(Update) Bruce Waltke no longer with RTS after statements on evolution

Old Testament scholar, Bruce Waltke, who posted a video at Biologos on why evangelicals need to embrace evolution, resigned from Reformed Theological Seminary this last week.  The lesson of being a professor at a confessional school, especially after Peter Enns was dismissed from Westminster Theological Seminary, seems to be that any professor who really wants serious academic freedom needs to look elsewhere.  No school can offer unfettered academic freedom, especially if you want tenure, you’ll definitely have hoops to jump through.  However, being confessional, at least, very conservative and confessional, seems to imply that one’s soul is duty bound to the confession as interpreted by one’s community.  The limitations are absolutely more restrictive and this means that thinking outside the box may eventually move one outside of the community.

From USA Today:

Asked if this limits academic freedom, Milton said: “We are a confessional seminary. I’m a professor myself, but I do not have a freedom that would go past the boundaries of the confession. Nor do I have a freedom that would allow me to express my views in such a way to hurt or impugn someone who holds another view.” Indeed he added that the problem with what Waltke said was as much his suggestion that religion will lose support over these issues as his statements about evolution itself. (The statement of faith at the seminary states: “Since the Bible is absolutely and finally authoritative as the inerrant Word of God, it is the basis for the total curriculum.”) Continue reading…

UPDATE: Christianity Today is reporting (with a HT: to Justin Taylor who originally broke the news) that Bruce Waltke is (for now) heading to Knox Theological Seminary (Fort Lauderdale, FL).  Knox, I might add, also went through its own near-split a couple years ago over the less than literal interpretative methodology of Dr. Warren Gage.