How were the Fourteen Chosen?, pt 2

“I’ll tell Wormwood to follow your example.” *

Continuing along the lines of my previous post, I shall try to understand how the Fired Fourteen were chosen from the thirty.

Synod presented us with a dozen reasons why members were released from the Board of Trustees: fiscal mismanagement that occurred before any of the Board members were appointed, competing visions for Erskine’s future, too many members on the Board, the “integration of faith and learning,” a “culture of intimidation,” however that fits, and lack of “independence” from the administration. I have already examined these issues, and look now upon how the specific members of the Board were chosen to be fired.

I want to give Synod the benefit of the doubt. Surely they took the time to reason, logically, through the issues. Surely Synod acted in fairness and in due process, two qualities every affirmative vote at Synod should heartily support, then they must have chosen sixteen members of the Board for replacement because of inadequacies in those members or, to put it another way, fourteen members of the board were culpable in something while the rest of the board was not. Fourteen members knew something and did not act appropriately, or did not know something they should have, or voted to hide something that the other sixteen members voted to expose. Do you get my drift? Assuming Synod acted out of due process and for just cause, something set fourteen members of the Board apart from the other sixteen.

Let’s figure out what set the Fourteen apart.

Did the Fourteen know of fiscal mismanagement and hide the problem? Did they vote against correcting the error or in favor of perpetrating the mistake? Did the Fourteen ignore pleas of help from administrators trying to end the corruption, while the Sixteen did all they could to end it? Or was the entire board ignorant, and hence all equally guilty, or equally innocent? We found out at the hearing that all members of the Board were appointed after the two issues took place. How then are the Fourteen culpable in the first place – and especially how are they more culpable than the Sixteen?

On Inerrancy, the Board requires each incoming professor to swear allegiance to the autographs. We are told that some recent hires lied about this: my first thought on hearing the news was, “Gee goly, let’s fire half the Board!” I’ll forgive you for not thinking as sanctified a thought as myself. Why should the Board suffer for the lies (deceitful miscreants that these professors are) of employees? Better yet: what makes the Fourteen more culpable than the remaining Sixteen?

Maybe the board was too large, despite the fact that a) the board agreed to reduce its size over six years, and b) the Board is equivalently sized to other Boards at other schools in the region. Regardless, I’ve already discussed the incredible chance of a specific Fourteen being fired out of thirty. While I may be satisfied with God working through chance to fire the select fourteen that disagreed with myself, you may not be as convinced.

The ever-popular catchphrase “Culture of Intimidation” is a popular reason for taking over the Board, but I’m going to admit there is precious little to link the Board to any intimidation (be it real or imagined). What does the Board have to do with this issue, anyway? Can we really say that anybody on the board is guilty? Did the Fired Fourteen vote to support Jay West while the Surviving Sixteen voted to chastise him? Did the Fourteen intimidate students as a group while the Sixteen tried to stop them? And what of members appointed after the Jay West incident? How are they culpable in an incident that occurred before they took office?

When members of the Commission went to Erskine shortly after the vote, they were pressed hard to explain how the Fourteen were chosen. They could not – or would not – do so. After much verbiage about having the right alumni/minister ratio and such (which, I would point out, the "real" board satisfied), one commissioner said in effect, I didn’t make the choice – it just happened.

Great redirect! I’ll tell Wormwood to follow your example.

I'll buy that you were just a pawn - that you didn't make the choice. But who did? Why? How? As God as your witness, do you, Commissioner, really have no idea? And if so, how can you justify your recommendations and your vote to your fellow Christians and to our God, who is a Just God?

Of course we all know the answer. Synod thought the Fourteen disagreed with them. This is no baseless claim by radicals on the Alumni Facebook group – incredibly, the Commission explicitly said so in their report!

This is quite long, so tomorrow: what they said.

 

*I’m really disappointed that I wrote this a week ago and didn’t post it until today, because Chuck Wilson made a Screwtape Letters reference on his site yesterday. Darn. I guess the difference between Chuck and I, as always, is this:

Chuck’s world – Oppose Synod – Allied with Satan (literally)

Temperance’s world – Ignore a direct question – Good example for a demon to follow.

I’ll let you decide which is the better approach.