Trapped

Dear Boo and Bubble,

While on the faculty of Eastside High School, I had one other run-in with someone of Bob Jones University persuasion.  This one was not as surprising and revelatory as the incident with Mr. Knighton’s student teacher.  In fact, it reinforced my own surmises as to the nature of Jones’ influence on his followers.  As it goes, I found myself caught in a very predictable trap and thought I had extricated myself quite cleverly from it.  But, I was wrong.

It was on a Friday as I recall which only becomes significant at the end of this story.  My American History classes had slogged through their textbooks into the turn of the 20^th Century and the time leading up to the Great Depression.  One of the sub-chapters in this section of the book covered a driving business philosophy of the era known as Economic Darwinism.  In a nutshell, governmental regulatory controls over large companies were non-existent which meant they could dominate markets and suppress competition.  It was an attitude that adapted to commerce the basic tenet from Charles Darwin’s scientific Theory of Evolution – survival of the fittest.  If you could survive, you could thrive.  Otherwise, you would be eliminated.

Let me give you a little context.  Since its origin, Darwin’s theory on evolution has been one of the most controversial issues ever debated by man.  Its scientific premise that all creation has evolved over billions of years in a natural order of survival comes in direct conflict with the fundamental religious interpretation of divine creation accomplished with the wave of God’s hand only beginning some 6,000 years ago.  The argument over it reflects the often unbridgeable deep divide that some people have between religion and science.

As an American History teacher, I knew that the domain of Darwin belonged in the science classroom.  All of my education classes at Furman underscored that questions about the man and his theories needed to be deferred to those equipped to answer them.  I had been forewarned.  Yet, here in my classroom, guiding my students through the approved text provided me by the authorities, I felt I might be drawn into the dreaded rabbit hole with the discussion of Economic Darwinism.

Sure enough, as I explained survival of the fittest and how it applied to business, one of my students raised her hand with a question.

“Miss Kendrick,” she said, “Do you believe in evolution?”

I knew I wasn’t supposed to answer, but how do you not?  She was my student, an innocent, inquiring 11^th grader - not some subversive, devious intruder planted in my classroom to get me in trouble.  I reflected for a moment on what to say in response and thought I came up with something so profoundly unarguable that it didn’t matter her motivation, she would agree.

“It makes no difference to me,” I said, “whether we evolved like Darwin says or whether we were put here in an instant.  The important thing to me is that in the beginning there was God and our creation is miraculous.  And equally important is that we know who we are now and what needs to be done in the world….so, we need to be about solving problems and doing God’s work.”

She seemed satisfied, or so I thought, since nothing else was said.  I returned to my lecture feeling quite content with myself.

School dismissed for the weekend and, other than feeling I did a masterful job with the situation, I didn’t think about it.  Come Monday morning, Mr. Durr, the principal of Eastside, intercepted me on my way to my classroom and asked me to come to his office.

“WHAT IN THE WORLD DID YOU SAY IN YOUR CLASS ON FRIDAY?” he yelled in as controlled a fashion as he could muster.

“What are you talking about?” I answered, quite shocked because he was normally very calm and affable.

“Did you tell your students that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was the only way we could have been created and that the story in Genesis is hogwash?”

“No, sir, I absolutely did not!”  And I proceeded to explain to him what had happened, how it had all started with the explanation of a term in the textbook and how I had handled it. 

He relaxed then. 

“I didn’t think that you could possibly have done so, but I’ve been getting calls all weekend from several Bob Jones families and they want your head.”

I was mortified, not so much as to what might happen to me, but for the unnecessary barrage he had endured for two days. 

“I am so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry about,” he chuckled slightly.  “I can take care of this.”

As I walked down the hall towards my classroom, he shouted out, “By the way, I like your answer.  And, I think I’ll suggest that, from now on, we skip over that part of history!”