Olivet professor comes under fire for book - Supports the “godless” theory of evolution

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.daily-journal.com/archives/dj/display.php?id=403301

09/11/2007, 1:19 pm
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Read the Newsweek article

Olivet Nazarene University biology professor Richard Colling is coming under increasingly heated fire for his book, “Random Designer,” which was published in 2004.

Because of recent criticisms from parents, ministers and even some out-of-state Nazarene churches that the book supports the “godless” theories of evolution and natural selection, ONU President John Bowling has banned Colling from teaching basic biology classes and has prohibited other professors from assigning the book in their classes, according to this week’s issue of Newsweek.

Colling contended in a letter to students and staff this year that creationism and science can coexist.

“I want you to know the truth that God is bigger, far more profound and vastly more creative than you may have known ... (God) cares enough about creation to harness even the forces of randomness,” Newsweek reported, citing Colling’s letter.

Newsweek reported that Bowling banned the book this term because he wanted “to get the bull’s-eye off Colling and let the storm die down.” He admitted that recent objections to the book and its author “took on a new life and became a distraction, and things were deteriorating in terms of confidence in the university.”

[aikoaiko]

1. From: About Olivet Nazarene University

"Education With a Christian Purpose." Since 1907, Olivet Nazarene University has made this more than a motto, but a mission. At Olivet, considered one of the nation's premier Christian colleges, faith is at the heart of superior academics, athletics, social atmosphere and ministry opportunities."

These things happen when you work for these types of universities. In fact, I'm surprised at the university's restraint.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. That Place is Exactly 16 Miles From My House

It always gives me the willies when i drive by that joint. Now i know why.

The Professor

[NNN0LHI]

3. About the same distance from mine

I always avoid going near the place.

Don

[in_cog_ni_to]

21. I drive right through their campus to take my son to school everyday.

:scared:

They're buying up any and all property they can that's anywhere NEAR the campus. Last I heard, they want to buy my son's High School and the surrounding property...should we ever get our new High School. The High School property butts up to the Olivet Campus. They have taken over this village and I am NOT exaggerating.:(

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. The truth is: God damn the truth; believe as you are ordered to believe

These people sound so much like Bushists, it's scarey.

[Peace Patriot]

5. I've grown impatient with this stupid debate, on BOTH sides.

Whether or not "there is a God," who created the universe and loves and watches over us, or the human race INVENTED this idea out of psychological and/or evolutionary NECESSITY, is irrelevant. We should deal with what IS--in the human mind and heart. Science, objectivity and rationality OBVIOUSLY need a guiding set of humane principles, ethics and FEELINGS (compassion, reverence for life, spiritual insight and maturity)--the things that religions have always concerned themselves with; otherwise, we get conscienceless ("godless") global corporate predators who thinking nothing of endangering the human food supply with Frankenseeds, monoculture and GMOs, and destroying our only home, planet earth, with pollutants, for the sole purpose of making UNGODLY profits. And equally OBVIOUSLY, Father-God driven religions, if untempered by science, objectivity and rationality, become The Inquisition--that is, male dominators crazed with their own delusions about BEING God, who end up burning women at the stake "to save their souls," and slaughtering half a million Islamic people to get their oil, or to turn them into "Christian capitalists," or to "free the Holy Land."

It is IDIOTIC to foster a "God vs. Science" debate. BOTH are human. Both are OBVIOUSLY necessary BECAUSE we have evolved to think in these ways. And either one can become the demise of the human race, if we don't temper one with the other. If you become TOO OBJECTIVE, you can sit in a Air Force jet and drop a bomb on the little ants below you on the ground, and NOT CARE who it hits. If you become TOO OBJECTIVE, you can design a virus that could wipe out all life on earth in the name of "pure scientific research" and NOT CARE what the consequences might be, especially if someone pays you enough to do it. And if you become TOO RELIGIOUS, you can burn women at the stake for being the consorts of the Devil, or draw and quarter men for being Roman Catholics (or Protestants), or hang them for being homosexuals--Jesus' "love they neighbor" message to the contrary notwithstanding.

As for the atheists among us, even if you don't "believe in God," you do, obviously, believe in ethics, rules, limits, virtue, humanitarian actions, and right action of every kind, and where do these come from, if not from the ethical systems developed over the millennia by truly religious people? Erasmus was a Christian! So was Montaigne! Admit it!

Nothing hinges on "Is there a God?" It is a stupid debate. Be satisfied with what IS, and who we ARE, in all our complexity. Don't strive to eliminate belief in God, and don't posit science as an alternative to God. Understand origins. Astrology was the mother of astronomy. (--one of Carl Sagan's biggest historical errors, failing to acknowledge this relationship). Something inside of us--an EVOLUTIONARY need! a SURVIVAL need--caused us to reach, imaginatively, to the stars, for "deities" to give us direction and purpose, and a communal organizing principle. Abused by powermongers, or not, this need is inherent in the human species. We find power in a plant to heal some human ailment, and we DEIFY the plant, or attribute its power to a Goddess. That is who we are. That is how we think. And it has its good side, as well as its destructive potential.

We are NOT simple, rational beings. Our development of science is NOT a simple tale of the rational mind winning out over "superstition." And if we don't acknowledge and honor this complexity in human beings, we are going to LOSE this struggle with the rightwing Bushite fascists, and are VERY LIKELY going to lose our only home, planet earth, and all remaining species on planet earth, including our own. Those are the stakes. DO *NOT* let Bushite fascists set the terms of the discussion! AVOID this discussion. Let them "debate" it by themselves (--and hear the sound of one hand clapping). And concentrate on where POWER resides in a democracy, and how the majority can seize back that power. Democracy is the human-made, political mechanism that now parallels physical evolution, pushing us to evolve on all planes--physical, psychological, spiritual. For a long time, religion was that mechanism (how humans transcended the "survival of the fittest" rules of physical evolution, by developing both COMPASSION and higher organizing principles--communal action). But religion seems to have stalled, as an evolutionary mechanism--perhaps because it became the tool of powermongers (royalists, fascists, the greedy). By means of democracy, we can achieve consensus on wise action. It allows ALL human intelligence and skills to be brought to bear on problems--including this whopping, unprecedented problem of global warming. But democracy has clearly been interfered with, by the fascists among us, most specifically and deliberately by means of rigged elections--and very particularly by rigged voting machines, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations.

Ignore their stupid debate! Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW! Democracy is humankind's survival mechanism. Un-block its power! Demand vote counting that everyone can see and understand. And, believe me, we will begin solving our REAL problems immediately.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Yes, "both sides" are out of control in this "debate": The creationists who want to teach bullshit

disguised as science in public schools, and the "atheist whackjobs" with our pesky insistence that verifiable science FACT be taught as science in public schools. :eyes:

Oh, wait... I forget- what am I supposed to "just admit", again? That human morality has only come about through religion? Isn't that just another spin on the old "atheism is intrinsically immoral" saw? And what about Buddhism? Buddhists are, as I'm sure you realize, atheists- they don't believe in anything remotely resembling the western "God". Yet some have argued that Jesus's love-thy-neighbor updating of the mean, vengeful JHVH of the Old Testament was actually Buddhist (or, to put it another way, atheistic) in origin. So- explain to me, again, how atheists are supposed to JUST ADMIT that we owe any and all sense of morality we may possess to religion and the religious?

Sorry, no sale. And I have no intention of "just ignoring" this "debate" (actually, there IS NO debate- there are the FACTS about life evolving on the 4.7 billion year old Earth, and there are those in willful denial of those facts) not when creationist knuckle-draggers are trying to fuck up my kids' science education with a whole slew of unsubstantiated blather simply because they think teaching that we're related to chimpanzees will cause teens to fuck before they're married. (news flash: they will anyway) No, I'm not going to "ignore" this "debate" while Park Rangers are under strict instructions from the Bush Administration to not tell visitors the age of the grand canyon in effort to avoid pissing off the crowd that thinks it was formed during "Noah's Flood".

If people want to teach their kids that the Earth is 6,000 years old and Dinosaurs ran around Ancient Egypt, they can do it in Sunday School. The Creeping, Creepy Theocracy IS a real Problem, in fact it's one of the MAIN problems.

Feh.

[Richard Steele]

10. Very well said! nm

[Peace Patriot]

11. Impeachdubya, I'm saying "don't debate them," because you will never win that

debate. It is an artificial debate created by Bushite fascists. What we have to do is defeat them at the POLLS. And the "polls" have been rigged, so step no. 1 for democracy to succeed--and for the best ideas to be implemented--is to UN-rig the polls, by restoring transparent vote counting!

This is our main problem right now--a tiny minority of fascists is ruling. If democracy were working right, and were not blockaded directly by the latest and most lethal means of control--"trade secret" vote counting--the debate about God and evolution would have long ago been relegated to its proper sphere as a philosophical question for philosophically-minded people, in classrooms, roundtables, religious institutions and interested "think tanks," and would not be a matter that was tearing our public schools apart, or unconstitutionally influencing government policy. Our public schools are being disrupted by a stupid, wrongfully formulated, and very limited and mind-numbing "debate" created for political purposes. It is solely the work of a fascist political minority that has made it into a stupid, time-wasting, obstruction of education--education that should rightfully be secular, in respect of our constitution and our religious multi-culturalism.

The Bush Junta destroys everything it touches. Haven't we learned that yet? And ANY "debate" that they initiate has a DESTRUCTIVE purpose, and should be inherently distrusted and avoided, while we find the way to disempower this dangerous, fascist minority.

I'm not saying don't take action if some fascist asshole is harassing teachers, or polluting secular curriculum and if the Bush Junta is using our tax money to promulgate religion. Of course we must object, and of course we must fight for our constitution. But don't be shoved into a corner by THEIR terms of "debate." It is such a distraction! And the solution lay elsewhere than engaging people with limited minds (or evil agendas) on THEIR terms. It can make you blind. It can cut you off from important allies among religious people who DON'T want to impose their beliefs on others, and who VALUE our democracy. And it can promote unnecessary division and yet more limited thinking--that everything is either/or, that God exists/doesn't exist, that religion is good/bad, or that science is some sort of pure creation of the rational mind (it is not). The stupid minds of Bushites--and the greedbag global corporate predators who use them--are CREATING this "debate" as one more distraction from WHO HAS THE POWER, and where our power, as the majority, resides.

I was trying to introduce NUANCE into the discussion--which, to my mind, has much more historical AND current truth than "Is there a God?" Or, "which is true, the Bible or evolution?" And, as we know, nuance drives Bushites crazy. They hiss and spit and shrink away from it like vampires from the "true cross"! Neither thing is true--that there is God, or there isn't. What is true is that a whole lot of people believe there IS, and human beings have held such beliefs in great numbers for eons of time. So it MUST be serving (or has served) some evolutionary NEED--some essential component of survival. ALL people have myths. MOST people have God/Goddess myths. And these kinds of myths are not untrue (or unreal)--they are active, lively principles in peoples' lives. Get used to it. It ain't going away. You can't argue it away. It is part of our evolution! IF evolution could be taught to the fullest degree, encompassing HUMAN evolution, then in truth it SHOULD include our development of religion, our belief in God or Gods, our "myth-making," and the whole history of the intimate connection between religion and science, which was only recently bifurcated. (I am using "religion" here in a broad sense to include all spiritual insight--everything that we know that is not physical science. I don't mean just organized religions.) At one time, mathematics was a RELIGION. That's how mathematics BEGAN--among the Pythagoreans, whose chief goal was SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT attained THROUGH mathematics. (Those are some more people that Carl Sagan misunderstood and slandered, in his reverence for rationality--the Pythagoreans. And don't get me wrong--I love Carl Sagan, but that doesn't mean I can't argue with some of his ideas.)

So a fully true course in evolution would ask, "How did human consciousness evolve?" And, "Are our minds, which write novels, and symphonies, and have visions of Gods--are our minds, which seek to understand physical evolution--the PRODUCT of physical evolution, or do our minds TRANSCEND physical evolution--have our minds leaped outside of evolution in some way, or are our minds tending that way--toward transcending our own physical evolution?"

These are questions that would explode Bushites' brains, and I would have NO OBJECTION to them being raised and investigated in more advanced public school classes. Why confine the study of evolution to the evolution of wings and legs and alimentary canals and spines and eyeballs? Is not our development of religion, of spiritual insight, of art, and of science itself not evidence of a "next step" in evolution?

Do you see what I mean by how stupid their "debate" is?

For every jihadist or Christian Crusader who wants to limit your mind, or your childrens' minds, there are a thousand people, and probably ten thousand people, who are perfectly peaceful, tolerant and generous, who would never burn a witch at the stake, or bomb people for their oil, or blow up buildings in the name of Allah, or commit any repression or violence against anyone, and who furthermore would be fascinated by a discussion of where evolution might be heading, in our case.

It for those people that I speak: the MAJORITY! This fascist Bushite thing about evolution is NOT what most people care about. It is a distraction, a lie, a P.R. game. And perhaps the way to fight it is to EXPAND the debate to the matters that most people DO care about: where is OUR evolution heading? how do we progress? how to employ our best intelligence to improve our lives and save our planet? But, above all, I would say, the way to fight this stupid Bushite "debate" is to RE-EMPOWER and RE-ENFRANCHISE the majority so that ITS questions get asked and answered, and ITS concerns get articulated and addressed--in public education, and in every aspect of our government and our society.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. A) Regarding election theft: I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

B) Regarding "alienating" religious allies. I don't give a shit what anyone personally believes. I don't even rigidly hold tight to what I believe, most of the time. I classify myself as an "atheist" solely for the purposes of the lowest-chakra of political debate in this country, a point to which you allude to above. I'm also a Taoist, a Buddhist, a Discordian, a Pastafarian... by no means a strict materialist.

BUT... and this is a big BUT... ignoring the right-wing theofascist war on science will NOT make it go away. They're not talking about deep metaphysical Joseph Campbell-type questions, they want to dismantle the last 500 years of learning and drag us back to the dark ages. Period, end of story. If standing up against that bullshit is going to "alienate" people of faith, well, sorry, but that's just too fucking bad.

Now, I understand what you're saying. I really do. And asking where art, literature, music and the apparent need among some people for religious belief come from may be valid questions-- in a proper context. But that context is not in a High School Biology class. Right now we're doing a piss-poor enough job of covering the science basics (as well as the civics basics, it sure seems) that really any discussion of "expanding" the curriculum of evolution to cover metaphysics and the like seems a bit premature. Not to mention the fact- and this is a FACT- that given who controls the school boards in many places in this country, ANY attempt to "widen" the "discussion" around evolution is INEVITABLY going to end up with blather about "intelligent design", and then a 6,000 year old Earth with dinosaurs on "Noah's Ark".

Now, as for religion being a function of human evolutionary development. You may be right. Also, however, warfare (currently) and slavery (for most of human history) have been likewise natural, pretty much universal occurrances in human society. If behaviors evolve, they, too, probably "evolved" for some purpose. That doesn't make them good, or desirable. I'm not saying religion is the same as slavery and war- although it has been behind a good deal of both- but the point is, just because something is there doesn't mean it's "good" or "bad" or even "necessary". Dig?

But the bottom line is, I'm not interested in "arguing away" anyone's personal beliefs. If there is one arching meta-principle I try to hold to, it's that everyone ought to figure shit out for themselves. I'm not in your head, so I certainly don't think it's MY job to tell you how to interpret the universe. People say "I believe in evolution- but I believe God is behind evolution".. that, to me, is a completely non-disprovable statement from a scientific standpoint (and whether or not science embodies pure rationality, science IS a self-critiquing system whereby assertions must be checked against facts and replaced by new assertions when the facts don't agree. It, too, is a meta-principle, and it is the reverse of dogma) .. however, when someone says "I believe in God so evolution is a lie", they have crossed the line into the domain of science because they have made an assertion which directly contradicts mountains of physical and genetic evidence.

But like I said, I have no -ZERO- interest in changing or even challenging anyone's personal belief in God, Eris, Zeus, whatever. When that belief crosses into the realm of science and evidence-backed statements, then yes I think it's legitimate to engage in a debate. But you can't prove a negative, i.e. "There is no 'God'" and even if one could, other people's beliefs in God or Gods is, in itself, no skin off my nose. It becomes a problem when -and this happens a lot- those beliefs are imposed upon others or used as yet another justification to try to tell other people how to live their personal lives. It's the need some religious people have to impose their faith on everyone else that is the problem. If the 'religious allies' you speak of aren't interested in doing that, then they and I should have no quarrel.

We go through this all the time, on DU: Some people of faith here object when creationists or Intelligent Design proponents or fundy Xtian whackjobs are criticized here, yet in the same breath they struggle to remind us that ALL Christians are not Creationists, ID proponents, or fundy Xtian whackjobs. Well, I know. But y'all can't have it both ways. If those people are NOT 'all Christians', they are NOT 'all people of faith', then 'all people of faith' shouldn't get their noses out of joint when those folks are specifically targeted for criticism. Right, we know they don't speak for you: So don't get insulted when THEY are made fun of.

If you're sick of this debate, here's what you can do: Remember that evolution is a fact-- like global warming the science is undisputed among all reputable parties--- and any time anyone tries to pass off any creationist bullshit as science, stand up to 'em.

[AX10]

13. I agree.

[LanternWaste]

15. Yup. There's only one side to every story...

Yup. There's only one side to every story...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. There's only one side to this story.

[LanternWaste]

18. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Happens like that more often than not.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. It's certainly bullshit to assert that there are precisely TWO "sides" to every "story".

For instance, would it be factually true to say that either gravity is a property of matter that warps space-time, OR when you roll a rock down a hill, it is pushed by invisible angels who want to return it to hell? Yes, technically that's a true sentence. It's also a mountain of logic-murdering bullshit.

Two sides to the "story", right? Gotta teach em both. Teach the "controversy". Be "evenhanded".

Or how about when you drop your shoes off to be repaired- (does anyone even do that, anymore?) either there's a person who fixes them, OR little magic gnomes come out at night and do the cobbler's work for him. Right? Two sides.

How about this: Either there's a 500 foot tall invisible, odorless, colorless, weightless, undetectable ape that lives on my roof and eats equally invisible giant bananas, or there isn't. Two sides to the "story", right? Obviously, each assertion should be given equal credence, equal weight.

Right?

Yeah. Two sides. Huh Huh Huh Huh. Two sides. "Either" evolution is true, OR my personal creation mythology (but not the thousands of other creation myths and stories people have made up over the years) is true. Two sides. Huh Huh Huh.

Absolutely.

:eyes:

[LanternWaste]

24. I haven't attested there's only two sides to every story

I haven't attested there's only two sides to every story-- that would be almost as inane as attesting there's only one side to any story. I realize that I have neither your wit, not your wisdom so I allow for a multitude of possibilities-- let's call it X, becauwse I adjmit I have little to no knowledge what the number would be in any given situation-- even in the ones that appear very obvious, the human condition of aggresors, victims and observers make it astoundingly cokmplex. I avoid absolutism as a general rule. But that's because I'm have no where near the depth of your insight.

You may easily infer what you want from my statements-- the previous one was pretty off-base, but I'm sure that's the one side to the story so it must be correct.

You're a pretty funny guy. The "huh huh huh" stuff had me laughing-- inside, where it counts.

more :eyes:

[Warren DeMontague]

26. No, frankly, Cap'n Obscuro, I haven't the faintest idea what you've been trying to say.

And clearly you're not willing or able to express your arguments- whatever they may be- in a direct fashion where you might be forced to back 'em up.

Got something to say on the subject of "Intelligent Design" vs. Evolution? Hmmmmm? C'mon. Stop playing games, and let's hear it.

[SallyMander]

16. Word.

:thumbsup:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. LOL

"Both are OBVIOUSLY necessary BECAUSE we have evolved to think in these ways."

Neither are necessary. Once's only necessary if you want things like satellite TV or, say, medicine. The other's not necessary at all. There can be an argument made that religion evolved as a sort of need to fill an alpha male role, although it's not a very good argument. And science didn't involve at all. It's a recent invention.

"And either one can become the demise of the human race, if we don't temper one with the other."

Religion's needed to prevent the demise of the human race? Horseshit.

"As for the atheists among us, even if you don't "believe in God," you do, obviously, believe in ethics, rules, limits, virtue, humanitarian actions, and right action of every kind, and where do these come from, if not from the ethical systems developed over the millennia by truly religious people?"

Because I want to be a nice person and not hurt people. Not because I'm afraid of punishment in the afterlife.

"Erasmus was a Christian! So was Montaigne! Admit it! "

I base my ethics, morality, etc. on neither. Nor see why I should. Both were anti-semites. Admit it.

"Nothing hinges on "Is there a God?"

Well, if it turns out the answer is "no" then there's going to be an awful lot of pissed off people.

"Astrology was the mother of astronomy."

I suppose in the same sort of backwards way that bloodletting was the father of barber shops.

"We find power in a plant to heal some human ailment, and we DEIFY the plant, or attribute its power to a Goddess."

Who's this we?

"Our development of science is NOT a simple tale of the rational mind winning out over "superstition.""

It's a fairly simple talke of the rational mind winning out over superstition, myth, old wives tales, errors, and other such things.

"For a long time, religion was that mechanism (how humans transcended the "survival of the fittest" rules of physical evolution, by developing both COMPASSION and higher organizing principles--communal action)."

Religion is no such thing. Lots of organisms are communal, religion's got nothing to do with it. Nor does it transcend evolution. All the same rules still apply, lichens and humans alike.

"By means of democracy, we can achieve consensus on wise action."

By means of democracy, we ended up with a bunch of crazy twitterbits on school boards screwing over schools with this Creationism bullshit. That's the whole problem.

[NNN0LHI]

23. I need to read more of your posts in depth

:thumbsup:

:applause:

[More Than A Feeling]

25. Secular ethics pre-dates Christianity, and has a separate continuing tradition

See Epicurus. See John Stuart Mill.

Your assertion of ethics as the province of "religious people" (and that atheists have to "admit it") is an expression of religious supremacy, and hurts your credibility.

Also, you commit the naturalistic fallacy by declaring that belief in god "evolved out of necessity."

If you want to avoid the discussion, you should avoid making these kinds of mistakes. It indicates that discussion is necessary, because some people still don't understand where an entire side of the debate is coming from.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. People can either adjust their religious beliefs to accomodate the facts, or they can't.

What they can't do is insist upon a new set of facts just because they can't handle the truth.

[L. Coyote]

8. Disprove this Nutjobs: "Life is a property of matter."

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. Dead things weigh the same as when they were alive.

Ergo, life has no mass.

[in_cog_ni_to]

19. THESE are the people I'm SURROUNDED by! My next door neighbors work at Olivet,

the people across the street are from Olivet and so are several families down the street. I'm stuck here, 2 blocks away from the University and the village has been INVADED...literally. Olivet students are everywhere. MOST of our PUBLIC SCHOOL teachers, Principals, and Superintendents are hired from THAT University.:cry: GAWD.......It's so unfair.:(

I take it Bowling didn't know about Mr. Colling's book BEFORE he was hired? How damn stupid can these people be?

THIS made it into NEWSWEEK?????:rofl::rofl::rofl: The freaks are out in full force!

[knitter4democracy]

28. I'm sorry.

It's an odd place, that's for sure, though it's more liberal now than when I was in college at the Naz in Ohio ten years ago. At least they can wear blue jeans now.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. I am not surprised at them for giving him grief. I applaud him for writing his book, though

[knitter4democracy]

27. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Those silly Olivetians!

Hubby and I went to Mount Vernon Nazarene, his sisters are at Olivet right now, and his parents both went to Olivet. Both of us grew up in the Nazarene church, and I grew up in the Olivet region, having many friends who went there while I went out of region to the Naz in Ohio.

We're both finding this really funny. We'll ask SIL the Younger, who was a bio major until two weeks ago, if she ever had the guy and knows about it. I'm sure there's a lot more to the story--there always is in a Nazarene college.

Hubby was a pre-med at the Naz, and he was taught evolution. Of course he was. All the science majors knew not to tell people about it, though. Hubby even did his Brit Lit II paper on Darwin.

[knitter4democracy]

29. Update to the story: he's been fired.

We saw the girls last night, and they told us that he'd been mostly fired since the article came out. Because of his contract, he can't really be fired, so they're still paying him, but they took all of his classes away and such. He's not allowed to teach or work with students anymore. It happened this week.

What the girls said was that, last spring at the end of the semester, he told a couple of classes about his book and what it's about. He then opened it up to discussion after telling the kids that he wasn't telling anyone what to think and that he respected their views. A small minority attacked him for "not believing in God" (which isn't true) and were just awful to him (it wasn't the majors--it was the Christian ed majors and religion majors and other conservatives). It built up over the summer and exploded this fall.

According to SIL1 (the senior), most of the students are really upset about it. Creationism is a small, small part of Nazarene theology, and most students feel that his getting fired over this is absolutely ridiculous. The science majors are livid, but most of the rest of the student body is also upset.

I wonder if there's a way to put pressure on them to hire him back. I'm not in the Nazarene church anymore, and we all know that the Chicago district is known for being really conservative (I grew up in the Michigan District and went to NYC '91 with them--no co-ed swimming for them when our leaders thought that was crazy). I wonder if the other districts could band together and put pressure on the university to get the guy back in the classroom.