Continued from here
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20. It's a sign of my privileged life that I immediately had access to a little money when I arrived in Brussels from Africa. I had booked the plane ticket to give me two days on the continent (three?) on my way back. Then I was supposed to meet with Bud Bence in Indiana before finally going back to Florida.
This was before cell phones. If you wanted to send an email abroad, you went to an internet cafe. AOL was riding high. Then there was this thing called writing letters.
Somehow, perhaps by actual letter, I had told David Fox and Rachel Leonard that I would be at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at noon on something like April 2, 1997. If they could make it, great. If not, I like Paris.
So I landed in Brussels that morning. I rented a car, and tore off for Paris. By noon, I was there at the Arc de Triomphe. I had no phone to call. I had no clear path to email. I waited about an hour and figured they weren't coming. So, what should I do?
Why not drive to Tübingen? So, I got in the car and tore off west. No GPS of course. I don't think I even had a map. But I knew the general path, and there were these things called road signs. Just as it was getting dark, I had arrived. I wasn't exactly sure where Christoph Lorenz was living, but I remembered Reinhard Schmolz's house. Sure enough, he was home.
So I was able to meet up with them for an evening. That was nice. I was sure to have a Doner Kebap and a Currywurst. And I think I spent the night at Reinhard's house.
That might have been it. I may actually have had to head back the next day. Such was the 30 year old Ken.
I decided to drive back through Luxembourg, just to be able to say I'd been there. It was a long day. At a rest park, a man asked for a ride. Since I was still in the "Ken can't say no stage of my life," I gave him a ride, despite my incredible fears of doing so.
We conversed in German for a good twenty minutes before we finally realized that neither of us was actually German. I think he was Danish. In any case, I was glad when I let him off wherever.
21. Bud Bence had contacted me before I left for Africa, and we had set up a meeting. When my plane landed from Brussels in Indy, I would drive up to Elwood and meet him at a Jim Dandy's there (it's gone now).
There was an open New Testament position at Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU). Bud was understandably cautious about me. I had studied with James Dunn. He had undergone significant trouble at Houghton College because of a Dunn student, David Meade. Under pressure from the denomination and president, he had let David Meade go. Then, when the faculty had their chance, they dispatched him.
Mind you, IWU celebrated him for his decades there, but Bud once told me that he bled Houghton, so the scar was real.
Bud later told me that it was ironic that he turned out to think more freely than I do. He actually apologized to me for his suspicions of me back at that Jim Dandy. In any case, I must have reassured him enough in Elwood for him to approve of me coming to the campus for an interview.
22. I don't think it was too much longer thereafter that I had my interview. I met Keith Drury and Steve Lennox for the first time. Jim Lo, Keith Springer, the older David Smith (not the one we know today). I don't think Wilbur Williams participated in the interview. Nor did Joe Seaborn. He was leaving the faculty to become the pastor of College Wesleyan.
I gave a classroom presentation based on Bruce Malina's Portraits of Paul, which I had recently read. There were still students around, so it must have been later that month in April.
Ancient identity was based on gender, genealogy, and geography. I remember Bud asking what a woman did to convert to Judaism, since circumcision obviously wasn't involved. I think I said she would likely be attached to a man, so that would likely mark her transition, but that of course there were the food laws and purity rules. I don't think I knew much about Joseph and Asenath at that time.
23. My interview proper was at Hostess House. I don't think very well on the spot, so it's always a bit nerve wracking. I think best in writing. If I know I'm going to have a high pressure conversation, I rehearse it over and over out loud. Of course, in person conversations are much less predictable than the ones you have to yourself.
I can't remember if Bud asked me his classic "Robert Frost lover's quarrel with the church" question. I mainly remember the two questions Keith Drury asked. First, he more or less asked if I was gay. He said something like, "We have to ask. You're 30 years old and single."
That was an easy one. I had only dated a little up to that point. Two serious girlfriends. I was painfully shy when it came to women, and the cuter the woman, the harder it was for me to talk to them. And I was a dreamer. I wanted a love story.
A funny story that year. A minister took me to a Hooters. I thought it was incredibly odd. What was he thinking? I thought he might have a problem. But as I thought about it a few years later, I wondered if he was looking for my reaction. People are funny.
The other question Keith asked was equally frank. He pointed out that the Religion Division at that point was entirely male. But there were many female ministry students, and the Wesleyans certainly said that they believed in women in ministry.
Then came the question. If you have two equally qualified candidates for a department like this one, one is a guy and the other is a woman, who would you hire. I said I would hire the woman.
24. And they did. I suppose that explains what Joe Seaborn said to me from his dark office before I left. It was something like, "I'm rooting for you." But it had a sullen tone to it. I've been in enough searches since then to know this vibe. You can feel it, often accompanied by long silence.
As part of the interview, I also met with Paul Collard, the VPAA. And I met President Barnes. I only remember one question he asked. He said, "Now your father has questions about certain fundraising techniques we use?"
I smiled because I immediately knew the culprit. "That would be my Uncle Eugene," I said. I believe he was actually a Marion College alumnus. My father would never write to someone like President Barnes about something like that.
25. Well I also remember a dinner time back in Fort Lauderdale when I later got a phone call from Bud Bence. Duane Thompson, the philosophy professor, was retiring. They had a one year slot for someone to teach philosophy. No promises of anything after that. Was I interested?
Of course I was interested! I surely didn't want to substitute teach another year.
Bud's emphasis on the "only one year" betrayed his ongoing fears that I would blow something up. That whole first year, he more than once put a job opening advertisement on my chair. I imagine some might also have had questions about philosophy. Sometimes philosophy has an uneasy place at a Christian college. Might they even been thinking about removing it from the gen eds?
Nevertheless, I loved the subject, and I would love teaching philosophy. In the fall of 1997, I would begin teaching at Indiana Wesleyan University.
