Revelation & Education

If the Bible is the word of God, containing everything necessary for man's salvation, higher education should consist of little more than studying it. This kind of reasoning produced that formidable 19th century institution, the Bible college, in which fundamentalist fervor was the school spirit, Darwin's was the team to beat, and the professor who knew his stuff was the man who could find the applicable verse in the Good Book. In this secularist midcentury, academic acceptance of the Bible college has declined toward the vanishing point. But this month marks the centennial celebration of a dramatic exception. Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., a nonsectarian Protestant Bible college, in its fashion has learned how to reconcile science and scripture.

Strait is the gate and narrow is the way to Wheaton. The questions put to a prospective faculty member constitute a kind of primer of Fundamentalism, e.g., How long have you been saved? Do you accept the account of the creation of the world and man as recorded in Genesis? Do you recognize a position in Wheaton College as a divine calling to Christian service? Have you used tobacco, alcoholic beverages or narcotic drugs in any form within the past year, or danced or played cards or attended the theater or moving-picture theater? The wrong answer to any question automatically eliminates the candidate.

God Through a Microscope? Wheaton College (most prominent alumnus: Billy Graham) has a nine-part credo, which must be signed anew each year by every faculty member and trustee. It includes the literal, divine inspiration of Scripture, the doctrines of the virgin birth, sinfulness of man "in thought, word and deed," the redemption, resurrection and imminent return of Jesus Christ, "the everlasting blessedness of the saved, and the everlasting punishment of the lost."

Such strictures seemed incompatible with the scientific mind a generation ago, but this is no longer the case. Some 25% of Wheaton College's 1,878 students are majoring in science, at least 200 graduates are M.D.s, and 74 have gone on to earn Ph.D.s in the physical or biological sciences. Many faculty members work on projects sponsored by (among others) the Atomic Energy Commission.

Wheaton's religious conservatism is actually more of a drawing card than a drawback to scientists, says Dr. Stanley Parmerter, 39, a Free Methodist, associate professor of chemistry and chairman of the division of science. "Scientists who are also conservative Protestants are attracted to a program like ours, where they can participate as confirmed Christians," he explains. "Our scientists here appreciate the limitations of science. We don't look for God through a microscope."

More Than Nails. Wheaton's fourth president, 59-year-old Dr. Victor Raymond Edman (a minister in the Swedish Mission Covenant Group), sees the Bible and science as two separate systems of knowledge. "Jesus doesn't choose to speak to us on matters scientific," he says. "He could, but he doesn't. Science helps us understand a great deal about the universe, but not about the creator of the universe and his personality." How about the theory of evolution? Says Dr. Russell Mixter of the Plymouth Brethren, zoology professor and chairman of the biological sciences department: "It no more explains the fact of man's existence than nails and wood explain the existence of a house. The carpenter is the real source of the house's existence, and God is the real source of man's."

Wheaton students, predominantly Baptist (702) and Presbyterian (211), are fervent hymn singers and zealous doers of good works in nearby Chicago's hospitals and slums, but the lipsticked coeds and moccasined young men look as trim and handsome as those on any U.S. campus. The restrictions of Wheaton life seem to be no hardship; no more than five or ten students a year are asked to leave for breaking their pledge not to dance, drink, smoke, play cards or go to the movies.

"Our faith isn't blind," says pretty Pat Scheele, 21. "It's real. We have something to hold on to. I don't know where I will be next year, but God knows, and that gives me a good, secure feeling."

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