Not Everyone on Baptist Campus Keen on ID Lecturer's Pending Visit
by Jim Brown
January 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A leading intelligent design proponent with doctorates from Cambridge and Oxford has been invited to speak next month at a Southern Baptist university in Alabama. But the upcoming event has drawn harsh criticism from members of the school's science faculty. On February 27, Samford University will host Dr. John Lennox, a fellow in mathematics at Oxford University in England who has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications to his name. The lecture on intelligent design (ID) is sponsored by a Birmingham-based Christian ministry called the Fixed Point Foundation.
However, a group of Samford faculty members lead by geography professor Max Baber argues that ID is not science and that the lecture violates the supposed "separation of church and state." Larry Taunton, executive director of the Fixed Point Foundation and a Samford alumnus, says the lecture will go on despite the protests.
"The president of the university is committed to the lecture," says Taunton, "and it's been unfortunate that some have sought to politicize the event rather than just considering the merits of the argument itself."
Taunton is convinced that critics of ID theory on the private school campus are trying to censor opposing views on evolution.
"Professors on campus who do not agree with intelligent design have the right to express that" he acknowledges. "I just wish that it had not taken a tone that sought to politicize this and block it from taking place on the campus."
Professor Baber could not be reached for comment.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
