Erskine College Professor Fired For Supporting Science

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

Erskine College is a small, private, four year Christian liberal arts college located in South Carolina. William Crenshaw, who taught at the college for 35 years, earning tenure, an endowed chair, and teaching awards was fired for his dissent of Erskine’s teaching of science.

Erskine offers a Bachelor of Science degree and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Crenshaw commented:

Science is the litmus test on the validity of the educational enterprise. If a school teaches real science, it’s a pretty safe bet that all other departments are sound. If it teaches bogus science, everything else is suspect…. I want a real college, not one that rejects facts, knowledge, and understanding because they conflict with a narrow religious belief. Any college that lets theology trump fact is not a college; it is an institution of indoctrination. It teaches lies. Colleges do not teach lies. Period.

Erskine College is part of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) that holds to the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible. Since the Bible is an inanimate object incapable of fallibility or errancy, this really means  that ARP’s interpretation of the Bible is infallible and inerrant.

ARP is a small denomination with only 250 churches. This number is too small to maintain a faculty and student body of only ARP members. Crenshaw’s firing will send a message to the other 39 faculty members that academic freedom will not be tolerated.

Erskine’s majors include Biology, Natural Science, and Physics. This incident should draw the scrutiny and reevaluation of its accreditation in these areas. The risk of losing its accreditation will do more to discourage potential students than anything Crenshaw said.

A BS degree from Erskine is going to mean diddle squat when applying to a reputable graduate school.

H/T: Inside Higher Ed, Pharyngula.