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Professors Resign From Fundamentalist College
By Gwendolyn Bradley
Almost a third of the fulltime faculty at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia, resigned in May after a dispute over academic freedom. The small, fundamentalist college opened in 2000 with a mission to educate “Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values.” By 2006, it had sixteen full-time faculty members and about three hundred students. Thus far, Patrick Henry has been unsuccessful in securing accreditation.
The college, which focuses on preparing graduates for political careers, had prided itself on combining Christian education with a classic liberal arts curriculum that it says is designed to “provide students with a broad background in classical languages, logic, rhetoric, biblical studies, history, English composition and literature, philosophy, science, and mathematics [and allow students to] encounter a multiplicity of ideas animating the world’s great leaders and thinkers of the past.”
But the departing faculty members questioned Patrick Henry’s commitment to liberal education, citing several incidents. Last fall, charged professor M. Todd Bates, the college’s president and founder Michael Farris threatened to cancel a public lecture on St. Augustine unless Bates revised it to incorporate more references to the Bible. Bates and another faculty member also assert that Farris told them he believed Augustine was in hell (Farris denies having said this). Many faculty were disturbed by this incident, and, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education and other newspapers, a group made an agreement to stick together if any were unfairly reprimanded or dismissed.
The group resignation followed two more incidents this spring. First, Farris reportedly told government professor Erik Root that unless Root explained why he told a student that responding to a question by quoting scripture was “simplistic,” he would not be reappointed. (Patrick Henry College has no tenure system.) Root, who had asked his class what philosophers Hobbes and Locke would have said in a certain situation, said that the student’s response did not address the question. He and other faculty members were disturbed by the president’s starting the conversation with a threat.
Around the same time, professors David Noe and Kevin Culberson published an article in the student newspaper in which they asserted that the Bible is not the only source of truth. “The Bible does not tell us how to fix a door jamb or file a brief in appellate court,” the article said. “While it is true that the Bible contains all we need to know for reconciliation with God, it does not include all the information we need to live happy and productive lives.”
Farris endorsed a 2,600-word rebuttal, authored by the college chaplain, which implied that the professors’ original article had violated the college’s statement of biblical worldview.
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