Religious Colleges Fleeing Their Denominations

Georgetown College in Kentucky has severed its ties with the Baptist church, and you might be surprised to learn why:

The request seemed simple enough to the Rev. Hershael W. York, then the president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He asked Georgetown College, a small Baptist liberal arts institution here, to consider hiring for its religion department someone who would teach a literal interpretation of the Bible.

But to William H. Crouch Jr., the president of Georgetown, it was among the last straws in a struggle that had involved issues like who could be on the board of trustees and whether the college encouraged enough freedom of inquiry to qualify for a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Dr. Crouch and his trustees decided it was time to end the college’s 63-year affiliation with the religious denomination. “From my point of view, it was about academic freedom,’’ Dr. Crouch said. “I sat for 25 years and watched my denomination become much more narrow and, in terms of education, much more interested in indoctrination.’’

In other words, the school did not feel comfortable hiring professors who would teach what the denomination actually believed. Based on that they should have left the denomination, but what does it tell us about the state of religious education when a college feels it must end a denominational relationship rather than hire someone who believes a literal interpretation of the Bible?

There are more examples in the article.