Abbotsford, Alabama

One of the most ridiculous controversies in which I ever found myself involved the full-frontal attack on the Abbotsford school district by those who insisted that we were teaching biblical creationism.

We were accused of such by a gentleman from outside our district who, knowing nothing about our practice, blew the whistle on the school trustees for forcing their religion on the district by requiring that creationism and evolution be given equal time in the classroom. While this was a ridiculous accusation, it garnered widespread attention in the media, including all of the national Canadian television networks and CNN.

No matter what I told people about the actual practice, the same tired stereotypes were published again and again. I finally complained to one Canadian Press reporter that I lived in Abbotsford BC, not Abbotsford Alabama.

[For a rather good study of the whole business, see Lois Sweet, God in the Classroom, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1997, chap. 11.]

What we actually did, by the way, was allow a student in, say, a grade 12 biology class, to do individual study on the creationism v. evolution debate, with the teacher choosing whether to allow any brief discussion of same in class. This approach was completely in accord with the curriculum guides of the day.

Art Charbonneau, the Minister of Education, who assumed that because I was a professor at Trinity Western University I must also be a fanatic from the religious right, refused to meet with me, substituting his deputy minister instead and threatening to fire all us trustees if we didn't cease and desist from this loathsome practice. But to do that, he had to first re-write the curriculum guides that permitted the practice. Realizing after the fact that this would also affect faith-based high schools, he quietly revised them yet again a short time later. Brilliant chap.

The issue for me was never one of religion. While I'm no scientist, I felt that the evolutionary view was probably a better understanding of the scientific data, as did the majority of the board. What we were united on was that we were representatives of all the citizens of Abbotsford, not just the ones who shared our view (i.e., the evolutionists, who may have been at best a small majority of the city at the time). For me it was an issue of freedom of inquiry for the students, and representing the public interest. Apparently Mr. Charbonneau and the national media weren't interested in this angle, even though I talked about it repeatedly.

The one good thing that came out of it all was that I led the school trustee polls three out of the next four times I ran. All's well that ends well, I suppose.