Fundamentalism and higher education

Listening to Bruce Springsteen this morning and he has a great line in his new song, Devils and Dust:
"I got God on my side
I'm just trying to survive
what if what you do to survive
kills the things you love
fear's a powerful thing
it can turn your heart black
you can trust"

A powerful warning to all who want to claim ownership of God. I was thinking about this problem yesterday. We went to the city and had great calzones at Belle Isle Brewery (too early in the day for their good micro-beer, dammit). While we were waiting we picked up the Gazette to see if Greg had an article (he did--nice piece on the new Pope), but we were distracted by this story on OBU. We knew about some of it, of course. Micah and Kristen (both OBU grads) have been talking about it for some time here and here. But we had only picked up on parts of the story. I am sure that OBU supporters will hate this story, but there was much here to be frustrated with. One faculty member fired right before his final exams; the administration said they forgot he was teaching so gave all the students "A's." PR guy is fired for writing a letter as a private citizen to the local paper criticizing a local church for moving out of the community to the burbs. As the story notes: "Kincaid said he thought it wouldn't matter that OBU President Mark Brister and several high-level administrators were part of Immanuel's congregation." Other faculty members are afraid to talk to the Gazette because they fear they might be fired. Those who like to drink alcohol often drive to Norman to avoid being seen in a Shawnee liquor store. If they are seen, they fear being fired. For buying wine.

My Texas friend asked why I was so annoyed by my radio idiot who claimed to speak for God. But my annoyance goes deeper. The denomination I was raised in is turning into something I cannot even stomach. But this story reminded me that there are consequences for actions. When you make anti-academic and anti-intellectualism a part of your mantra, you needn't be surprised when a formerly respected institution like OBU goes down the tubes. When you attack evolution and demand a young earth--when you demand that your American history be Christian and laudatory--and when you demand patriotism as a part of your faith--you get a crippled "university" where people who think are just edged out. A journalism professor wrote an article asking whether the poor were getting what they needed after disasters like the May 3rd tornado, and he was called into the President's office and rebuked. Since when did Christians get in trouble for asking questions about poverty? When they became Republichristians?

But like I said, this is what you get. And OBU's enrollment is plummeting and they are in trouble. The rich Baptists are not giving enough, I guess. And think about it. If you are home-schooled and taught that evolution is bunk and the dinosaurs were on the ark, then you are going to have to go to a pretty fundamentalist college, right? Bob Jones or Liberty? If you have invested that much effort in keeping your kids from secularism, then even OBU starts to look like a threat.

And on the contrasting side, those moderate kids who are raised in Church, read their bible, but also engage with the broader world of community and ideas, and might have some interest in science or history--where are you going to go? You want to go to a real university where academic freedom is at least a well-worn cliche; where at least they make an effort at that. Where in science they do experiments and work in the labs--where the history programs teach you to get into the primary sources rather than to read American history from the Bible.

OBU quickly becomes a victim of our binary culture. They can't stay in the middle, because both sides will find them useless. They will have to choose--be a real university or a Bible college. I have no doubt that the far right will persist. One of the characteristics of fundamentalism is a very rigid and absolute approach to truth. They are always right, and there really is no room for negotiation. I am reminded of Bruce Prescott's excellent post on this zero sum game on abortion. That is one of the problems with being right, you can't negotiate with all the other well-intentioned people who disagree with you. The question is what will the more moderate voices in faith do?