WHEELS-OFF NEWS REPORT: DTS Student Arrested After Expressing Pro-Enlightenment Views

(AP—Dallas)-- Dallas Theological Seminary campus police were called to quell a disturbance in TODD Hall late Friday evening following a Theology class in which a student took a pro-Enlightenment stance.

Details were scarce, but several sources reported that the student may or may not have meant the stance to be deliberate.

“I was there,” said Wendy Schlietternhausenshen. “I knew that Matt was just thinking out loud through the issues, and didn’t mean to actually come across as pro-Enlightenment. He would never do that.”

The professor of the class was visibly shaken as the student in question, Matt Towers, was escorted off campus.

According to Schlietternhausenshen, the incident began around 7:30 Friday evening in a Theology class, in which Towers asked a question about the role of the individual in the process of salvation. He danced nimbly around Arminianism, but was unable to keep from connecting the notion of “standing before your maker as an individual” with the Enlightenment-era ideals of similar value.

As the class began to discuss the ramifications of the emphasis on the individual in postmodern church culture, that connection immediately caused Towers trouble. While being led out of the classroom in doctrinal shackles, Towers offered a rushed explanation:

“I temporarily thought that the real culprit in self-centered modes of worship today was existentialism, which is a 19^th century German concept that has invaded our culture on all levels today, rather than the Enlightenment. It was only momentary, and I immediately apologized and professed by undying devotion to the idea that anything American is bad because it’s commercial. I’m sorry!”

After regaining control of the chaotic classroom in which several students were believed to have begun momentarily thinking for themselves, processing Tower’s comments, the professor immediately underscored the official attack stance against the Enlightenment: “The Church is community, and we have become individuals, but we should be collective in nature. Let us bow our heads and pray that Matt may find his way back into our community that we just threw him out of, and that when he returns he is driving a Prius.”

Though the class seemed somewhat disturbed, the professor attempted a soothing explanation of the evening’s events: “this is the real problem with the Enlightenment—the belief that the individual can think for himself. Now open up your notes and let’s continue this Power Point.”