When An Educator's Faith Becomes An Messy Issue

Ah, the great enterprise of academic scientific inquiry just isn't what is used to be these days.

At one time, Western science's post-Enlightenment "tolerance" of religion among it's practitioners was more or less an uneasy truce that juggled materialistic skepticism and metaphysical wonder freely. With the rise of radically atheistic humanism in the last century or so, the stakes have now considerably changed with naturalism clearly the most dominant line of reasoning, a perspective firmly rejecting the supernatural or metaphysical from any serious consideration in its theorizing. Never mind that it's psuedo scientific theories on the universe's origins following evolutionary lines are easily as bizarre a tale as any they might harangue others about, namely, those who feel God created the universe and man.

So once you consider these are the Biblically foretold last days when most of our repositors of empirical discovery are also those who "did not like to retain God in their knowledge" (Roman 1:28), is it any wonder that a Christian professor finds himself told to get with the program? Nah. That's what University of Texas educator and researcher Dr. C.R. Haskell had the unmitigated temerity to do: he missed the memo circulating among his fellow astronomers and physicists that retaining this incovenient theistic belief could short circuit your career path. He just happened to get asked about his faith when seeking to become employed at the University of Kentucky by those interviewing him, which, after confirming his unfortunate bent towards Christianity, became too much to handle and very likely resulted to his being passed over for a job he seemed qualified for.

It's yet another all too familiar tale of how secular institutional bigotry, paid for by millions of tax dollars collected from Kentuckians who are largely Evangelical, gets a free ride at the expense of one man's conscience. Even an anti-creationist screed, in reporting on the affair, couldn't ruffle it's righteous feathers enough to cover up the UK's intolerance. It's all just another dispatch from the apostacy .. any surprise is clearly coincedental.