Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Washington Times]

Students at a Texas college are demanding that their diplomas not be dated “in the year of Our Lord,” prompting school officials to consider removing that phrase while leaving what others consider another obvious reference to Christendom — the school’s name, Trinity University.

A spokeswoman for the private San Antonio school with historic ties to the Presbyterian Church said that if the board does make changes, it is more likely to take the phrase “in the year of Our Lord” off every diploma rather than just off those of specific students.

“I think they are going to go a step further,” said Sharon Jones Schweitzer, assistant vice president for university communications, because of the difficulty of providing custom diplomas and to guarantee the legitimacy of all of them.

A decision on the phrase is expected in May.

The debate began in the fall when some students noticed the wording and said it was intolerant of students with non-Christian religious beliefs.

Senior Sidra Qureshi, a Muslim student and president of Trinity Diversity Connection, started a petition that requested that students have the option of having the words removed from their diplomas.

Isaac Medina, a senior who graduated in December, told the San Antonio Express-News in March that he felt like “a victim of bait and switch” because he had applied to the university under the impression that it maintained only a historical bond to the Presbyterian Church.

“A diploma is a very personal item, and people want to proudly display it in their offices and homes,” Miss Qureshi told the Express-News. “By having the phrase ‘In the year of Our Lord,’ it is directly referencing Jesus Christ, and not everyone believes in Jesus Christ.”

As conversation on the issue intensified, the student government hosted a forum for students to voice their opinions. The school’s Association of Student Representatives recommended the option to the Trinity board of trustees.

Trinity University was founded in 1869. The school’s name and Latin motto, “E Tribus Unum” (from three, one), reflects the three locations the school occupied before moving to its current campus and also its historical Christian belief system.

Read more here.

[From me]

Ummmm…. Let’s see. The students are attending a Presbyterian school. What would you expect from a religious school? If you don’t want religious words or be exposed to why not go to a public university?

[Fox News]

A blue, cross-like design emblazoned on T-shirts at Penn State University has some critics seeing red.

The shirts — intended to foster school spirit — sport a vertical blue line down the center with the words “Penn State White Out” emblazoned across the chest, forming a design that some say resembles a cross. The back of the shirt depicts the same blue line obscured by the words, “Don’t be intimated … It’s just me and 110,000 of my friends.” Roughly 30,000 of the shirts have been sold.

Penn State says it has received six complaints about the shirt, including one from the Anti-Defamation League’s Philadelphia branch, from people who say it connotes a Christian cross. The logo design also has become the focus of controversy in the student newspaper, “The Daily Collegian,” which has received several letters to the editor on both sides of the issue.

Michal Berns, a junior majoring in media law and policy, said she refused to buy the $15 shirt because of its religious connotations.

“At first glance, you don’t necessarily think that’s what it looks like, but when you look at it more, it does look like a cross,” Berns told Foxnews.com. “That’s the reason I didn’t purchase it.”

Read more here.

[From me]

O please!

What do you think?

[Yahoo News]

Kevin Roose managed to blend in during his single semester at Liberty University, attending lectures on the myth of evolution and the sin of homosexuality, and joining fellow students on a mission trip to evangelize partyers on spring break.

Roose had transferred to the Virginia campus from Brown University in Providence, a famously liberal member of the Ivy League. His Liberty classmates knew about the switch, but he kept something more important hidden: He planned to write a book about his experience at the school founded by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell.

Each conversation about salvation or hand-wringing debate about premarital sex was unwitting fodder for Roose’s recently published book: “The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University.”

“As a responsible American citizen, I couldn’t just ignore the fact that there are a lot of Christian college students out there,” said Roose, 21, now a Brown senior. “If I wanted my education to be well-rounded, I had to branch out and include these people that I just really had no exposure to.”

Once ambivalent about faith, Roose now prays to God regularly — for his own well-being and on behalf of others. He said he owns several translations of the Bible and has recently been rereading meditations from the letters of John on using love and compassion to solve cultural conflicts.

He’s even considering joining a church.

Read more here.

[From me]

Sounds to me like his experience was more positive than negative. Everyone I’ve ever met who graduated from Liberty has been a well rounded sharp person. 

What do you think?

[WCCO]

It might seem counterintuitive to look for higher education alongside Avril Lavigne music videos, but the video-sharing site has become a major reservoir of college content. The Google Inc.-owned YouTube has for the last few years been forging partnerships with universities and colleges. The site recently gathered these video channels under the banner YouTube EDU.

More than 100 schools have partnered with YouTube to make an official channel, including Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale and the first university to join YouTube: UC Berkeley.There are promotional videos like campus tours, but the more interesting content is straight from the classroom or lecture hall. Many schools have posted videos of guest lecturers, introductory classes and even a full semester’s course.At a time when many are finding college unaffordable and the ranks of the unemployed are swelling, free higher learning can sound like a good way to spend some free time.

“There’s a huge appetite around the world for people to better themselves, to study subjects that they either never got a chance to or haven’t studied in a while,” said Obadiah Greenberg, the strategic partnership manager for YouTube.

In the past five years or so, colleges and universities have been increasingly opening their doors digitally to the public.

Read more here.

[From me]

Man, I guess I went to college 20 years too late! Think of all of the money I could have saved!

What do you think?

[AJC]

Nothing, apparently, is more volatile than a mixture of sex, universities and a state budget crisis. You know that Georgia State University took a great deal of heat this month for possessing academics who claim bookish expertise about such forbidden topics as oral sex and male prostitution.

So when the Catholic League in New York objected today to an STD/birth control poster issued by the University of Georgia, the institution folded like a genuine Barlow. The reason? The poster featured Michelangelo’s image of the hand of God giving life to Adam — except that between the two fingers, one mortal and one not, was a condom.

“Carefully open condom wrappers with your fingers — don’t use a sharp object,” advised the poster, which was placed in dorms by the university health service as part of Sexual Health Awareness Week, which ended last Friday. As all of you know.

The Catholic League, in a complaint filed today with UGA vice president for student affairs, Rodney Bennett, said the university had “hijacked” an icon of Christianity.

“I hasten to add that the University of Georgia would never choose a depiction of Muhammad to hawk condoms. Indeed, only a few years ago an inoffensive depiction of this Islamic figure in a Danish cartoon led to murder and churches being burned to the ground. One can only imagine what would have happened had he been portrayed pushing condoms to youth,” wrote League president Bill Donahue.

Read more here.

[From me]

To me it isn’t a question of can they make posters like this–it is why?  Why would you try to upset a group of people? If someone wants to be sexually active and take risky chances with their lives then don’t make fun of another person’s religion. The homosexual community does their cause no good by purposely offending Catholics and other Christians.

What do you think?