Fired teacher taking case to higher court

The US State of Ohio

John Whithead - the Rutherford Institute

By Bob Kellogg
One attorney says an Ohio science teacher, fired for asking his students to think critically about the theory of evolution, has every reason to take his case to the state Supreme Court.The Rutherford Institute is defending John Freshwater, who was suspended in 2008 and fired in 2010 from Mount Vernon Middle School for teaching alternative theories to evolution.

"In most schools … they teach [evolution] as a fact. It's not a fact; it's still a theory. There are different viewpoints by people all the way from Albert Einstein to Ben Stein, the comedian," notes Institute president John Whitehead. "So there [are] a lot of different opinions on it, but all this man was trying to do is get the kids to think it through, and obviously the school district did not want that."

Though the school board, a county judge and the Fifth Circuit have upheld the action taken against Freshwater, Whitehead is confident that the Ohio Supreme Court will hear the case.

"I think they will review it, and if this doesn't go well, the Ohio Supreme Court will talk to John Freshwater to see if he wants to go to the U.S. Supreme Court," the attorney predicts.Freshwater is arguing that his religious and academic freedoms were violated. He also asserts that he never mentioned creationism or intelligent design during his instructions. When the science teacher was suspended, students showed their support for him by carrying Bibles to class and wearing T-shirts with crosses.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.