One thing I found out after a teaching at two Christian colleges (one as an adjunct and the other as a professor), is that the powers-that-be do not want faculty to stand out. Whereas a secular institution is generally happy if faculty are out there making news, conservative Christian colleges don’t want faculty angering anyone who might withhold donations as a result.
So if you wonder why so many faculty at Christian colleges appear to be a bland lot, that’s why. Outspoken folks like Karen Swallow Prior (formerly at Liberty University, now at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) are rare. Prior never got fired from Liberty but others of us weren’t so lucky,
The list of Christian faculty kicked out of their institutions now includes James Spiegel, a newly dismissed professor from the evangelically minded Taylor University in Indiana. We’ll start with Emily McFarlan Miller’s RNS story to get the basics:
A longtime faculty member at Taylor University no longer has a job at the Christian school, reportedly after posting a video of a song he’d written titled “Little Hitler” on YouTube.
An email sent Tuesday (Sept. 1) to the “Taylor University Family” from the school’s president, provost, dean and board chair confirmed James Spiegel, a professor of philosophy and religion, no longer is employed by the university in Upland, Indiana.
Spiegel, who had been employed by the university since 1993, according to his curriculum vitae, is a controversial figure on campus.
He wrote a petition opposing plans to bring Starbucks to campus because of its “stands on the sanctity of life and human sexuality” and signed onto another supporting Vice President Mike Pence’s invitation to speak last year at graduation. Taylor's president resigned a month after Pence's visit, which sparked sharp disagreement on campus.
So here’s a guy who’s been on campus 27 years and they only now decide they don’t want him?
Spiegel told Taylor’s student newspaper, The Echo, that he was fired after he posted and declined to remove a YouTube video two weeks ago in which he performed an original song titled “Little Hitler." The professor claimed the school had received a harassment complaint about the video. He also said he previously had performed the song at chapel and at a faculty retreat, according to The Echo.
The song includes the lyrics: “We’re appalled at injustice and oppression and every atrocity that makes the nightly news, but just give it a thought: If you knew you’d never get caught, you’d be thieving and raping and murdering, too.”
Sounds basic Christian theology about the depravity of sinful mankind to me. The student newspaper’s account of the firing made it clear that it was Spiegel’s activism on behalf of several causes led to his dismissal. Oddly, the video had been around for 10 years.
“I have performed it numerous times in various places, including in a Taylor chapel in October 2010 and at a Taylor Colleagues College faculty retreat to about 120 faculty,” Spiegel wrote. “There were no complaints in either case.”
Spiegel has also been in the limelight for recent controversial actions, such as the authorship of the “Excalibur” newsletter in early 2018, and for authorship of the petition in spring of 2019 against an on-campus Starbucks which never materialized on campus.
When asked if these controversies added to the decision for his termination, Spiegel wrote that “many people believe that is the case.”
Reporting on this sort of thing is harder than it looks. There are many layers. While looking at various blogs that were commenting on the issue, one by John Fea struck my eye. Read this paragraph closely:
Should he be fired for “Little Hitler”? I can’t answer that question. I would need to know more about the local culture on campus at Taylor and the way Spiegel and his song fit into that culture. Perhaps there is a larger story here. Maybe this is more than just an academic freedom issue.
Some of you might be surprised to know that Christian universities closely guard the idea of their institutions having a “culture” that cannot be disturbed. This is not just an idea from the Right. You’ve no doubt read about how college campuses tend to have almost zero conservative and/or Republican faculty because the liberal mindset of these places doesn’t want anyone countering the zeitgeist.
