LA MIRADA, CALIFORNIA–BIOLA (Bible Institute of Los Angeles) University will offer a course, “Apologetics vs. Philosophy,” as part of its M.A. in Christian Apologetics program, which will focus on the differences between Christian apologetics and philosophy.

In a press conference with an equal number of reporters, apologists, and local Awana kids, program spokesman J.P. Moreland cited renowned Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga. “In his advice to Christian philosophers, Alvin Plantinga once wrote, ‘Christian philosophers, however, are the philosophers of the Christian community; and it is part of their task as Christian philosophers to serve the Christian community.’ Like any good Christian philosopher, we worship the ground Plantinga walks on, but we think he didn’t go far enough.”

Moreland explained: “Rather than practice philosophy as Christian philosophers, we think the entire discipline of philosophy should be abolished and replaced with Christian apologetics.”

Moreland said the university will also be adding new lower division courses to serve as the prerequisites for the new upper division course. “As we were writing the syllabus, we realized that students would have an unfair disadvantage if we didn’t provide them with the right academic foundation. So we also plan to add courses on quote mining, understating the evidence, and–my personal favorite–how to strawman naturalism by conflating it with eliminative materialism.”

Not all Christian scholars were enthusiastic about the change, however. Julia Swinburne-McGrew, a Christian philosopher from Western Michigan University who attended the press conference, asked, “If we abolish philosophy (and so with it inductive logic), how will we equip the next generation of Christian apologists to answer Draperian, evidential, Bayesian arguments against theism and for naturalism?”

William Lane Craig, a Research Professor with Talbot’s School of Theology, stepped forward to the podium. “That’s easy,” he said. “We’ll just do what we’ve always done, which is to ignore such arguments as much as possible. When that’s not possible, we’ll simply use deductive arguments to mask uncertainty.”

Other Christian philosophers were more circumspect. Channeled with the help of a Ouija board, the late Christian philosopher Robert Adams–who once taught at UCLA, not far from Biola–said, “Considering how much damage Biola did (and continues to do) to the philosophy of religion, it was only a matter of time before they decided to undermine the discipline of philosophy as a whole.”

Sporting a meticulously groomed hairdo and a smokin’ corduroy jacket, a chipper Craig Hazen responded to Adams. “Well, I think that’s right. We’ve already implemented policies which suppress genuine philosophical inquiry, such as our fundamentalists-only admissions policy for students, our policy on continuing fundamentalism as a condition of employment for professors, and our publication policy whereby we don’t publish articles by non-Christians in our sectarian journal unless they are immediately followed, in the same issue, with a rebuttal by a Christian professor. Taking on philosophy as a whole just seems like the logical next step for us.”

In a bizarre twist, Biola rivals known as ‘presuppositionalists‘ celebrated the announcement. “It’s about time,” said the late Greg Bahnsen, appearing as a Force Ghost to a stunned crowd. “Van Til always said that our evidentialist brothers were ‘giving away the store’ by not blatantly begging the question and using circular arguments to argue for the triune God. But even Van Til never came up with an idea so radical as the abolishment of philosophy. This is genius, pure genius. Praise God!”

Outside observers speculated that this move is connected to Biola’s new “Center for Christian Thought.” One Biola professor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “In truth, however, we’re still thinking about that.”