By Lee Enochs
In recent weeks many of us have heard about the troubling issue of "cancel culture," a movement on the radical left that is designed to see anything the liberal political establishment deems politically incorrect and "racist," abolished and eliminated from collective society.
The left is now acting like the Taliban of Afghanistan, and is toppling statues and calling for many of our favorite films, books, television shows and songs to be canceled, banned and abolished under the premise that these items transgress what is socially and politically acceptable.
This "cancel culture mentality" and tendency to suppress and censor everything and anything deemed politically incorrect to the far left has also been unleashed full strength upon contemporary academia, as many liberals on our nation's college and university campuses are calling for any professor that does not pass the politically correct litmus test, to be fired.
I saw this "cancel culture" up close and personal throughout my graduate student days in Princeton, New Jersey as I observed liberal students, professors and administrators attempt to punish and censor conservatives.
I had the unpleasant misfortune of being a grad student at Princeton Theological Seminary when the President of Princeton Seminary, under pressure from leftist students, rescinded the Kuyper Award from leading Evangelical pastor Tim Keller.
I was personally shocked and grieved to see such punitive actions take place at an academic institution that prides itself on being "tolerant" and open to academic freedom.
I found out quickly that such notions of academic fairness were an illusion at Princeton Theological Seminary and that while every Marxist and progressive idea under the sun was permitted and encouraged, conservative free speech as in the case of Tim Keller, was repressed and censored at every turn.
As a conservative in both the Princeton Seminary and Princeton University community, I generally stayed out of the many controversies that sprang up on both campuses and spent my extracurricular time attending the James Madison Program led by conservative legal scholar Robert George and was active in the Libertarian Club that was made up of both University and Seminary students.
Some of the highlights of my time studying at both of Princeton's academic institutions was getting the opportunity to listen to and personally interact with conservative radio host Dennis Prager and with leading Libertarian philosopher Dr. Walter Block, who spent an entire evening with our Princeton Libertarian group during the Spring of 2016 (please see attached photos).
I am still pondering some of the things Dr. Block communicated to us four years ago and my thinking and life has been immeasurably enriched by his profound thought. To be clear, as an Evangelical, I do not agree with everything Dr. Block conveyed to us that night, especially his views on Evictionism and abortion were personally challenging. Yet, agreeing with scholars on everything is not the point of academic inquiry in my estimation.
Interacting with differing ideas like those held by Dr. Walter Block, helps inform and educate the student and should give one impetus to further study issues in a rigorous manner.
This is why I cannot concur with a leftist student led movement at the current academic institution Dr. Block teaches at that is seeking to have him fired for espousing ideas that allegedly transgress what is currently politically correct in contemporary academia.
In the days ahead, I plan to engage in a rigorous defense of Dr. Walter Block, not because I agree with every idea he communicates, on the contrary, it precisely because I disagree with Dr. Block, that I want to hear more from him in a free and unrestricted academic climate. As Aristotle allegedly once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."
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Lee Enochs is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary and is actively defending constitutional causes in California.
