VIDEO: UConn Professor mocks creationist group, shouts “praise Darwin!”

A University of Connecticut professor asked students to “feel your spiritual kinship not just with other humans, but also with your fellow mammals” Tuesday as he mocked a group of Christian creationists who were evangelizing on campus.

Anthropology Professor James Boster was captured on film Tuesday confronting three creationists, at times yelling at them from a distance of a few feet.

After a cut in the video, Boster is shown mocking the evangelists, urging nearby students to join him in saying “praise Darwin!”

“Have you accepted your place in the divine pattern of life? The tree of life, where you feel your spiritual kinship not just with humans, but also with your fellow mammals? With your fellow amniotes? With your fellow eukaryotes?

“We are all bonded together in that great spiritual web because the divine saturates nature the way that gravy saturates cornbread,” Boster said.

Boster went on to tell listeners that “that understanding” would “defend” them “from the ignorance and lies of [the evangelists] who twist the [unintelligible] and the message of Jesus of Nazareth.”

The professor’s heckling reportedly went on for over two hours.

WATCH: UConn professor castigates, mocks creationists

In an email to Campus Reform, Boster said his actions were “street theater geared to respond to the tone that [the evangelists] had set,” and that he had engaged them “when they told a student that he was going to hell,” Boster said.

Boster noted that he has written positively about Christian missionaries for their help in ending “a seemingly endless cycle of revenge killing among the Waorani, a group of native South Americans.”

“I believe that genuine Christians are very impressive human beings if you actually happen to meet one. They are the ones who have read and have acted in accordance with Matthew Chapter 5 in their daily lives,” Boster said.

UConn released a statement Wednesday afternoon condemning Boster’s behavior.

“Everyone has the right to exercise free speech on our campuses,” the release states. “At the same time, we expect our faculty to act in a way that promotes civil discourse and to express themselves respectfully. The use of abusive language and a confrontational posture are inconsistent with UConn’s values.”

Via CT Capitol Report.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter @SterlingCBeard