The Veritas Conflict (44 page)

“I am not saying that conservative and faith-based points of view need special protection any more than, frankly, the gay point of view needs special protection.”

Sharon looked affronted and opened her mouth to respond. Mansfield leaned forward. “What I
am
saying is that all points of view should have equal access to the marketplace of ideas—including those that don’t happen to be politically correct.
Sharon, you said several weeks ago that we didn’t know what it was like to be a lesbian professor having to deal with textbooks that never make mention of the gay lifestyle. Well, you know what? You’re right. I don’t.

“But neither do you know what its like to be a person of faith in an environment that is so hostile.” He looked directly at Taylor. “Within the last minute alone, you called me a right-winger.” He looked back at Sharon. “And you implied that I was bigoted and purposefully oppressive of others. All because I’m coming from a faith-based point of view. Both of those statements are wrong, and they hurt.”

He looked around the table, trying to catch the eyes of his colleagues. “And they are very common on campus. If those statements are hurtful toward me, an experienced senior professor secure in my beliefs and my standing at this university, imagine how oppressive they are to your average eighteen-year-old person of faith.”

“Excuse me, Mansfield …”

Mansfield turned to see Elsa Chasinov raising her hand.

“If I can interrupt here?” At Mansfield’s nod she continued. “I don’t want to be disrespectful of religious people, but I have to point out the obvious:
Diversity
usually means actively including those with some sort of minority status. You can hardly consider Christians in America to be the minority.”

Mansfield prayed furiously as he responded. “Elsa, I know it may not seem apparent to you, but that is exactly what I’m saying.” He heard grunts of astonishment around the table. “When I talk about people of faith, I’m not speaking of those who simply attend church now and then. That’s a superficial measurement, and I agree that those people are in the majority in this country. Rather, I mean those for whom faith is an all-encompassing part of life. Probably the closest example I can come to is a comparison with those living an alternative lifestyle.”

He turned to Taylor and Sharon, who looked surprised. “Some gays define themselves by their sexual orientation, embracing the gay culture, the gay lifestyle, and a set of gay-centered belief systems. Its not a perfect parallel, but a person of faith does much the same, choosing to live their life by a set of beliefs that others may not understand or appreciate. As a Christian I have a relationship with Jesus Christ that I try to live out day by day. That’s what defines me, what gives meaning to my life.”

The others around the table began to look uncomfortable, even embarrassed.

Rap! Rap!
The sound of the gavel made Mansfield jump. Anton Pike smiled. “I’m sorry, folks, I shouldn’t have let this discussion deteriorate into a debate on religious beliefs of a personal nature.” He looked at Mansfield, his smile vanishing. “I had hoped that all the task forces from this committee would conduct their work in a professional, objective manner. But I think we’ve had quite enough of your personal platform for today, so why don’t we just conclude—”

“Excuse me, Anton.”

Anton Pike glared at Taylor Haller’s interruption.

“Mansfield is right, you know. We are doing to him what we would hate someone doing to us: totally devaluing his opinion from the start, not giving him a chance to explain his admittedly uncomfortable viewpoint.” He turned to Mansfield, his face serious. “Please continue. I may not agree with you, but that doesn’t mean we should silence your opinion.”

Anton tapped the gavel again. “I must respectfully disagree, Taylor. I had hoped that we could be out of here in good time today, and its clear that this discussion will take a while. I propose, again, that we read Mansfield’s report and come back to it later if necessary.”

Mansfield could feel the tide turning.
Please
,
Lord, help!

Swiftly and with the utmost grace, Petras moved behind another chair. His voice was resonant as he spoke to its occupant. At his gesture, three other heavenly messengers took up position near several other faculty members. The Lord knew those who were open to the Spirit.

Jack Sprague raised his hand.

Anton sighed. “Yes, Jack?”

“I know you’re eager to conclude the meeting, Anton, but let’s remember that this is a formal task force report, the result of years of work. Their conclusion that Harvard allows systemic bias is pretty inflammatory, and I would like to hear what evidence they have to back it up.”

A half dozen other heads nodded, and murmured assents could be heard throughout the room.

For a fraction of a second, as if in slow motion, Mansfield watched as a furious, terrible expression altered Anton’s genial countenance. In the next instant it was gone, replaced by a flat calmness.

Anton settled back in his chair. He picked up his pen, poising his arm to write. His eyebrows cocked in a pleasantly surprised expression. “Very well, then. If that’s the desire of the committee, I’ll be delighted to finish hearing the report of this task force today.”

“Thank you, Anton. If you’ll turn to page two in your report…” As Mansfield began to walk the committee members through his executive summary, he wondered if any of them could sense the danger vibrating in the chair at the head of the table.

“Oh, you’ll be sorry. You and your stinking King. You—” Foul perversions poured from the lips of a massive dark presence at the head of the table.

Krolech was being held in tight control by five of the troop’s largest warriors, their garments flaming with the brilliance of the room. The restraining order must have come from the accursed Enemy Himself. Despite his anger, Krolech allowed himself some small satisfaction at the tension so evident in the angels nearest him. If they had been like those slimy humans, the simpering members of the heavenly host would have soiled themselves in fear by now.

He snarled, trying to get comfortable within his host’s body. There was no one to help him, his incompetent colleagues having been prohibited. He was there only because he totally possessed the human vessel, even if he couldn’t currently direct him. At least—he smiled to himself—his host was more than devious enough without him.

The demon’s red eyes watched the Enemy’s human lackey at the other end of the table, picturing all sorts of delightful ways to rip him to shreds. One of the angels immediately put his hand on his sword and leveled a challenging stare at him.

Krolech slowly turned his head away. As soon as the angel returned his attention to the dialogue in the room, however, he returned to his brooding over the disgusting parasite. There must be some creative way to fix this problem.

His attention was drawn back to the room as several professors asked congenial and interested questions of the man down the table. Those professors had been the charges of
his troop!
He growled again, rage boiling inside him.

The accursed son of Adam would not get away with this.

In the little room across campus one student was reading the Twenty-third Psalm. “ ‘… your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.…’ ”

Claire suddenly gasped, and several students raised their heads to look at her.

“What’s wrong?” Brad said.

“I don’t know. I don’t—” Claire began to tremble. “Danger. There’s something … dangerous.” She looked wildly around the room, so overwhelmed that she wasn’t even concerned about looking foolish.

Alison leaned toward her, her voice urgent. “It doesn’t matter whether you understand it. Maybe God is trying to tell you something because there’s some specific thing we need to pray for.”

Claire pressed her hands against her temples. “I just felt such danger … and … and
anger.”

“From Mansfield?” Brads eyebrows rose skyward.

“No—no. It was—evil—”

Alison started and glanced quickly around the group. “We haven’t prayed against backlash from the enemy. We can’t just pray for this meeting; we have to pray for what comes after it!” She bowed her head and closed her eyes tight. “Lord, forgive us for being so focused on the immediate outcome that we’re forgetting about the bigger picture.”

As each of the students petitioned God for His protection over Mansfield and the project after the meeting, Claire slowly relaxed. Her agitation diminished, then gradually vanished altogether.

Whew. I wonder what that was all about?

Krolech’s rage turned to sharp pain as a giant sword pricked his neck. An angel—the idiot Etàn—was standing before him, holding the weapon at his throat.

“Whatever you are planning, foul Krolech, you can forget it. The Spirit of God binds you and commands your obedience to His directives regarding this man.”

The angel gestured toward Mansfield, who was now standing at a whiteboard at the side of the room, totting up some inane statistics. It infuriated Krolech to no end that his troops weren’t there to prod derisive rebuttals from the fools around the table.

“He may be protected for now,
friend,”
Krolech said, “but we all know that restraints are sometimes lifted. And when it is—” he gave a long sensuous laugh—“we’ll be ready.”

He looked up at Etàn’s intent face and smiled wickedly. “I look forward to taking another of your charges, Etàn. I will win in the end. I am larger and stronger. This territory is, after all, mine. There will come a day when I will again operate freely, and then you and your petty band will be no match for me. You know that, don’t you?”

Etàn’s knuckles grew white on the sword. Krolech was a legend, a massive territorial spirit, and—the truth could not be denied—was indeed larger and more experienced in warfare than he. But—he drew a slow breath and held himself erect—the Lord was
God
. He had more power in His tiniest finger, His tiniest thought, than all the armies of Satan combined. And God had chosen Etàn and his team to be on the front lines of this battle. A glint came into his eye, and he stared down his massive foe.

“You’re forgetting yourself, Krolech. No matter what happens in this battle, there
will come a day when
God
will operate freely as well. And then you and your petty band will be no match for the fires of the great pit. You know
that
.” His steely eyes looked through the demon and into eternity. “Don’t you?”

Mansfield was standing at the whiteboard, gesturing with a pointer to a table of numbers. “As you can see by these statistics, the conclusion that we lack ideological diversity is not just an opinion; it is empirically verifiable.”

He looked at the faces around the table. His colleagues were watching with mixed emotions, varying shades of agreement or disagreement evident on their faces. Across the room, Cheryl Crenshaw was examining the numbers with interest.

“Now, looking at these statistics, some observers might conclude that Harvard is trying to suppress certain points of view.” He smiled at the affronted expressions on the faces around him. “I disagree. There are actually many cases where Harvard has attempted to be sensitive to faith-based beliefs. For example, you may recall the controversy over annual student fees for the health center, some of which go for pro-choice education and abortion referrals. Our administration has gone to considerable trouble to allow students with prolife convictions to opt out of paying that portion of the fee. I think the evidence is clear that we’re not looking at some active antifaith conspiracy.

“I believe instead that Harvard’s difficulty with ideological diversity arises simply from the overwhelmingly one-sided composition of Harvard’s administration and faculty. Most individuals in academia—professors, researchers, administrators, and the like—describe themselves as politically and socially liberal.” He smiled slightly. “Now, just because one is a political liberal doesn’t mean one is antifaith. But without a concerted effort to counter the lack of diversity, its understandable that the collective worldview of these educators would in time spill over and dominate—and frequently bias—the classroom setting, teaching materials, textbooks, and the like.”

The conference room began a slow buzz of disagreement. Many of the faculty members looked uncomfortable. Irritation showed on several faces.

A professor on the other side of the room raised his hand. “But, Mansfield, if what you’re saying is true, what are we supposed to do about it?” His voice carried a hint of exasperation. “Personally, I would hope that a professional, highly educated instructor would be open-minded enough to keep their classroom objective. But if you really think that a professor’s ideology works its way into the classroom without his or her knowledge, then by definition you’re not going to be able to change that.”

“Untrue!” Mansfield rapped the pointer against the table. He saw surprise on several faces and forced himself to keep a rein on his emotions. “I have sat here and listened
to recommendation after recommendation on increasing diversity in this university—both inside and outside the classroom. The essence of my proposal is no different: Be aware of the bias, and actively work to counter it.