Randel Helms, an English professor for more than three decades, is retiring.
His office is slowly emptying out. Books lay scattered about. The walls, however, still announce his personality.
A needlepoint states, "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest man."
And, perhaps more tellingly, a quote from William Blake reads, "The dark religions are departed, and sweet science reigns."
Helms has had this office for a long time, and still knows how to use it.
Around the University, he is best known as the teacher of a class titled, The Bible as Literature.
Semester after semester, he gives the most - and least - devout students a chance to discuss the Bible. His class has been a rite of passage for conservative Christians and secularists alike.
Helms has been teaching the class, under one title or another, since 1968. Of his strategy on teaching the class, Helms said, "I have a calling to teach people to read the Bible like grown-ups."
He said he especially appreciates those students who "fight [him] every inch of the way."
Helms courts this controversy, appreciating the word of mouth the class receives. Former students have sought him out to report that the course deepened their faith. Others say it shattered faith - that, upon reading the Bible, they decided that they couldn't believe it.
Helms' own story mirrors this reaction. Born into a Jehovah's Witness family, he began his journey away from orthodoxy when, in college, he read the Gospel of Mark and realized he couldn't believe in its Jesus.
However, Helms stresses, the point of his course is not to precipitate a faith crisis, but to motivate people to read the Bible for themselves. He jokes that he is on a mission from God to get people to read sacred Scriptures without "pious inattention."
"Belief is a weak misreading of the Bible," he explained, with a smile.
His syllabus is set up to highlight the often-ignored controversies within the biblical text.
My class notes, now six years old and slightly yellowed, include such headings as "the most horrible sentence in the Bible" and "misquotation of the Bible is the stock and trade of the Christian Testament."
Helms' new book, "The Bible Against Itself," gives a widespread treatment of such internal controversies.
Helms said until students understand the Holy Book, they cannot understand its influences on literature.
Thus, his class is structured to make people read as much of the Bible as is possible in 15 weeks.
Apart from his influence on the thousands of students who have taken his class, Helms leaves another legacy.
This heritage, which Helms calls "the only physical impact" that he has made on ASU, is a small, but significant, change to the architecture of Danforth Chapel.
In 1990, he led a coalition of faculty senate and student government in asking the school administration to take down a prominent cross from the University building.
An impassioned controversy ensued, drawing the attention of The New York Times. When, in the midst of the battle, the cross was blown down by a monsoon, the newspaper asked his opinion.
"I think it was a sign from God," he replied, tongue-in-cheek.
The newspaper didn't get the joke.
In the few years following the removal of the cross, Helms tells me, students would occasionally erect small crosses and place them on the top of the chapel.
Helms seems delighted at this, saying, "I have no problem with people asserting their religious beliefs, but when the state does it, it's an entirely different thing."
Helms is entering retirement joyfully. When I asked whether he'd be sad to give up his influence on the course, he said, "You don't influence the world from beyond the grave, or beyond retirement. I have a pretty healthy view on death."
He will be missed.
Brandon Hendrickson is a graduate of history and religious studies. Someday, he hopes that people will write a tribute to him. For now, send him hate mail at: brandon.hendrickson@asu.edu.
