Cedarville University Turmoil Hits Chronicle of Higher Education
Mar 07 by Ingrid Schlueter
The ongoing problems at Cedarville University have been covered by the Chronicle of Higher Edcation. The publication is the largest and most respected digest covering academic issues in America. The firing of two tenured Bible professors who had just been given contracts a few months earlier has also now resulted in an investigation by the American Association of University Professors.
The article points out that a theological debate going on at Cedarville University has played a role in the controversy.
“A theological impasse dividing Cedarville’s campus has also played a role in the controversy. Known as the “truth and certainty debate,” the dispute involves a somewhat rarefied but hotly contested question of faith: Can Christians enjoy certainty of Biblical truth, or do they merely have the assurance of their faith that the Bible is factual?
It is a question that folds into a still larger debate over how much Christianity should reconcile with the intellectual context of postmodernity. Those who hold to a belief in certainty, Mr. Hoffeditz and Mr. Mappes among them, tend to consider themselves more theologically conservative. “
It’s the same battle going on everywhere today, but Cedarville is a particularly sad place in which to see the war against certainty. It was once a strong biblical institution.
