Better in their words…

Gets to a critical argument…
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By ALAN BLINDERMAY 20, 2014

DAYTON, Tenn. — William Jennings Bryan earned a permanent place in American history nearly nine decades ago in the Scopes trial, when he stood in a courtroom here and successfully prosecuted a teacher who broke the law by teaching evolution in a public school.

While not quite “the fantastic cross between a circus and a holy war,” as Time magazine put it, that captivated the nation in 1925, a similar debate is again playing out in Dayton, this time at an evangelical Christian college named for Bryan, which is being sued as part of a controversy over its own stance on the origin of humans.

The continuing debate at Bryan College and beyond is a reminder of how divisive the issues of the Scopes trial still are, even splitting an institution whose motto is “Christ Above All.” Playing out at a time when the teaching of evolution remains a cultural hot spot to a degree that might have stunned its proponents in Bryan’s era, the debate also reflects the problems many Christian colleges face as they try to balance religious beliefs with secular education.

Since Bryan College’s founding in 1930, its statement of belief, which professors have to sign as part of their employment contracts, included a 41-word section summing up the institution’s conservative views on creation and evolution, including the statement: “The origin of man was by fiat of God.” But in February, college officials decided that professors had to agree to an additional clarification declaring that Adam and Eve “are historical persons created by God in a special formative act, and not from previously existing life-forms.”

For administrators and many members of the governing board at Bryan, the new language is a buffer against what they see as a marked erosion of Christian values and beliefs across the country. But for critics, the clarification amounts to an assault on personal religious views, as well as on the college’s history and sense of community.

“It makes Bryan a different place,” said Allison Baker, who graduated this month and was the vice president of the student government, which raised questions about the clarification’s swift enactment. “I would argue it makes it a more narrow place.”

The consequences so far have been stark at a college where about one-quarter of incoming students were home-schooled and whose alumni routinely earn spots in graduate programs at secular institutions. Two longtime faculty members this month sued the college, arguing that the Board of Trustees was powerless under the college’s charter to change the statement of belief. Brian Eisenback, a biology professor and a Bryan graduate whose parents met on campus, decided to move to another Christian college.

Faculty members, spurred in part by the clarification, said they had no confidence in Bryan’s president, Stephen D. Livesay. And before the academic year ended this month, hundreds of students, on a campus with an enrollment of more than 700, petitioned trustees in opposition to the plan.

Dr. Livesay said the clarification, which will not change the curriculum in any way, was intended to reaffirm, not alter, the institution’s traditional position. He said concerns had been building for years that some employees had perhaps moved “away from the historical and current position of the college.”

“We want to remain faithful to the historical charter of the school and what we have always practiced through the years,” Dr. Livesay said. “There has never been a need, up until today, to truly clarify and make explicit what has been part of the school for 84 years.”  He added, “We want to make certain that we view culture through the eyes of faith, that we don’t view our faith through the eyes of culture.”

Many Christian institutions of higher education require employees to sign doctrinal statements as administrators seek to blend religious traditions with academic standards.  “The struggle for Christian colleges is to try to define how a Christian college is different from a Christian church,” said William C. Ringenberg, the author of a book on the history of Protestant colleges in the United States. “Is one different from the other?”

For Dr. Eisenback, who is writing a book with support from an organization that has called the college’s clarified stance “scientifically untenable,” teaching an array of perspectives was an act of faith in itself.  “Because of the culture war that is raging with Scripture and age of the Earth and so on, I think it’s important for me to teach my students the same material they would hear at any state university,” said Dr. Eisenback, who accepted a job at Milligan College, also in Tennessee, amid the discord here. “But then also, as a Christian who is teaching at a Christian liberal arts college, I think it’s important that they be educated on the different ways that people read relevant Scripture passages.” Others at Bryan insist that the college’s doctrinal stances should take precedence.

“Academic freedom is not sacrosanct,” Kevin L. Clauson, a professor of politics and justice, wrote in a letter to the editor of The Bryan Triangle, a campus publication. “It too must submit to God in a Christian college.”

Some question whether the new statement is consistent with school policies outlined in a 2010 internal document for board members, which said that because Bryan is a college, not a church, it does not set itself up as a judge on ecclesiastical matters and does not attempt to prescribe what other Christians do.  “The trustees do not legislate ‘stands’ for faculty or students,” said the document, which was included in a court filing.

Bryan is not the first Christian college in recent years to deal with internal strife. Shorter University, a Southern Baptist institution in Georgia, was criticized in 2011 after it said employees would have to “reject as acceptable all sexual activity not in agreement with the Bible,” including premarital sex and homosexuality. And Cedarville University in Ohio, whose administration was censured in 2009 by the American Association of University Professors, has endured years of debate and litigation about academic freedom and doctrinal standards.

Such debates often take place, Dr. Ringenberg said, as the colleges try to fine-tune the balance of faith and education. “Soon enough, the two of them will clash if you’re serious about academics and serious about having a biblical view of Christianity,” he said.  Dr. Livesay said that Bryan’s leaders were determined to proceed with the clarification.

“I don’t think you have to believe the Bryan way in order to be a strong evangelical,” he said. “But this is Bryan College, and this is something that’s important to us. It’s in our DNA. It’s who we are.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 21, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: College Is Torn: Can Darwin and Eden Coexist?. Order Reprints|Today’s Paper|Subscribe

Bryan College Is Torn: Can Darwin and Eden Coexist? – NYTimes.com.