Like most of America’s historic private universities, Vanderbilt University was founded by Christian believers for the purpose of inculcating Christian beliefs in its students. Vanderbilt was founded in the 1870s by Methodists and later funded largely by New York’s Vanderbilt family. Within a remarkably short period of years, Vanderbilt had forfeited its conservative Methodist roots in order to identify with the emerging secular consensus in American higher education.

What would prevent this scandal at your school or church?

Mercer University and Shorter University represent opposite trajectories on the landscape of American education.

Baylor University has been the news lately, because of the vote by the university’s regents to allow up to 25 percent of the board to be non-Baptists. The Executive Board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, meeting February 21-22, grilled Baylor leaders on this decision — taken without consultation with the convention.

Manhattan College claims to be a Catholic institution, and the Archdiocese of New York lists the school as a Catholic college. Nevertheless, all this has not impressed the National Labor Relations Board, which recently ruled that the college could not prevent adjunct faculty from unionizing because, as G. Jeffrey MacDonald of Religion News Service reports, “the school’s core purpose isn’t religious enough to trigger a labor law exemption.”

On many campuses, a significant number of faculty members are representatives of what has been called the “adversary culture.” They see their role as political and ideological, and they define their teaching role in these terms. Their agenda is nothing less than to separate students from their Christian beliefs and their intellectual and moral commitments.

Antony Flew’s rejection of atheism is an encouragement, but his rejection of Christianity is a warning. Rejecting atheism is simply not enough.

The rise of co-ed dorms is the inevitable result of a breakdown in all rationality about sex, gender, and sexuality. In this case, the movement is being pushed by activists who are all too clear about their agenda.

Can a Christian organization remain Christian in a culture of postmodern “tolerance?” That question is the focus of a case soon to come before the U. S. Supreme Court.

Lisa Miller of Newsweek begins her article with what would seem to be a statement beyond dispute:  “It doesn’t take a degree from Harvard to see that in today’s world, a person needs to know something about religion.” Note that she does not make any specific religious or theological claims, and that her horizon of concern is decidedly this-worldly. She simply makes the common sense observation that a knowledge of religion is important in these times. This would make perfect sense to any journalist, and to just about any other person of intelligence and curiosity.

“We must confront the ghosts of the past,” said James O. Freedman, president of Dartmouth College. While dedicating the new Roth Center for Jewish Life at the college, Freedman used the occasion to look back to Dartmouth’s past and a legacy of “bigotry” the college had long since repudiated.