I have not yet had the chance to speak to Ken since the U of I made their offer and I have not heard whether he has accepted it or will accept it. However, it seems obvious to me that even if Ken does teach in the fall, there is no way that he can stay there for very long on a paltry $20k a year. Even if he does choose to accept the resolution, without tenure and without an agreement with the Newman Center, Ken will have no recourse if they simply discontinue his classes without providing him a reason. In any case, it is nearly certain that someone other than Ken will be teaching classes on Catholicism at the U of I in the near future, or as the UI associate chancellor for public affairs called it, “the theory of Catholicism.”
The head of the Religion Department, Robert McKim, made it clear on a number of occasions in the year I was there, that he did not like the arrangement between the U of I and the Newman Center. His preference was that we use the money the Newman Center was paying the faculty toward a Catholic Chair. He and other professors mentioned the type of person they thought should have such a chair. First among the qualifications was someone who was capable of criticizing his faith (is it any wonder why many of my students could not distinguish between critical thinking skills and criticizing things they did not like?).
As if to demonstrate what they meant by who should be teaching Catholicism at the U of I, the department invited two “Catholic” scholars in two consecutive years to give their annual “Thulin Lecture on Religion and Contemporary Culture.” Can you guess who their preferred type of Catholic scholars might be? In 2007 they invited Charlie Curran and in 2008 they brought in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Certainly here they have scholars who have no compunction about criticizing the faith, but I would argue that neither do they have the capacity to critically explain the Catholic faith from an inside perspective. With “Catholic” scholars such as these, you may as well have a Buddhist or Muslim teaching Catholicism…in fact, the latter might even be more even handed.
Whether it will be a Catholic chair, one of the existing professors of Christianity (both of whom have exhibited animus toward authentic Catholic thought in a variety of ways), or a new hire there is little doubt in my mind that after Ken Howell those who teach these classes will no longer be engaging the students with authentic Catholic thought. As an example, one of the existing professors of Christianity was assigned to “mentor” me in establishing a syllabus I was developing for a class on Catholic morality. He advised me that since there was no continuity between the early Church Fathers and Scripture, that I should remove the Scriptural background from my syllabus. You see, in the department of religion, those teaching about Christianity have to hold to Harnackian orthodoxy (i.e. the Hellenization of Christianity). He also advised that I remove all discussion of Church documents from my syllabus because no one really cares about what the Church teaches anyway. Of course, I indicated to him that to follow his recommendations would give a distorted view of Catholic morality. I said that Harnack’s theory was simply that, a theory about which we disagreed. I also told him that the Magisterium was one of the unique things about Catholicism; that whether you followed it or not, everyone teaching about Catholicism has to take it as a point of reference. Of course, one can see more clearly now why I was deemed ill suited to teach in their department.
It seems that the U of I did not waste this crisis. They took it as an opportunity to abrogate an almost century long agreement so that they now have the ability to choose a professor who thinks as they do; that is, one who may not be qualified to teach authentic Catholic thought but at least will not be given to call into question secular orthodoxy.
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