The captive prisoner smiles as he notes he has been awaiting trial for two years now. The crime? Stealing a pack of gum. "I'm so very happy you've come to see me," he says to his American visitor. In the upper portion of this South American prison, where beatings and filth co-join as malevolent twins in a quagmire of bureaucratic arrest, the professor of criminology stares in awe at the man's happy demeanor. He notices the prisoner's Bible on the shelf of his cell, along with a picture of Jesus in a state of downcast agony, a head full of thorns with blood dripping down like sweat, and the deep lines of a worn, weary man etched into his face. "Not the handsome, happy, American Jesus," the professor tells the audience.
Dr. Mike Adams (Sociology/Psychology, Mississippi State), teaches at UNC-Wilmington with a passionate penchant for free speech. Sponsored by the student apologetics alliance Ratio Christi, Dr. Adams spoke to a crowd of some 250 people at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory NC on Thursday night, January 19 at the Belk Centrum, on "Political Correctness, Postmodernism, and Christianity." His speech, which may be summed up as a charge to college students to reclaim the freedom of thought and expression on the college campus in eschewing popular "speech codes," wove a personal story of witnessing evil first-hand so many miles from home. Culture shock strikes a deafening blow at cultural relativism, in the face of injustice, resulting in a revolution of worldview. What did he see?
Dr. Adams tells how his former axioms, "Truth is relative," and "Morals are entirely subjective" melted away with the gentle Andes rain while looking at a statue of the virgin Mary. He steps out of the prison and looks at the symbol of purity up on the hillside, looming over the confines of a penitentiary, a symbol of filth and abuse. The misty rain roves over a moment of deliberation and deep silence. Two statues--one, human, the other, made of stone--seep in the dews of heaven with deafening animation. "I was wrong," he says to her. Now, why would an atheist come to such a startling conclusion, and of all things, talk to a statue of a bygone religion noted now only for its ancient sepulchers known as cathedrals? "The sound of a baseball bat striking human skin makes a smacking sound that is haunting," he recalls, noting his chance observance of prison guards beating a prisoner for entering the kitchen merely for a piece of food. "In Ecuador," he adds, "you have to pay rent to be in prison. You are fed rancid meat. You have no rights. There is no due process." He lists off the injustice like bullets. "You have to wait in a cell, six-by-six meters square with forty other men, sometimes for two or more years just to await trial for a petty crime." How did he get into an Ecuadorian prison? Teaching in the country on the death penalty, and dating the country's Communist leader's daughter, permission had been granted to Dr. Adams to enter the prison by means of a law student friend. Prison guards confided in him, disclosing tales of torture and murder. These blights on the human condition awoke him from his "dogmatic slumbers" of moral relativism. Little did the prison guards, who confessed their tortures and murders of prisoners to Dr. Adams, know he had also worked with Amnesty International on prior occasions.
Postmodernism, Dr. Adams recalls, is about a denial of any one's particular claim to moral or historical truth. The concern of postmodernism is that truth can be used as a power-structure in order to oppress others, with the result of a power-struggle between the the haves and the have-nots. With keen interest, Dr. Adams drew a direct line between postmodernism and Marxism, where, in the latter ideology, communities are boiled down to two in a struggle for power: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In this respect, postmodernism, with its denial of a one, true, meta-narrative, seeks to eliminate this struggle of the classes, but ends up only creating even more warfare, as no truth exists for which to fight. Ironically, however, Dr. Adams notes that at our nation's universities, Marxism and postmodernism have bonded in such a way that free speech is denied to special groups in order to preserve the personal interests of others.
Weaving this personal tale of conversion to Christianity after concluding that there truly is objective evil (reasoning that there must be an objective good, and hence a moral law, and a moral law-giver), Dr. Adams warned students that postmodern political correctness may very well be the downfall of the university system in America. The reason for this downfall is because of the implementation of "speech codes" on college campuses, where students are not allowed to speak freely concerning their worldview convictions for fear of offending other students who may oppose those views. Detailing accounts from around the country, Dr. Adams discloses a story from Washington state at a community college there, where students wanted to set up a table promoting a pro-life position. However, the students were met with opposition from the college administration due to a rule called "The Pyramid of Hate," whereby offensive language may lead to hate speech, which could lead to genocide. No joke. So, the students are commanded to offer "both sides" of the abortion position, in order to not violate the Pyramid of Hate. But, Dr. Adams wonders, does that not defeat the purpose of one's position? If someone is pro-life, must they argue also for the oppossing position as equally valid and morally upright? The good news is, Dr. Adams and many of his friends at the Alliance Defense Fund fight a number of legal battles around the country to do away with these unconstitutional laws. "Fight against speech codes," Dr. Adams advises us, for freedom of speech and the freedom of expression in the market place of ideas is the only way in which a university (or society) can rightly function. Lest one wonder if Dr. Adams, now a committed Christian, desires to only see Christians winning these legal battles, it is helpful to know that Dr. Adams issues a rallying call for all groups, whether Atheist, Christian, Democrat, Homosexual, Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, or whatever, to all rally around the common ideal of free speech, and for universities to do away with speech codes. He has even worked with the ACLU!
"Thank you for coming to visit me in prison." Dr. Adams tells the students at Lenoir-Rhyne that it was not the man in the cell who was the prisoner, but he himself, the professor, who was held captive by an ideology that at its core, denied meaning and purpose, because it denied the reality of objective evil in the world. "It was not I who was the free man, but he, and I was the prisoner."
The speech was followed with a Q&A with questions regarding the nature of postmodernism, its effect on the church, and its relationship to Marxism.
