As soon as anyone can prove that Mr. P meant something other than the conventional definition of "faith"--i.e., belief without physical evidence--I'll be prepared to apologize. In fact, I'd be amazed if he had any understanding of epistomology... or even knew what it was. OR how to spell it.
Clearly, Mr. P was trying to say that science and religion are equivalent because both are based on nothing more than faith. Just as clearly, that statement is false. Religion is based on faith from authority alone; science involves evidence.
Even if you accept the notion that scientific knowledge requires some "faith" (which is dubious depending on how you define it), the point is that science ALSO requires MORE than faith. It requires evidence. Religion does not.
The attempt to downgrade scientific knowledge to the level of blind faith is pretty clear--and pretty obviously stupid on Mr. P's part, since he was in a position to know he was both preaching AND lying to the students.
But apparently any amount of dishonesty and law-breaking is okay if you do it for Jesus.