Politics
Friday March 31, 2006
“Brilliant” Pro-Life Professor Denied Tenure at Prominent Baptist College
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by Hilary White
WACO, March 31, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Baylor College, a Baptist college in Waco, Texas that some have said aspires to be the Protestant version of prestigious Notre Dame, has refused tenure to a highly respected philosopher and lecturer, Francis J. Beckwith. Some are speculating that the denial is for his support of the Intelligent Design (ID) theory of creation and his facility in defending the pro-life position.
Beckwith argues that, while ID needs development that teaching it in public schools is not unconstitutional. This position puts him at odds with the secular Darwinists that control the schools and are fighting in the courts to keep ID out. Toronto writer and ID supporter, Denyse O’Leary, suggests on the Pearcy Report that Beckwith’s conservative Christianity, including his articlate defence of the pro-life position, has put him at odds with Baylor’s attempts to secularize.
Beckwith, a professor of Church-State Studies at Baylor, has an impeccable publication record. He is the author of several books, including a new volume forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. He was associate director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, associate professor of Church-State Studies, and associate editor of the Journal of Church & State. But it is his support for ID as well as his facility for defending the pro-life position that has made him unwelcome at formerly conservative Baylor.
The refusal has caused a stir among academics concerned with freedom of expression. Joseph Bottum, writing March 27th on the First Things website, has commented that Baylor is responding to a tight academic market by shifting away from its niche as a Christian school dedicated to high-level scholarship.
Bottum writes, “Energetic programs like the Intelligent Design institute have been chased away, and the bright young professors are having their academic careers ruined by a school that lured them to campus... and now is simply embarrassed by them.”
The college, O'Leary says, “cannot both launch itself up there with the really big guys and institutionally maintain, with Peter, ‘Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.’
“For one thing, that declaration pretty much makes the case that intelligent design is right and abortion is wrong. Baylor abruptly backed away from the first in 2000 and will probably back away from the second soon too. Its distinguished faculty members do not need the embarrassment of being thought to be pro-life, as Beckwith is.”
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/aug/05082901.html
Read Bottum’s comments at First Things:
http://www.firstthings.com/
Read O’Leary’s comments:
http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2006/03/denyse_oleary_f.php
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