Honest Evangelical Scholarship is a Ruse. There is No Such Thing!


Biblical professors and apologists in evangelical institutions are not allowed to be honest scholars. That is a fact. They are not allowed to think and write freely. If they step out of line they are fired. But more and more of them are doing just that. Here's some proof that evangelical colleges requiring their professors to sign a confessional statement cannot be trusted to be honest scholars and should therefore be ignored, all of them. Below are links with discussions about a few evangelical scholars who were fired, suffered censorship, and/or intense scrutiny because they tried to interact honestly with the wider scientific and scholarly communities.

In no particular order:

Dr. Bruce Waltke, an evangelical professor of Old Testament and Hebrew, is one such example. He had to resign his post from the Reformed Theological Seminary after endorsing evolution. Link.

Dr. John Schneider was forced to retire early from Calvin College for accepting the evidence that there was never an Adam and Eve in a Garden of Eden, Link.

Dr. Tom Oord, tenured professor of theology was from fired from Northwest Nazarene University in June of 2015. Karl Giberson said:
Oord was the university’s leading scholar, with 20 books on his CV; by most measures he was also the denomination’s leading scholar and one of a tiny number of Nazarene theologians whose reputations reached beyond evangelicalism. Oord had won multiple teaching awards and was wildly popular with students and respected by his colleagues. He had brought over a million dollars of grant money to the university—a remarkable accomplishment for a professor at a small, unsung liberal arts college. Oord, however, was controversial. He strongly supported evolution and had long been a target of creationists in the denomination. He embraced “open theism,” the view that God does not know the future but responds in love—rather than coercive control—to events as they occur, rather than foreordaining everything. Fundamentalist critics called him a heretic and had been vying for his termination for years. LINK.

Jim Stump, a professor at Bethel College in Indiana, resigned over the issue of evolution. Karl W. Gilberson: "the Bethel Board of Trustees on June 9 of this year approved a new policy specifying that college faculty must affirm the same position on Adam and Eve as the Missionary Church, namely that Adam “was created by an immediate act of God and not by a process of evolution.” The new policy further specifies that Bethel faculty should advocate this as the “official, meritorious, and theologically responsible position of the College, without disparagement.” LINK

Dr. J. R. Daniel Kirk at Fuller Theological Seminary forced to resign over intellectual integrity and homosexuality in June of 2015. LINK

Dr. Michael Licona lost his teaching position over Matthew 27 in 2011. Jeff Lowder comments:
The incident casts doubt on the ability of Evangelical scholars, qua Evangelicals, to follow the evidence wherever it may lead. To his credit, Licona apparently questioned the literal historicity of Matthew 27, without letting the perceived implications of his commitment to Biblical inerrancy get in the way. At the same time, however, I can't help but be struck by the fact that apparently many Christian scholars were unwilling to publicly defend Licona, presumably because they were afraid they might lose their jobs, too. It is precisely because of this sort of mentality that I have previously questioned whether evangelical Christians can consistently affirm the ethics of belief required by freethought. Link
On March 27, 2008, the Board of Trustees at Westminster Theological Seminary announced that professor Peter Enns would be suspended from teaching at the conclusion of the school year. Link

Dr. Anthony Le Donne was dismissed from teaching at Lincoln Christian University in 2012, my alma matter. To see what I think of this incident and what it says about evangelical institutions as a whole read this.

Dr. Chris Rollston wrote an article for the Huffington Post on women in the Bible and lost his teaching position. Thom Stark, a former student of his, tried but failed to argue his case, which can be read right here.

The late Clark Pinnock was nearly expelled from the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) in 2002 over the nature of Biblical authority but survived the attack. Link.

In 2003 Dr. Robert Gundry was not so lucky. Evangelical scholars removed him from being a member of the Evangelical Theological Society for his views on the gospel of Matthew. Link.

Again, honest evangelical scholarship is a ruse. There is no such thing!

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