First up from The God Machine this week is an unusual story out of Iowa, dealing with the intersection of religion and academic freedom (via Ron Chusid).
A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted.
Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday.
“I’m just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master’s degree, a couple actually, have to teach that there were such things as talking snakes or lose their job,” Bitterman said.
Bitterman reportedly uses the Old Testament in his course on western civilization, but teaches from an academic standpoint. “I put the Hebrew religion on the same plane as any other religion. Their god wasn’t given any more credibility than any other god,” Bitterman said. “I told them it was an extremely meaningful story, but you had to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense, that if you took it literally, that you were going to miss a whole lot of meaning there.”
He apparently referred to the story of Adam and Eve a “fairy tale” in a conversation with a student after class, but the student was offended, and threatened to call an attorney. The next thing Bitterman knows, his classroom services are no longer needed.
“As a taxpayer, I’d like to know if a tax-supported public institution of higher learning has given veto power over what can and cannot be said in its classrooms to a fundamentalist religious group,” he said. “If it has … then the taxpaying public of Iowa has a right to know. What’s next? Whales talk French at the bottom of the sea?”
Other items from the God Machine this week:
* There’s an battle brewing in religious right circles between two of the movement’s heavyweights: Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family. The two agree on practically everything when it comes to theology and social worldviews, but Land is an enthusiastic supporter of Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign, whereas Dobson has publicly rebuked the actor/lobbyist/politician. This has apparently caused quite a rift between the two.
* A new video documentary from some religious activists attempts to prove that global warming is probably real, but it’s the result of Noah’s flood, which covered the globe 5,000 years ago.
* Remember that effort to purge prison chapel libraries of innocuous religious texts? After an outcry from religious groups, civil libertarians and members of Congress, the federal Bureau of Prisons has backed down. The agency will also return religious materials that had been removed.
* It didn’t generate nearly as much attention as the Columbia University panel, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week had a far less contentious chat with Christian leaders from the United States and Canada in a church across the street from the United Nations. According to an NYT report, “Mr. Ahmadinejad’s smile at times turned to a grimace as the panelists prodded him, politely, about his record on the Holocaust, human rights abuses, Israel and nuclear weapons development. Also politely, he conceded nothing, and often deflected the inquiries by turning the spotlight on the policies of the United States and Israel.”
* And finally, there was an interesting report in the WaPo this week about churches going “hi tech,” including sophisticated video equipment for those who can’t make it to services, and even some ministries that let parishioners download Sunday services online. “Last year, churches spent $8.1 billion on audio and projection equipment, according to Texas-based TFCinfo, an audiovisual market research firm. Today, 80 percent of churches integrate elaborate video and audio systems as well as an array of online materials into their worship services.” The Rev. Grainger Browning Jr., pastor of the 10,000-member Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, said, “I think God would be pleased with this. I don’t think that God would want us to try to evangelize like Jesus did 2,000 years ago.”