STORRS, Conn. — A University of Connecticut professor asserted that he came from an ape on Tuesday as he went wild during a campus gospel presentation that included discussion on evolution.
James Boster, Professor of Anthropology at University of Connecticut, spent over two hours attempting to draw students away from several evangelists that were open-air preaching and distributing gospel literature on campus.
Evangelist Don Karns of Hampton, Virginia told Christian News Network that Boster approached him as he was holding a sign about evolution and became condescending and confrontational.
“He asked me if I had accepted Darwin as my lord and savior,” Karns stated. “He was very agitated, very demonstrative. … It was very unbecoming of a professor.”
Minutes later, Boster also began to heckle campus tour coordinator Scott Smith of Schoolmaster Ministries of Raleigh, North Carolina as he preached.
“As I was pointing to Christ—I was talking about the sin nature—I said, ‘There’s probably some people out there—maybe even professors—who think they descended from monkeys,'” Smith recalled. “[Boster] jumped off the ground and came running over and basically started screaming, ‘I did not come from a monkey! I came from an ape!'”
“He got about two inches from my nose,” he noted. “You could tell he was going to pop.”
Karns states that Boster then confronted him a second time, using profanity and likewise coming closely to his face. Andrew Rappaport of Striving for Eternity Ministries in Jackson, New Jersey witnessed Boster as he began presenting a speech in an attempt to stir up the students.
“He started to address the students as ‘My brothers and sisters of Darwin,'” he recalled.
“I want you to join me in saying, ‘Praise Darwin!'” Boster declared, as the students echoed his refrain. “Amen!” he proclaimed.
Boster then instructed the students to “feel your spiritual kinship not just with other humans, but also with your fellow mammals.”
“We are all bonded together in that great spiritual web,” he stated. “The divine saturates nature the way that gravy saturates cornbread.”
As Rappaport began preaching, Boster again became agitated, and at one point began shouting in Polish.
“He literally got two inches from my face and started yelling at me that I was ignorant,” Rappaport said. “I start trying to transition to the gospel and he then tried to get the crowd to tell me to shut up.'”
“He was being rude. He was talking over me,” he remembered. “He was yelling at me, and I tried to say, ‘Can we have a reasonable discussion?’ … But he asked a question and then talked right over me.”
Rappaport said that although Boster claimed that he was now going to conduct “open-air Darwinism” on campus as a result of the preaching, he remained open to further discussion and was willing to exchange emails.
Smith, a former prep school teacher and headmaster, expressed a concern for Boster’s soul and eternal salvation.
“We obviously care about this professor and the students at UConn, and we long for them to find the liberty and freedom from sin in serving Jesus,” he stated.
Boster could not be reached for comment.
Latest Update: UConn Professor Who Went Ape on Campus Evangelists: ‘I’m in Deep Trouble’
Warning: Profanity
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