The Quebec Court of Appeals has ruled against a private, Catholic high school desiring to teach a global religion course from a Catholic perspective.

Update (Feb. 4): The Chimes student newspaper has additional details on Calvin's 2012-2013 final budget, including an unexpected healthcare cost of $1.1 million and a $6.2 million interest payment on the school's debt.

"In 2017, Calvin will begin to pay off its actual debt—not only interest—which [President Michael] Le Roy estimates could result in payments of $9 million per year," the paper reported.

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Beginning in 2013, students at Florida Christian College (FCC) in Kissimmee, Florida, will be eligible to receive funds from the Florida Resident Access Grant (FRAG), a popular grant program that previously excluded FCC for being too religious.

Update (Feb. 19): Many British religious groups seeking to open free schools are facing intimidation after a freedom of information request forced the government to reveal the list of applicants. Of the 518 applications revealed, 81 come from explicitly Christian groups.

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The British High Court rejected a challenge last week to the opening of Catholic faith schools in Richmond, West London, preserving the schools' right to selectively admit students based on their religious background.

According to The Guardian, the case is "the first legal challenge to new schools over religious discrimination." Other observers speculated that the case would be a precedent-setting "test case" for other religious schools throughout the U.K.

Update (April 10): Baptist Press reports that trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, have unanimously voted to revise the school's tenure program—in order to "cease future extension of tenure."

The debate over whether or not seminary professors should be granted tenure has been ongoing, and CT offered experts the chance to weigh in on the issue last November.
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Religious studies experts seeking tenure-track positions need not apply—at least, not for many of the new jobs posted online at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL).

According to a new study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, church attendance is likely to boost educational advancement among high school students.

Update (April 18): The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Snow College has settled its lawsuit with Solid Rock Christian Club, which sued the school last winter claiming "that the school's policy unconstitutionally treated student groups affiliated with religious institutions differently than other student groups."

As part of the settlement, the school revised its tiered club status system that denied certain privileges to some groups based on tier status.
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Update (Feb. 21): Following conflicts over the club status of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship on university campuses, the Virginia state legislature approved a bill that would protect religious and political student organizations from discrimination by school officials.

The bill also states:

A religious or political student organization may determine that ordering the organization's internal affairs, selecting the organization's leaders and members, defining the organization's doctrines, and resolving the organization's disputes are in furtherance of the organization's religious or political mission and that only persons committed to that mission should conduct such activities.

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Update (May 8, 2013): A Texas state judge has determined that religiously themed banners displayed by cheerleaders at Kountze High School in Texas are constitutionally permissible. According to the Associated Press, "In a copy of the ruling obtained by Beaumont station KFDM, [judge Steve] Thomas determined that no law 'prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.'"

The lawsuit, which became a high-profile case last fall, was scheduled to go to trial later this summer, but this summary judgment ends the case.
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When Kountze High School in Texas banned cheerleaders from using Bible verses on their banners, the ban sparked a national debate about students' freedom of religion and free speech rights. For now, though, cheerleaders will be free to wave their banners, according to a ruling by Hardin County District Judge Steve Thomas.

Yesterday, Thomas extended a temporary injunction against the school district's ban on religiously themed banners, saying that the ban appeared to violate the cheerleaders' free speech rights.

The Tennessean is reporting that LifeWay Christian Resources will not sell its Glorieta Conference Center to Olivet University amid concerns that the school's founder and spiritual leader heads a movement that teaches he is a new Christ.

European Baptist leaders recently voted overwhelmingly to move Europe's only international Baptist seminary from Prague to Amsterdam given declining donor support and the rise of national Baptist seminaries that offer similar degrees.

Update (April 16): Bryan College student newspaper editor Alex Green recently earned the University of Oregon's 2013 Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism for his decision to self-publish a story about a biblical studies professor after school officials spiked the article last fall.
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In a press freedom flap that reflects collegiate sensitivities following the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal at Penn State University, a Christian college in Tennessee attempted to stop student newspaper editors from publishing a story about a biblical studies professor who resigned after being arrested in an FBI sting this summer on charges of attempted child molestation.

Parents who objected to their school district's ban on religious language won an unexpected victory from a Texas judge this week, who ruled that the ban amounted to unnecessary censorship on private speech.

(Editor's note: This post has been updated to reflect the findings of a forthcoming audit of the Social Science Research peer-review process.)

The University of Texas at Austin has concluded its investigation of Mark Regnerus and declared the associate professor of sociology not guilty of research misconduct during his controversial study of children whose parents had same-sex relationships.

UT Austin research integrity officer Robert A. Peterson investigated eight charges against Regnerus made by freelance writer Scott Rosensweig (who writes under the byline Scott Rose) and found that "none of the allegations ... were substantiated."

"In brief, Mr. Rose believed that the Regnerus research was seriously flawed and inferred that there must be scientific misconduct," wrote Peterson. "However, there is no evidence to support that inference."

In the continuing saga of whether or not Christian student groups violate college anti-discrimination policies, the State University of New York at Buffalo has re-recognized InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) as an official student organization, just in time for the start of the 2012-13 school year.

After being de-recognized as a club amid a leadership scandal earlier this year, IVCF regained official status on July 27. SUNY Buffalo’s Student-Wide Judiciary ruled that it is "common sense, not discrimination” for a religious group to want its leaders to agree with its core beliefs.

The University of Texas is investigating allegations of “scientific misconduct” against sociology professor Mark Regnerus over his recent high-profile survey of children whose parents have had same-sex relationships.

A panel of UT professors will examine Regnerus’s methodology in response to a complaint by a blogger on LGBT issues that the study was “designed so as to be guaranteed to make gay people look bad” and was funded by conservative groups, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The Journal of Social Science Research, which published Regnerus’s study, has also received criticisms of the study’s methodology.

Regnerus, whose study found that young-adult children of parents who have had same-sex relationships are more likely to experience emotional and social problems, told the American-Statesman that his methodology was developed by a team of leading family researchers and approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board.

An influential group of social scientists--including Michael Emerson, Christian Smith, Rodney Stark, W. Bradford Wilcox, and Bradley Wright--issued a public statement defending Regnerus's study.

“We think that the Regnerus study, which is one of the first to rely on a large, random, and representative sample of children from parents who have experienced same-sex relationships, has helped to inform the ongoing scholarly and public conversation about same-sex families in America,” wrote the group. “"As social scientists, our hope is that more such studies will be forthcoming shortly, and that future journalistic coverage of such studies, and this contentious topic, will be more civil, thorough, and thoughtful than has been the coverage of the new study by Professor Mark Regnerus."

The review panel will release its conclusion within 60 days.

CT recently interviewed Regnerus on Sex Economics 101 -- his research into the sexual attitudes and behavior of young adults -- and published a cover story on his provocative argument for early marriage. He also participated in a Village Green panel on how best to encourage premarital abstinence. Meanwhile Regnerus is discussing his research on his blog and at Slate.

A South Carolina public school district may continue awarding high school credit for religious courses, according to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Spartanburg District 7 was sued in 2009 over its acceptance of credit for "Released Time" religious education courses, permissible under state law since 2006. Few students have sought credit for such courses.

"We see no evidence that the program has had the effect of establishing religion or that it has entangled the school district in religion," said the appeals court. "As was the General Assembly and school district's purpose, the program properly accommodates religion without establishing it, in accordance with the First Amendment."

According to a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, released-time programs are constitutional if held off-campus and not promoted by public schools. More than 250,000 children in 32 states participate in such programs, reports USA Today. South Carolina is the only state to specifically permit the classes, reported the Associated Press.

CT has noted past legal struggles over released-time programs, as well as the legal road to religious education.

Scholarship programs intended to help poor public-school students attend private schools are instead mostly benefiting students already enrolled in private religious schools, according to an investigation by the New York Times.

Such scholarship programs, which offer dollar-for-dollar tax credits for donations, raised $350 million this year for 129,000 students in eight states, according to the Alliance for School Choice. Nine states may launch similar programs. Yet many private schools, most of which are religious, have encouraged parents of current students to apply for the scholarships, according to the NYT. This has prompted debate over the letter vs. the spirit of the laws behind the programs.

Christianity Today has reported on the school choice movement's pivot from vouchers to tax credits, as well as the recent surge in states offering school-choice programs.

Eleven religious student groups at Vanderbilt University have united to reapply for registered status in the school, even though their religious requirements for leaders violate Vanderbilt’s non-discrimination policy.

The coalition, calling itself Vanderbilt Solidarity, said in a statement that each group “is a faith-based group dedicated to sharing the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on campus. As such, we simply cannot allow those who do not share our faith to lead our ministries, as Vanderbilt now demands.”

The members of the coalition include: Asian American Christian Fellowship, Beta Upsilon Chi, Bridges International, Christian Legal Society, Cru, Every Nation Ministries, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Graduate Christian Fellowship, Lutheran Student Fellowship, Medical Christian Fellowship, and Navigators.

Last fall, Vanderbilt placed several faith-based groups on provisional status for being noncompliant with its non-discrimination policy, Christianity Today reported. It began enforcing the policy after Beta Upsilon Chi, a Christian fraternity, was accused of dismissing a student because of his sexual orientation.

Vanderbilt updated its non-discrimination policy in early March, stating that all “registered student organizations must be open to all students as members and must permit all members in good standing to seek leadership posts.” The policy does make an exemption for single-sex organizations, including fraternities and sororities.

“Most perplexing, a university founded by Methodists is prohibiting religious groups from selecting religious leaders while simultaneously allowing fraternities and sororities to discriminate in selecting their leaders and members,” Vanderbilt Solidarity said in its statement. “If Vanderbilt will give fraternities and sororities a broad exemption from its policy, why won’t it give religious groups a narrow exemption?”

A few weeks after the policy was updated, Vanderbilt Catholic, one of the school’s largest student religious groups, announced it would leave campus at the end of the year because of the policy. “Our purpose has always been to share the Gospel and proudly to proclaim our Catholic faith,” Rev. John Sims Baker, chaplain of Vanderbilt Catholic, told The Tennessean. “What other reason could there be for a Catholic organization at Vanderbilt?”

Vanderbilt Solidarity commended Vanderbilt Catholic in its statement, as well as the St. Thomas More Society, which intends to follow Vanderbilt Catholic’s course, the coalition wrote.

UPDATE (April 11): In a post on its blog, InterVarsity at Vanderbilt--which represents the Asian American Christian Fellowship, Graduate Christian Fellowship, and Medical Christian Fellowship student groups--denied being a part of any "protest" movement against the university.

"Our turning in an application for registration along with other student groups who have walked with us through this year has been called a 'protest' move and, unfortunately, could be interpreted as an attempt by us to manipulate the university," InterVarsity posted. "We intentionally invited further dialogue and relationship with the university. Our constitution retains faith-based requirements for leadership because we are a Christian organization. However, our cover letter to the university and our constitution were written from a posture of trying to live out who we authentically are (hopefully lovingly) and not primarily as a power move or protest."

In 2010, Christianity Today reported that the United Methodist Church (UMC) had unexpectedly removed Evangelical Seminary from its list of schools approved to educate Methodist ministers. Last week, the denomination's University Senate voted to re-approve the seminary.

UMC originally removed the Pennsylvania seminary from its list because of the "lack of ethnic inclusiveness of faculty and staff, and the absence of full-time United Methodist faculty," according to a senate letter. At the time, 26 percent of Evangelical's nearly 200 students were Methodist.

In a press release, Evangelical president Tony Blair noted that the school is looking at creating a Center for Methodist Studies. "We appreciate the challenges facing United Methodist seminaries and wish to collaborate with them in serving the United Methodist denomination," he said.

The other seminary removed from the UMC's approved list in 2010, Palmer Theological Seminary, also in Pennsylvania, was reinstated last February (Editor's note: In the same item, CT reported that Evangelical was also re-approved last spring; however, it was only a temporary extension.) Both seminaries now appear on the UMC's approved list.

Complete press release from Evangelical Seminary is after the jump....

Though Christian Legal Society is still facing pressure from Vanderbilt University to comply with its nondiscrimination policy, the group isn’t leaving campus yet, said Kim Colby, senior counsel at CLS’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom.

CT reported in December that CLS and three other Christian groups were told they were in noncompliance with Vanderbilt’s discrimination policies, thus removing privileges given to registered student groups. All four groups require leaders to sign statements affirming Christian doctrines.

At least one Christian website had reported that despite revising its constitution to fit with Vanderbilt’s policy, CLS was still going to be “forced” off campus. However, some of the information in the article was misconstrued, Colby said. The resubmitted constitution had not been revised to fit with Vanderbilt’s policy; rather, it was an updated version of an outdated constitution, she said.

Carol Swain, professor of political science and law and advisor to Vanderbilt’s chapter of CLS, has said the group will leave campus at the end of the semester rather than change its constitution. But so far, neither the student groups nor the administration have changed their positions throughout the discussion progress, and no final decisions have been made, Colby said.

Last week, Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos sent out an email to the campus, stating the administration will hold a town hall meeting on January 31 to explain the university’s stance on the policy.

Gordon College has selected Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University, as its next president. Lindsay will begin on July 1 at the Christian liberal arts college in Wenham, Massachusetts.

At age 39, Lindsay will join a younger cohort of leaders for Christian institutions. For instance, Philip Ryken, who became president of Wheaton College last year, is 44 and Dinesh D'Souza, president of The King's College, is 49.

Lindsay finished his undergraduate degree from Baylor University, completed a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and received a Ph.D. from Princeton in 2006. He is completing a study is based on interviews with over 500 leaders in the U.S.

Lindsay is author of Faith in the Halls of Power, which documented evangelicals in high-profile leadership positions in politics, media, education, and business. (See Christianity Today's earlier review. The book won first place in the Christianity and Culture category in CT’s annual Book Awards).
CT senior writer Tim Stafford interviewed Lindsay about the book in the November 2007 issue of CT.

Last fall, Gordon's current president R. Judson Carlberg announced his retirement. Timothy Dalrymple has posted a new interview with Lindsay at Patheos.

Ties between Gordon and CT include the following: Former Christianity Today CEO Harold Myra continues to serve on Gordon’s board; CT deputy managing editor Tim Morgan is an alumnus (’78); former CT associate editor Wendy Murray has served as an adjunct professor of communication arts; and prominent Boston pastor Harold John Ockenga was president of Gordon from 1969 to 1979 while serving as the founding board chair of Christianity Today (1956 to 1981).

A prolific author with about two dozen publication credits, Lindsay wrote the following articles for CT and sister publication Books and Culture:

The Engine of the Market | It's not capital. Why wealthy evangelicals and others need to reconsider executive compensation.

Changing of the Guard | What happens to the Religious Right?

Beyond Platitudes | A model for civic leadership that takes religious pluralism seriously.

The Sociological Two-Way Mirror | Pierre Bourdieu's legacy.

In a statement issued by Liberty University Friday, a panel of four trustees announced they had found that Ergun Caner, dean of the seminary at the Lynchburg, Virginia, school, had made "self-contradictory" statements about "dates, names and places of residence" in his public talks following the events of September 11, 2001. However, the trustees found no evidence to question Caner's basic claim that he was "a Muslim who converted to Christianity as a teenager."

Caner has been the target of both Christian and Muslim apologists and bloggers who claim that he falsified his biography in order to inflate his credibility as an expert on Islam. Christianity Today earlier reported on the controversy here and here.

Apparently, Liberty University's trustees consider Caner's misleading statements to be serious enough to undermine his ability to serve as seminary dean. They are removing him from that role while allowing him to remain on the faculty. This nettles critics.

Big news out of Waco: Kenneth Starr (yes, that Kenneth Starr) will be the new president of Baylor University.

Formerly Solicitor General of the United States, he has been a very prominent dean of Pepperdine University's School of Law (partly for his work at the school, and partly for his ongoing law work, like defending California's Proposition 8).

The Waco Tribune-Herald reports:

His national stature could potentially swell Baylor’s endowment with expressions of support, but the controversial nature of that stature could impact Baylor’s image as well.

An immediate challenge for Starr, however, lies closer to home. An ongoing feud between the Baylor administration and the Baylor Alumni Association has been racheted up in the last few months as the administration first made, then withdrew peaceful overtures for the BAA to be absorbed by Baylor and lose its independent status.

Starr must also be mindful of the Baylor faculty, which played a key role in the [July 2008] ouster of [John] Lilley after a highly controversial denial of tenure for a dozen professors. One source said the faculty representatives to the presidential search met Starr with a high degree of skepticism, but were ultimately won over by Starr’s personality.

Following student protests, the University of Sheffield in England decided to not close the department of biblical studies.

A review by the pro-vice-chancellor had recommended shutting down the department down after current and 2009-2010 students completed their degrees, citing the loss of staff and declining student demand.

At 8 a.m. today, 1,064 members had joined the Facebook group "Don't shut down Biblical Studies at Sheffield" and a website was created to send the vice chancellor petition letters, several of which were posted on the website. Ben Hurrell, who created the Facebook group, told CT that citing the lack of student interest and staff was "unjust."

"The number of entries last year were capped at eight, but this year's graduates and level three students represent all-time high figures," Hurrell said in an e-mail. "While five senior lecturers have left over the last 2 years, the university has not allowed the department permanent staff to replace them for a variety of reasons."

The university senate was supposed to vote on the department's future on October 7, but after students heard through the students' union and protested, the decision was postponed.

"The vice chancellor has said that he feels the faculty handled consultation with staff and students so badly that it cannot justify a closure," Holly Taylor, education officer for the students' union, said in an e-mail this morning.

Taylor said that the the faculty will draw up plans for the department, including new staff appointments.

Collin Hansen contributed to this report. Another report will be forthcoming.

Vanguard University, a Southern California Assemblies of God school that was warned last fall about its financial oversight from an accrediting body and went through a string of leadership transitions this January, may be facing sunny days again.

School officials met with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) February 18 to show that they had taken recommended steps to remedy the fiscal and management issues noted by WASC during its September visit. College president Carol Taylor announced last week that WASC had granted the school's request to defer action on its accreditation review until its June 2009 meeting.

"In granting a deferral, the WASC Commission recognizes Vanguard's progress and has noted that this deferral provides the University a window of time to bring to fruition key initiatives that have been undertaken," President Taylor said in her online message. Deferment gives the CCCU member school time to show it can run with an independent board of trustees and implement sound financial management, which it had reportedly lacked for years.

Four days after the WASC meeting, Vanguard learned that Bruce Lindsay, a millionare who hung out on campus every day and became known as the school's "campus grandpa" and "student advocate," had died and left his fortune to the school, which is $42 million in debt.

According to the Los Angeles Times profile, Lindsay, 79, was known for his frugality and made his fortune in part by buying low-cost oil leases and flipping beach homes. The worth of Lindsay's estate is still unknown, but Vanguard has said part of the donation will go toward renovating its cafeteria, where Lindsay ate three meals every day.

Sunday's Daily Mail and yesterday's Telegraph covered the removal of words associated with Christianity (and therefore, British history), fairy tales, and nature in the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary.

Words such as disciple, devil, monk, fern, elf, pasture, and willow have been removed from the 10,000-word dictionary and replaced with words such as MP3 player, blog, tolerant, democratic, and biodegradable - all to reflect England's multicultural, technological ethos, says publisher Oxford University Press.

Vineeta Gupta, head of children's dictionaries at Oxford, told the Telegraph, "Nowadays, the environment has changed. We are also much more multicultural. People don't go to Church as often as before. Our understanding of religion is within multiculturalism, which is why some words such as Pentecost or Whitsun would have been in 20 years ago but not now."

(That was probably a good call on Whitsun.)

It's a little unclear why both papers are reporting on the changes now, as the newest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary came out in 2007. Both papers cite an Irish mother of four, Lisa Saunders, who compared six editions of the dictionary from the last 30 years and was "horrified" by the number of words that had been removed.

"The Christian faith still has a strong following," Saunders told the Daily Mail. "To eradicate so many words associated with the Christianity will have a big effect on the numerous primary schools who use it."

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat aptly noted that the removal of animals like gerbil and porcupine from a children's dictionary is particularly perplexing, perhaps more so than the removal of churchy words. Vox Day of World Net Daily, on the other hand, sees the word-swaps as warning signs of the destruction of Western culture due to immigration and pluralism.

Emir Caner, who converted from Islam to Christianity when he was a boy, has been tapped as the next president of Truett-McConnell College in Georgia. Kudos to Caner, but man do I disagree with his opinion of why someone should choose a Christian education.

"A parent should choose a Christian higher education for their child because of the investment in the student's mind. When they send their child to a Christian liberal arts college like Truett-McConnell, they are doing it for two primary reasons. First, they are sending their child to an institution that guards the mind from the destruction that can come from a secular education, and second, that prepares their child not just for a profession but also for how to live a life of character," Caner said.

"A Christian cannot be defined by what he or she does but by their character. That character, in turn, is formed by the investment of professors and staff who pour themselves into a student who will gain a thoroughly Christian worldview."

I hope he wouldn't think less of me for choosing to attend a big, liberal, secular university, where I had to consciously decide how I wanted my worldview shaped. Really, it's not as scary as many of good Christians think.

The more interesting element of Caner's story, though, is not his vision for Truett-McConnell, which, forgive me, I had never heard of. It's that he chose Christianity over Islam, despite what it cost him:

Baylor University's board of regents has fired president John Lilley, whose presidency began and ended with disputes over tenure.

In 2006, associate professor of church-state studies Francis Beckwith was denied tenure. His appeal became a cause celebre in some evangelical academic circles, and he eventually prevailed. Lilley, however, continued to be viewed with suspicion by some Christian observers.

But it was April's decision to deny tenure to 12 candidates that really set the drumbeats going. Most years, about 10 percent of faculty up for tenure are denied. This year, the 40 percent rejection rate sparked accusations of a "purge" and capricious standards. Seven of the ten faculty who appealed ended up receiving tenure.

A press release from Baylor says board member Harold Cunningham will be acting president until an interim president is named.

Updates to follow. The Waco Tribune-Herald will no doubt have coverage throughout the day.

In March, the trustees of Westminster Theological Seminary suspended professor Peter Enns over theological concerns regarding his book Inspiration and Incarnation.

The controversy got a lot of people talking about the authority of Scripture and two weeks ago even made the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

No doubt the discussion will continue in theology circles (Enns will be on a panel discussing his ideas on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament at the upcoming Evangelical Theological Society meeting, for example).

But the higher ed part of the story though, seems to have more or less come to a close today. Enns and WTS issued a joint statement announcing the end of his employment at the school. A hearing on whether he whether he should be dismissed was to begin August 25.

Here's a sad story from The Christian Century about how Christians don't understand their own tradition, written by a woman who teaches "Intro to World Religions" at Piedmont College:

Students who complete the class say they feel more at home in the world. They are less easily frightened by religious difference. They are more informed neighbors, better equipped to wage peace instead of war.

The only place the course backfires is in the unit on Christianity. Students who have spent every Sunday of their lives in church may be able to name the books of the Bible in order, but they rarely have any idea how those books were assembled. They know they belong to Victory Baptist Church, but they do not know that this makes them Protestants, or that the Christian tree has two other major branches more ancient than their own. Very few have heard of the Nicene Creed. Most are surprised to learn that baptism is supposed to be a one-time thing.

With only five class sessions for each religion, I cover the basics quickly: early Christian history, composition and content of the New Testament, the Great Schism, the Protestant Reformation, central Christian doctrines and common religious practices. Faced with so much new information, students often have a hard time formulating their questions.

"If Paul wasn't one of the 12 disciples, where did he get his stuff?"

"Do Catholics really think saints answer their prayers?"

April 25th marked the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's annual Day of Silence, described by the Network's website as a "student-led day of action when concerned students, from middle school to college, take some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to the name-calling, bullying and harassment--in effect, the silencing--experienced by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) students and their allies." Not surprisingly, the nationwide event elicited a range of responses from evangelical Christian groups at both the national and local level, and therefore offers promise as an occasion for further reflection about what form Christian witness should take in a pluralistic democratic society.

Florida's news outlets are abuzz again with the latest developments in the state's attempt to pinpoint guidelines for science education in public classrooms. This morning the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill 71?43 that requires public school teachers to offer "a thorough presentation and scientific critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution," more obtuse wording than that approved by Florida's Senate last Wednesday.

The Senate's bill, called the "Evolution Academic Freedom Act," was spearheaded by Sen. Ronda Storms and aimed at granting educators the right to present scientifically grounded alternatives to evolution, along with protecting them from disciplinary action for doing so. The bill borrows largely from an academic freedom bill drafted by the Discovery Institute, the leading research center on intelligent design, and focuses on teachers' First Amendment rights.

Proponents of both bills repeatedly stated that the legislation does not allow creationism or intelligent design to be taught in classrooms, and that neither bill includes religious language.

Florida legislators have until this Friday to come to agreement on the bill's wording. Considering the House's agreed-upon wording was already rejected by the Senate in earlier hearings, it remains dubious whether the legislators will be able to pass a bill at all.

Florida's debate over evolution began last October, when the State Board of Education adopted new science education standards that identified evolution as the "fundamental concept" underlying biology. Before the new standards, the Board of Education's statewide curriculum did not include the word evolution.

See CT Newsfeed's prior coverage of evolution and science education.

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Two of the hottest issues in evangelical theology right now are the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament and evangelical textual criticism. Peter Enns’s 2005 book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, aimed to pose difficult questions about the human aspects of Scripture. It received both praise and criticism from noted evangelical scholars.

And it made things difficult for Enns at his school, Philadelphia’s Westminster Theological Seminary. A battle over whether the book undermined or contradicted the Westminster Confession of Faith has been raging for some time now, and apparently came to a head Wednesday at the meeting of the school’s board, which decided to suspend Enns.

This note is now circulating from board chairman Jack White:

I don't pick up The Chronicle Review--an insert in The Chronicle of Higher Education--expecting to be spurred to reflection on the emerging movement. And I'm quite sure that was not what author and UCLA history professor Russell Jacoby intended. Nevertheless, his intriguing article, "Not to Complicate Matters, But...," collided with other reading from my week to produce that rare but welcome guest--a helpful insight. In short, Jacoby is frustrated with scholars' growing penchant to "complicate," "problematize," or "complexify" issues and think in so doing that their work is complete. To make his point, Jacoby cites mock and actual examples that will sound familiar to anyone who's laid their hands on a peer-reviewed academic journal in the last decade:

"I hope today to complicate our notion of cahiers - grievances - and the role they played in the States-General of 1789." The professors and graduate students at the symposium nod appreciatively. They have heard or read similar justifications untold times before. The author explains that he or she will "complicate" our understanding of some event or phenomenon. "In this article," writes an ethnic-studies professor, "I seek to complicate scholars' understanding of the 'modular' state by examining four forms of indigenous political space." Everyone seems pleased by this approach. Why? The world is complicated, but how did "complication" turn from an undeniable reality to a desirable goal? Shouldn't scholarship seek to clarify, illuminate, or - egad! - simplify, not complicate? How did the act of complicating become a virtue?

"We're going to go on with the call of God on our lives," former Oral Roberts University president Richard Roberts told The 700 Club today. "God will deal with people and false accusations. All I can say is that it's not true, and leave it at that. God is the ultimate judge."

Roberts said he will remain a "spiritual regent" to the university and CEO of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association as he returns to a full-time healing ministry.

"The healing ministry has always been my first love," he said. "I am immersing myself fully back into the healing ministry, which was what I was doing before I became president of ORU."

Our background here. Tulsa World has a year-end roundup here, here, and here.

A story in today's Chicago Tribune illustrates one of the tensions of living in an increasingly secular society. The article, "Religious-based education on trial: Christian high schools sue University of California, alleging bias in admissions," discusses a lawsuit that an association of Christian schools is suing the University of California because "the admissions policy at the university unconstitutionally discriminates against them because they teach from a religious perspective."

More specifically the plaintiffs claim that "UC follows the policy of rejecting any course in any subject, even if it teaches standard content, if it adds teaching of the school's religious viewpoint."

The University denies it, of course: "That statement simply is not true," said Christopher Patti, counsel for UC. "There is no prohibition on religious content in UC a-g courses," he said. "If the course adequately teaches the subject matter and adequately teaches the skills that students need in that subject, then the fact that it may also make reference to other theories doesn't disqualify it, even religious theories."

Without knowing more the details of the case, on the surface it seems like another battle in the culture wars than in cultural confusion.

The University, for example, refused to give credit for a course called, "Course: Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic," the text of which was "American Government for Christian Schools" (Bob Jones University Press). The reason rejected was that " Content was not consistent with the "empirical historical knowledge generally accepted in the collegiate community."

Now this could indicate that the University has a narrow, Enlightenment understanding of what constitutes history--it may, for example, rule out miracle a priori as an explanation for an event.

Or it could mean that the textbook and class have not prepared students to participate in classes and conversations that will take place in a modern, secular university on the topic of history. A university has the right and obligation to ensure that when students step on campus, they are familiar with terms, theories, and perspectives that constitute the conversation on campus on any given topic.

Christian schools have an obligation not only to teach from a Christian perspective, but to thoroughly immerse their students in the worldview and perspective of the secular university if they expect them to attend there. This strikes me as a reasonable requirement of the university, but a necessary requirement of those who hope to bring Christ's salt and light to academia. If we demonstrate that we have not listened to or thoroughly understood the point of view of those with whom we disagree, why would they ever give our point of view a hearing?

New Saint Andrews College, the original classical Christian college in Moscow, Idaho, has been forgotten within the media hype surrounding Patrick Henry College - a more recently established classical Christian college in Virginia.

It seems that the two colleges are at odds. Patrick Henry College might be on a "mission to save America," to quote the title of Hanna Rosin's new book profiling the school, but according to a quote in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine from Doug Wilson - NSA's founder - New Saint Andrews is "trying to save civilization."

With the new Creation Museum, which teaches a young earth, drawing tens of thousands of visitors, scientists who hold to Darwinism may have a public-relations answer. According to an article in today's Chicago Tribune, the 3.2-million-year-old bones of "Lucy," a small, apelike creature believed to be an evolutionary presursor to human beings, will go on a six-year museum tour, beginning this week. The exhibit, called "The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia," opens on Friday at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

But some paleontologists aren't too happy about the bones being transported out of Ethiopia, where they were discovered. They worry that the bones might be damaged and that they will be unavalable for further study while on tour. But not all think that way:

Donald Johanson, the paleoanthropologist who found Lucy in 1974, said her exhibition should have important payoffs in teaching children and adults about science.

"Seeing the original Lucy will surely heighten public awareness of human-origins studies particularly at a time when the validity of evolution has come under fire in our schools," said Johanson, now the director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, where he continues to do research but also has become a popular educator on human evolution through books and lectures.

"A broader exposure of Lucy to the public does have great educational value," he said.

It should be interesting to see what the interest in Lucy is, given that according to opinion polls roughly half of the American public has expressed serious reservations about the theory of evolution, which nonetheless has enjoyed almost unquestioned hegemony in academia and the mainstream media. Perhaps one explanation for the throngs at the Creation Museum is that there are so few politically correct alternatives for people who question the evolutionary metanarrative, which usually excludes God.

Andrew Paquin is executive director of the 10/10 Project, a Colorado-based international development and advocacy organization focusing on Africa. He was also professor of global studies at Colorado Christian University, and last year was named faculty member of the year. (He also wrote a 2006 op-ed for Christianity Today on Saddleback Church's PEACE plan.)

Monday's Rocky Mountain News reports that CCU fired Paquin "amid concerns that his lessons were too radical and undermined the school's commitment to the free enterprise system." (No one at the school has tenure.)

No one in Washington or in mainstream media outlets seems to be coming right out and saying it, but the implication from much of the reporting and commentary regarding yesterday's House Judiciary Committee testimony of former Justice Department official Monica Goodling seems to be that Christian college graduates shouldn't be permitted in high government positions.

Try to find a news story today that doesn't mention that Goodling is a graduate of Regent University's law school, that the school was founded by Pat Robertson, and that it has a distinctly Christian mission. (Several reports also note that she did her undergraduate work at Messiah College, another distinctly Christian school.)

In fact, Rep. Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.) spent most of his questions on Goodling's Christian education. Here's the transcript:

The local newspaper in Lynchburg, Virginia, reports that Jerry Falwell has been taken to the hospital. According to a Liberty University official, Falwell missed a morning meeting and was discovered unconscious in his office.

Last year, just before the students returned to the campus of the Roman Catholic Georgetown University, the school's Protestant chaplain informed six evangelical student ministries that they were being "disafilliated." That is, they could not use campus facilities for their events, could not advertise their events on campus, and could not use the Georgetown name or logo.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was one of the affected ministries, and the irony could not have been sharper: the daughter of IVCF president Alec Hill was a Georgetown student.

InterVarsity has been fighting legal battles at public campuses defending students' right to join voluntary associations on campus that could hold to the standards of Christian belief and behavior. There have been some very positive results from these legal actions at, for example, Rutgers (2002) and the University of Wisconsin-Superior (2007).

Georgetown, though, is a private, church-related university, and it had the legal right to ban any non-Catholic group from its campus. But that's no way to run a university. As Alec Hill said at the time, "As a parent, I am surprised Georgetown as a major university would close down freedom of association for their students. That seems contrary to Georgetown's ethos. It's an open marketplace of ideas."

Well, today I received a news release from IVCF announcing that Georgetown had completely restructured things, clearing the way for IVCF and other similar ministries to reaffiliate. Read InterVarsity's news release here.

While IVCF had to bring legal pressure elsewhere, genuine dialogue and listening seemed to work in this case. A university open the free exchange of ideas! What a blast from the past!

Students across the country are becoming more religiously active, according to a New York Times story today.

More students are enrolling in religion courses, even majoring in religion; more are living in dormitories or houses where matters of faith and spirituality are a part of daily conversation; and discussion groups are being created for students to grapple with questions like what happens after death, dozens of university officials said in interviews.

The religious involvement The Times notes does not include conversions or rededications of the nominally religious.

Much of the article is not news to readers of CT. Increased diversity at elite colleges has led to increased Christian presence, often among minority groups. The story also cites the UCLA study on student religious involvement, which CT has also reported. In fact, much of this The Times has already reported on.

Still, the fact that increased religiosity on campus is so broad is important. So, how are the evangelical groups doing? Does increased religious involvement in general mean more people are attending InterVarsity and Campus Crusade groups?

'Unisex toilets to tackle bullies' is the headline of a BBC story today. And, when you think of it, really, what could be more embarrassing for a bully than to be tackled by a toilet — and a unisex one at that.

Actually, the proposal is that England's rebuilt and refurbished schools should use unisex bathrooms (ah, let's call them loos like they do, since that's much cooler) with blurred glass walls, central sinks, and no urinals.

The Department for Education and Skills report explains,

Most anti-social behaviour occurs when pupils socialise and hang around in the toilets. To discourage this, along with provision elsewhere in the school for indoor social areas, the space within the toilet facility needs to be kept to a minimum, and hand-washing facilities should be made visible and potentially unisex by being moved out of the cubicle area as a direct extension to the circulation space. This also allows for passive supervision of the common areas from the circulation space, so that pupils can feel safe when using the toilets.

The report urges schools to lose loos' urinals because "research has shown that at puberty, boys’ use of urinals is problematic. The trough type in particular can contribute to a medical condition know as ‘shy bladder syndrome’." Elsewhere, the report notes that since urinals are cheaper than toilets, urinals may be preferred in some cases. (Some alternative floor plans include urinals.)

So anyway, I just thought the article (which I found on the BBC's religion & ethics news page) was interesting. I'm sure that some of the culture-warrior readers (those who use terms like "war against boys," "forced androgyny," and "feminization") will be interested. But since this is supposed to be a specifically Christian blog, I'd like to make some direct connection to Christian life, theology, or mission.

So here's the tangentially related question for you: Several verses in the Old Testament refers to those who "urinate against the wall" (or, to use the King James English, "pisseth against the wall" -- surely one of the favorite references for any grade-school boy in a KJV-friendly Sunday school class or old-school Awana program).

Most translations, even formal equivalent ones, have updated this as "men." But there are other Hebrew words for "men," and these cases the Hebrew really says "urinate against the wall." In each case, those who urinate against the wall are not in God's favor. It almost always looks something like this: "And it came to pass, when [Zimri] began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends. Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake against Baasha by Jehu the prophet."

So what's the deal? Urinating against the wall seems to besomething that both Israelites and other nations did, so it's apparently not just a cultural thing. But if the Bible identifies you as someone who pees on a wall, you're in deep trouble. Does God prefer squatting? Will England urinal-free loos be more biblical? Help me, Old Testament scholars!

Do a news search (Google | MSLive | Yahoo) on "Melissa Busekros" and you'll get several hits.

But what you won't get are many results from mainstream media sources. The Christian Science Monitor is one of the few outlets to pick up what is surely the hottest topic in Christian home-schooling circles.

The background: After the German government tried for two years to get Melissa's family to stop home-schooling the 15 year old, officials removed her from her home in February, put her in a foster home, and sent her to psychiatric treatment for "school phobia."

The update: Yesterday, on her 16th birthday, Melissa fled her foster home and showed up on her parents' doorstep.

Seems like a nice hook for a news story in the mainstream press, if they've been waiting for one.