29/03: A Baylor Meltdown?
Category: Baylor
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
There is much discussion of Baylor University in the news and on the web this week. Most of it is connected with the denial of tenure for Francis Beckwith, a professor in the JM Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor. Here is a nice round-up of stories from Mere Comments (which includes this link worth reading from First Things by Joseph Bottum).
My comment is 12th in the queue on Mere Comments, but I will save you the trouble:
A Meltdown? Perhaps we overstate the problem. I would imagine that Baylor today (for Baylor students) is very much like Baylor was (for Baylor students) when I was there in the 1980s and then again in the 1990s and when my father was there in the early 1960s and how it will be when my boys are there in the late-2010s.
Baylor has taught secular geology and biology for more than 100 years. Baylor has always employed liberal history professors with degrees from big-name research universities. The Baylor religion department has always been of the moderate-to-liberal variety. And Baylor has always been and will continue to be a great place to get a Christian education.
Part of the current problem is the social awkwardness of the reformers. True Baylorites resent presumptuous outsiders who always seem so ready to tell us how lowly Baylor was before they took an interest in the 2012 project. I have heard enough of that forever.
On the other hand, it was probably unwise to dismiss a sincere scholar for reasons of "collegiality." What does that mean? How do you catalog, quantify or document something that nebulous? Obviously that was a PR disaster waiting to happen. An olive branch might have been wiser than the sledgehammer. Having said that, the Baylor family needs time to heal itself.
In the meantime, Baylor University is today what it always has been: a wonderful and secure place for Christian parents (and well-meaning parents of all persuasions) to entrust their children for four years.
My comment is 12th in the queue on Mere Comments, but I will save you the trouble:
A Meltdown? Perhaps we overstate the problem. I would imagine that Baylor today (for Baylor students) is very much like Baylor was (for Baylor students) when I was there in the 1980s and then again in the 1990s and when my father was there in the early 1960s and how it will be when my boys are there in the late-2010s.
Baylor has taught secular geology and biology for more than 100 years. Baylor has always employed liberal history professors with degrees from big-name research universities. The Baylor religion department has always been of the moderate-to-liberal variety. And Baylor has always been and will continue to be a great place to get a Christian education.
Part of the current problem is the social awkwardness of the reformers. True Baylorites resent presumptuous outsiders who always seem so ready to tell us how lowly Baylor was before they took an interest in the 2012 project. I have heard enough of that forever.
On the other hand, it was probably unwise to dismiss a sincere scholar for reasons of "collegiality." What does that mean? How do you catalog, quantify or document something that nebulous? Obviously that was a PR disaster waiting to happen. An olive branch might have been wiser than the sledgehammer. Having said that, the Baylor family needs time to heal itself.
In the meantime, Baylor University is today what it always has been: a wonderful and secure place for Christian parents (and well-meaning parents of all persuasions) to entrust their children for four years.