I didn't know Huntington faculty wrote for the chronicle...

This is the latest Chronicle of Higher Ed. posting regarding John Sanders being dismissed from Huntington. Apparently Burton Bollag is a psuedonym for Jack Heller or David Woodruff. The sarcasm in the last line is the basis for this argument.

PEER REVIEW
Huntington College Offers a Golden Parachute to Religion Professor; U. of California Creates a Job for Partner of Santa Cruz Chancellor; John Edwards to Lead New Center at U. of North Carolina
By BURTON BOLLAG, MICHELLE DIAMENT, and PIPER FOGG
PLEASE LEAVE: The Board of Trustees of Huntington College, a United Brethren Church institution in Indiana, wants to get rid of John E. Sanders in the worst way. Mr. Sanders, 48, a research professor of philosophy and religion, has been at the college for seven years.
The board spent much of a three-day retreat in Carefree, Ariz., last month considering the large outpouring of support for Mr. Sanders from Huntington's president, faculty members, and students, before offering him a one-year paid sabbatical next academic year and at least one more year's salary if he agrees to resign.

The problem is that Mr. Sanders is a prominent proponent of Open Theism. That minority approach within evangelical theology maintains that the future, rather than being foreordained, unfolds through a continuous give-and-take between God and humans.

Mr. Sanders, whose books include The God Who Risks (InterVarsity Press, 1998), narrowly escaped being expelled from the Evangelical Theological Society in 2003 following accusations that Open Theism was heretical.

That same year Huntington put Mr. Sanders on a rolling three-year contract, after the board objected to his being granted tenure. In a recent statement, the board said it was committed to maintaining the college's "historic identity, rather than being identified by theological controversy."

But don't blame the board. Mr. Sanders's dismissal may have been planned since before the beginning of time.

posted by Jake Sikora @ 2:18 PM