Baptist Colleges Can’t Accept Baptist Theologians

Remember the media storm over Bishop Vasa requesting teachers sign an agreement affirming that “modern errors” regarding “matters that gravely offend human dignity.”? Well I think this story will not get the same attention.

Christian colleges and universities have every right to maintain their denominational heritages. I teach at Houston Baptist University, and I am pleased that our school explicitly holds to its Christian mission:

Many universities call themselves Christian, but cannot bring themselves to talk about the central narrative of the Christian faith – the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection. Yet as Father Richard John Neuhaus has written, “If what Christians say about Good Friday is true, then it is, quite simply, the truth about everything.” The implications of such truths are worth studying and knowing to the fullest – truths we all must confront to have a life worthy of our Creator’s purpose.

Therefore, it is right and good for Christian institutions to ask their faculty to teach in accordance with central tenets of the Christian faith. Recently, however, a couple of Baptist colleges have dismissed theology faculty because they hold to Baptist principles. (source)

Kind of a reverse mandatum.

I wonder how often this also happens in Catholic schools and we just don’t hear about it? I certainly know students who are faithful to the Church can have a hard time of it from their professors. For example Emmy Cecilia at Journey of a Catholic Nerd Writer.

Note: A couple of years ago there was the case of Dr. Kenneth Howell who was fired by the University of Illinois for setting forth Catholic doctrine on homosexuality in a class. Although this was a secular school, but he as hired to teach a class on Catholicism. He was later rehired after the Alliance Defense Fund got involved.