christian colleges

Josiah R. Daniels 8-03-2022

Two young guys working together to study the Bible. Photo: georgemuresan / Alamy

My school tried to purge any evidence of liberation theologies, Christian critiques of the economy, or radical solidarity with the poor, hoping to indoctrinate students with a conservative ideology. But there was an underground community at my school that helped me make a pivotal realization: By Christian college standards, Jesus would be labeled “an extreme leftist” because he embodied class solidarity with the poor, damned the rich, and imagined an alternative community. That gospel appealed to me in college; it still appeals to me today.

Jasper Vaughn 4-25-2018
Editorial credit: Richard Paul Kane / Shutterstock.com

Editorial credit: Richard Paul Kane / Shutterstock.com

I GREW UP dazzled by NBA champion Kobe Bryant taking over games and redefining precision—I could never look away when he was on the court. But the sexual assault accusations brought against him in 2003 are as much a part of Bryant’s legacy as the night he dropped 81 points on the Toronto Raptors.

Domestic violence and sexual assault cast a long shadow over athletics, as much in Christian colleges as in secular universities or professional sports. Christian colleges should be held to a higher standard, however, because they have a gospel mission to shape disciples and protect the vulnerable, not just trade in talent.

That’s why I was dismayed in November when Liberty University (“Training Champions for Christ since 1971”) hired Ian McCaw as its new athletic director. McCaw resigned from Baylor University last year after he was sanctioned and placed on probation for his role in a widespread sexual assault scandal. The investigation into McCaw’s negligence led an independent law firm to release “scathing findings” of an “overall perception that football was above the rules,” and a complete lack of a “culture of accountability for misconduct.”

Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr.’s response? McCaw’s tenure at Baylor “fits perfectly with where we see our sports programs going.”

Professional sports are notorious for an institutional failure to hold sports figures accountable and to believe, respect, and protect victims of physical and sexual violence by those same figures. The NFL famously prioritizes player talent over women’s safety and imposes punishment to offenders unevenly—an inconsistency that often has a racialized narrative.

Kimberly Winston 6-29-2016

Image via REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/RNS

A bill wending its way through the California Legislature would limit religious colleges’ ability to claim an exemption from federal Title IX regulations that bar discrimination against LGBT students and faculty.

Only schools that prepare students for pastoral ministry would be allowed the religious exemption under California Senate Bill 1146 — which passed the state Senate in May and is scheduled for a hearing in the state Assembly on June 30.

Ryan Hammill 2-09-2016

Image via Joseph Olvera/Eliel Cruz

Students at Biola University and Oklahoma Baptist University assembled Feb. 9 in order to protest their colleges’ requests to be exempt from Title IX requirements that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  As many as 60 Christian schools have submitted similar requests since 2014, when the Justice Department announced that Title IX protections extended to transgender students.

Eliel Cruz 1-05-2016

Image via /Shutterstock.com

An influx of requests from Christian universities for the right to discriminate on the basis of gender identity have flooded the Department of Education. As many as sixty Christian schools have submitted requests for Title IX waivers since 2014, when the Department of Education announced their protections were inclusive of transgender students. Before this clarification, only a handful of universities had asked for such waivers in the 40-plus years since Title IX was established in 1972. But the decision to extend protections to transgender students has prompted dozens of Christian schools request these waivers.

the Web Editors 7-10-2015

1. Read the First Chapter of Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Sequel

Happy Christmas in July! Read this excerpt of the much-anticipated Go Set a Watchman — due to be released on Tuesday. Or listen to the chapter, featuring narration by Reese Witherspoon, over at The Guardian.

2. Pope Apologizes for Catholic Church’s ‘Offenses’ Against Indigenous People

"I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America."

3. When Algorithms Discriminate

So there’s this, from the Upshot: "Research from the University of Washington found that a Google Images search for ‘C.E.O.’ produced 11 percent women, even though 27 percent of United States chief executives are women. (On a recent search, the first picture of a woman to appear, on the second page, was the C.E.O. Barbie doll.)"

Catherine Woodiwiss 10-06-2014

(ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock)

WHEN IT COMES to speaking out on sexual violence, the first barrier for pastors is awareness of the problem, according to a LifeWay poll, “Broken Silence.” Commissioned by Sojourners and IMA World Health, the poll—released in June—surveyed Protestant pastors across the United States on their views on sexual and domestic violence. That church leaders don’t often discuss sexual violence is not surprising; for perhaps the first time in the United States, the poll puts numbers to just how few actually do—and illuminates some reasons for the silence.

The lack of awareness of sexual violence is a multipronged problem. According to the poll, 74 percent of surveyed pastors underestimate the level of sexual violence experienced by members of their congregations. In part, this gap reflects a failure to understand the tragic ubiquity of sexual violence—1-in-3 women in the United States, and 1-in-4 men, will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime. In a country in which 80 percent affiliate with religion, statistics strongly indicate that this issue is as pervasive within congregations as without.

Another problem, however, is around the willingness to believe it is happening. Of the pastors who talk about sexual violence, 72 percent do so because they believe it happens in their local community—but only 25 percent acknowledged that their own congregants may have experienced it.

“It couldn’t happen among Christians” is, sadly, a very common refrain among faith institutions. Reported instances of sexual abuse this year at Christian colleges, from Patrick Henry to Pensacola, indicate the deep costs of this refusal to ask whether sexual violence could happen “within the flock.”

A young couple holds hands. Photo courtesy Peter Bernik/shutterstock.com

Unfortunately, sexual violence on college campuses is a widespread reality. As many as 20-25 percent of women will face attempted or completed assault over the course of their college tenure. Contrary to popular myths about “stranger-danger,” 9-in-10 of those victims will know their attacker.

Lisa Sharon Harper 1-01-2012

A conference at Cedarville University shows new political boundary-crossing in the Christian college world.

Linda Midgett 10-25-2011

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When I applied for a job at CNN in the 90s, and told the interviewer that I had interned with an evangelical magazine called Christianity Today, his response was, "If it's Christian, it isn't journalism."

Over the years that expanded to, "If it's evangelical, it's Republican. Or Jerry Falwell. Pat Robertson. The Tea Party. Wrapped in a Patriotic Flag. White People. Derivative, cheesy music. Big Money. Big Hair." Fill in the rest of the blanks.

Are those labels a distortion of what it means to be an evangelical? Of course they are. Yet they are how evangelicals are perceived, rightly or wrongly (I personally think it's a mixture of both), in our society.

Jeannie Choi 8-12-2011

'Sunlight behind clouds 1, Cumbria, 2010' photo (c) 2010, John Davey - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/Here's a little round up of links from around the Web you may have missed this week:

  • Sandwich coasters are fun.
  • Voters put corn kernels into jars with their favorite Republican presidential candidates.
Steve Holt 11-27-2009

Imagine for a minute the fallout were a Muslim high school in America to choose for its mascot "the Jihadists."

In that light, how do you think Muslims (or Jews) view Christian schools whose mascot is "the Crusaders?"

Julie Clawson 9-22-2009
Over the past couple of months, I've followed the unfolding story of Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese woman who
Edward Gilbreath 7-06-2009

You can't do church in the 21st century without a vision for cultural diversity, says author and theologian Soong-Chan Rah.

Mimi Haddad 5-11-2009
I enjoy addressing the contributions of women in history at Christian colleges or universities.