Conscious Torment

Ophelia, over at the ButterfliesAndWheels blog, confesses that she doesn’t understand why people willingly sign up to elements contained in the statement of faith published by Patrick Henry College, a Christian university in the US. It’s probably because they don’t even think about what is being said.

Actually, the web page of the university setting out its mission and values makes fairly scary reading as a whole. I love the flip-flop when it comes to studying biology at PHC:

Creation. Any biology, Bible or other courses at PHC dealing with creation will teach creation from the understanding of Scripture that God’s creative work, as described in Genesis 1:1-31, was completed in six twenty-four hour days. All faculty for such courses will be chosen on the basis of their personal adherence to this view. PHC expects its faculty in these courses, as in all courses, to expose students to alternate theories and the data, if any, which support those theories. In this context, PHC in particular expects its biology faculty to provide a full exposition of the claims of the theory of Darwinian evolution, intelligent design and other major theories while, in the end, teach creation as both biblically true and as the best fit to observed data.

And then there’s:

Government systems such as communism and socialism, which give the government primary control over property, are a violation of God’s creation order.

And finally, we have:

Equality. We hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. All human beings are created in God’s image, and all are precious and equal in His sight. Bigotry is a sin against God and man.

Perhaps the authors could ponder the extent of their own bigotry while reading Matthew 7:3. Clearly, some men are created more equal than others.

Oh well, for light relief, perhaps we should attend the PHC’s drama club’s production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband.