I've been on an emotional roller coaster ever since I heard that one of my favorite professors, "Dr. Thomas Jay Oord", was laid off of the university that is my alma mater. There are other places you can go to read the facts, like the "Support Tom Oord" group on Facebook. Other sites have more details about what is happening. I'm still not much for formal writing. Instead, here is one person's experience of being a student of Thomas Jay Oord's. I proffer (Used intentionally as a word coined by said professor) this account as one of many.
I don't exactly remember my first encounter with Thomas Jay Oord. I remember every class I've taken with him (Critical Thinking, Modern/Postmodern Philosophy, Senior Theology) at two different universities (actually one college and one university because Massachusetts requires professors to have dual doctorates in order for the institution to be considered a university). One of the first "golden nuggets" I remember from Thomas Jay Oord was something like this, a reference to John Wesley: "No matter what I conclude I must conclude that God is love."
That was in a critical thinking class. The good stuff came from Modern/Postmodern Philosophy. This was my first philosophy class ever. And unlike the stereo-typical philosophy professor who just paints a bunch of unrealistic questions, the questions this professor challenged us with were extremely relevant to where I was at. After spending four years at a Calvinistic non-accredited bible school, I was thoroughly confused and I needed some answers. Among many professors, Thomas Jay Oord was one such influential professor. I'll never forget my response to another presenter where I started with "The Bible says it, that settles it" and when I was finished, Thomas Jay Oord asked other students, "Who wants to start?" I knew I was in for it and I actually wanted to be because I knew my thinking was off but I wanted to hear why from Thomas Jay Oord. I had heard it from a theological/biblical perspective and I wanted to hear it from a philosophical one, too.
I remember in the same class, talking about Open Theism, the idea that God can't know the future. I think I must have been attracted to this idea but I had a hard time buying into it. One day, Thomas Jay Oord had just returned from a conference with a scholar named Boyd who had written a book called, "God of the Possible". Thomas Jay Oord and ONLY Thomas Jay Oord loaned me that book for a week or over the weekend or something like that. The writer was coming from a conservative perspective (inerrancy of scripture) and I found his argument convincing.
Lest the reader think that Thomas Jay Oord was into brainwashing, I remember an e-mail discussion group involving a student who was a million times as smart as me who didn't agree with Thomas Jay Oord but the professor was encouraging him to go to graduate school. That communicated to me that this professor was not trying to brainwash everyone into believing what he believed but that he wanted us to think for ourselves.
I regretted not being able to study under the professor the next year as a result of transferring to another university due to the financial situation of the college I was attending and the fact that the majority of the religion faculty ended up leaving by the end of my first year and every professor ended up leaving the college within the next year. But I kept in touch with Thomas Jay Oord via e-mail while waiting to be reunited with him at the university I transferred to. I'm afraid our dialogue was mixed, sometimes about my questions and sometimes about crushes I had on girls but he was very gracious. It was at this point that I seemed to consider Thomas Jay Oord not only as my professor/mentor but as my friend.
Looking back, I'm grateful for the time I got to spend with Thomas Jay Oord early in his career. As he taught more he got more and more involved in scholarship and I didn't have the same opportunities but he was still very gracious to me in spite of a busy schedule. I remember struggling with a presentation on Kant that was due the next day and he gave me some advice on how to prepare. He also passed on the "golden nuggets" as he called them, when I was questioning what to believe about Jesus. Those golden nuggets were to focus on what I was confident was true.
I don't know what the reasons are for this professor being dismissed but if it has anything to do with process thought, I implore those concerned about the faith of students to rest assured that Thomas Jay Oord is not spoonfeeding his students but that he is giving them ideas to wrestle with. Having spent nearly four years at a bible school that tried to "protect" students from various ideas, it meant a lot to me that Thomas Jay Oord and another professor at the first college I attended had enough confidence in their students that they didn't shelter us from these so-called ideas.
Even after I graduated from that university, continued on in graduate school, graduated from there and have moved on to work in universities in South Korea, my relationship with Thomas Jay Oord has remained positive. In spite of publishing numerous books, teaching full-time and having a family to take care, Thomas Jay Oord has somehow found time to respond to my e-mail questions. Having been through numerous years of theological education I've learned to think on my own. Nonetheless it's been a great journey to say the least. And the journey is not over yet.
One of the interesting things is that I still feel like I know relatively little about those ideas that people must be making such a big deal out of. I still find myself thinking back to the good ol' days and wondering what my highly esteemed professor thinks about various issues. That ought to show that Thomas Jay Oord is a thought-provoking instructor but that he is not a brainwasher.
I hope it's not too late before another quality professor gets ousted out of a Nazarene university. I have no doubt that he will have many more places to serve. The question is whether the institution where he currently serves can live without him. I think the answer is obvious.
