Carson-Newman College - The Tragically Clear Confession - in their own words

Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, TN was one of the 200 colleges and institutions whose key administrators were given the opportunity to participate in the survey upon which the book Already Compromised by Ken Ham and Greg Hall was based.  These 200 institutions were selected because they were considered to be Christian institutions of higher education.  The survey was designed to record the personal beliefs of these college administrators about the Bible and biblical authority, and also to record what these administrators would claim about the worldview from which students at their institution were being taught in the classroom.  Unfortunately, the survey results were generalized, so that survey information that might apply to any particularly college or university is not available.  Also, there was no way to judge the veracity of the claims of these administrators with regard to what their own faculty members were actually teaching in the classroom.

The earlier blog posted by this writer on June 16, 2011 provided evidence that Carson-Newman College was "already compromised" as an institution that should be upholding the authority of Scripture as early as the 1970s and 1980s.  This evidence was based on the contents of an essay titled "A History of the Department of Religion at Carson-Newman College" written by a faculty member of that department and published in 2005 by Mercer University Press.  (The 2005 publication date was incorrectly given as March 1995 in this earlier blog post.)

The strongest evidence of what faculty members have actually been teaching in the college classroom should be provided by the actual spoken, written, and published words of these same faculty members.  Carson-Newman College has published an annual journal of her faculty's scholarly works since 1963.  Originally titled Faculty Studies, the name of this publication was changed to Carson-Newman Studies in 1994 to reflect a broader pool of contributors.  Published by the office of the Vice-President of the college, these annual volumes contain a variety of articles, essays, lectures, and papers that purport to represent intellectual endeavors of the faculty and staff of the college, together with lectures given by speakers invited to the campus, reflections and remarks of distinguished alumni, and other articles written by members of the college community other than faculty and academic staff, including an occasional undergraduate student working under the direct supervision of a faculty member.  Links to the eleven most recent volumes, for the years 2000-2010, are available at the college library's special collections internet site, which is  http://library.cn.edu/speccoll/cn_studies/  .  These links will take you to a pdf version of each individual issue.

The editor for the first eight of these annual volumes available on the internet (2000-2007) was Dr. Don H. Olive, Sr., Dean of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy.  The managing editor named for each individual volume is usually the person who happens to occupy the position Vice President for Academic Affairs (or Provost) at the time of publication.  The front cover of these volumes typically contains the following disclaimer:  "Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the editors or of Carson-Newman College.  Statements of fact are the responsibility of the individual contributors."

The preface for each of these volumes typically includes "A Word from the Editors" that usually provides editorial comments on the theme and contents of each volume.  Only one time in these eleven on-line volumes did the editors consider it necessary to include within these editorial comments their additional disclaimer for one of the articles published in that volume.  This specific individual disclaimer in that one volume, the Fall 2000 volume, suggests that the contents of that one article touched a highly sensitive nerve for the Carson-Newman community.

The Fall 2000 volume of Carson-Newman Studies contains a thirteen-page essay titled Jesus Loves Me This I Know, "For the Bible Tells Me So".  This essay was written by Nathan K. Miles, a graduate of Carson-Newman and a non-academic staff member who is the grandson of the late Dr. Herbert J. Miles, Professor of Sociology at Carson-Newman for 19 years (1953-1972).  Fifteen years after his retirement, Dr. Miles published a book The Evangelical Dilemma, that provided his convictions concerning the validity, reliability, and absolute truthfulness of the Bible.  The essay by the younger Miles was dedicated to the memory of his grandfather, and included the following purpose statement:  "My purpose in writing this essay is to explain how Christians may be assured that the Bible is the revealed truth of God and a reliable source of knowledge that we may turn to for answers to our spiritual questions.  In this essay, I will (1) explain the relationship between objective and subjective knowledge in specific regard to Scripture, (2) list several examples from the Bible that claim itself to be truth from God, (3) describe how a person can be assured that the Bible is true, and (4) show the premises and end-results of philosophy that claims 'no scriptural absolutes'."  Submission of this essay on this subject by its author was a bold initiative at Carson-Newman College.

While the editors chose to allow this essay to be published, they specifically addressed the subject matter of this essay with the following editorial comment and disclaimer in their editors' preface:  "The article by Nathan Miles is in honor of and reflects the thinking of his grandfather, Professor Herbert J. Miles, who taught sociology at the college for many years and in retirement published The Evangelical Dilemma.  Bellicose Biblicism has been and continues to be a part of Baptist life, as is evidenced by recent changes in the Baptist Faith and Message.  Mr. Miles' article is sermonic in nature and reflects a position that is not that of the college as a whole or the Religion Department of the college."  (Underline and bold added)

This editorial comment and disclaimer directed toward this specific article in the Fall 2000 issue of Carson-Newman Studies was a revealing statement of the worldview accepted and taught by the faculty and academic staff of Carson-Newman College.  The editors rejected not only the conclusions contained in the essay, but also the theological convictions published by their former colleague, Dr. Miles, regarding the nature, truth, and authority of God's Word.  They used a word meaning quarrelsome to describe those Baptists and other Christians who hold that the Bible is true and means what it says about itself.  The overwhelming approval of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 by messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention only months prior to the publication of this Fall 2000 volume was cited by the Carson-Newman editors as their example of bellicose Biblicism.  Is it possible that the editors recognized that the BF&M 2000 directs our attention to one or more of the raging issues of postmodern culture where the beliefs of the Carson-Newman faculty and its Religion Department may depart from the witness of Scripture?

In their own words, as documented in official Carson-Newman College publications available in the archives of the college library, the faculty and academic staff of the college have confessed clearly and tragically that Carson-Newman College has become the quintessential "already compromised" Baptist college.  Other articles from these same official publications of the college have much more to say about the worldview from which classes at Carson-Newman College have been taught, including issues involving creation versus evolution.  Stay tuned!