage:

"Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas and affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Baylor is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state and the largest Baptist university in the world."

...

When your brain reboots, let's examine. The largest Baptist university in the world, affiliated with the Baptist General Convention, and situated in TEXAS, is apparently filled with "left-wing ideogogues" and "close-minded secular fundamentalists". And this, of course, is the only reason why they would deny an anti-abortionist creationist tenure on their facility.

Yeah, um. Right. At this point, I think some people are just filling in form letters without reading the script too terribly close.

Comments

[siadea.livejournal.com]

This isn't actually all that implausible-sounding to me, honestly. I don't know about the tone of Baylor in specific, but I know that my campus, associated with Presbyterians, is quite liberal, where even the rest of the town is very conservative. It'd depend on what the tone of Baylor was, which may not echo its official religious affiliations. I would think it, too, would be conservative in tone, but it's not a surety.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's not a surety, but Southern Baptists tend to be a bit more, ah, hardcore than your average Presbyterians, in my experience. From what I understand, it had far more to do with internal political bickering than it did with ideology.

[siadea.livejournal.com]

*nods* And Baylor probably has a stronger actual Baptist influence than the merely-nominal Presbyterian stuff we've got here. But I still wouldn't be surprised if large portions of faculty were still liberal, because it can happen, even in Texas! Internal politics is, of course, the most likely reason, and I don't know how it actually is at Baylor, but.

[(Anonymous)]

As a person deeply engaged in the happenings of Baylor, the Beckwith situation is precisely about internal politics. Under the old Baylor regime, Beckwith was hired as the Associate Director of one of the nations only Institutes dedicated to Church-State Studies. Ironically, Beckwith doesn't even support the separation of church state studies (the principle upon which the Institution he works for was founded on...)

Baylor has a new President (a former Presbyterian) and some personnel changes have been made across the board...

In Baptist life, those who do not side with the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention have been branded liberals..

But to clarify one thing - Baylor has no affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention. The Baptist General Convention of Texas does not support nor is it affiliated with the SBC.

Baylor is a mainstream/moderate Baptist school. The faculty and administration of Baylor often attend Texas Baptist Churches (BGCT) alligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Not SBC.