Betsy Devos and The Bishops

From First Things-

Recently, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made significant changes to the way universities are to handle complaints of sexual assault. DeVos made clear that in no way will such assaults be tolerated, for “one rape is one too many.” But she also accented the rights of the accused, insisting that “one person denied due process is one too many.”

DeVos’s policy changes make sense: Both the accused and the accuser must enjoy clearly defined rights—rights that must be equitably balanced so that the truth of an accusation may be determined and justice served. This procedure has been at the heart of American jurisprudence for centuries.

I invoke DeVos’s astute and courageous changes because similar adjustments are necessary in the Charter for the Protection of Young People (commonly called the Dallas Charter) enacted by the American bishops in 2002 in the wake of the sex-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. The Charter has caused serious problems—of theology, justice, and morale—which continue to bedevil and undermine the Catholic priesthood in the United States.

More here-

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/12/betsy-devos-and-the-bishops

Church of England rejects new grammar schools as it states it will build schools for the 'many, not just the few'

From The Telegraph-

The Church of England has rejected the Government’s plans to create hundreds of new grammar schools as it claims it will build schools for “the many, not just the few”.
The Church, the largest single provider of schools in England, has ruled out the creation of any new grammars on the grounds that they cater only to a select group of “high achievers”.

Responsible for more than 4,700 schools across the country, the announcement follows a decision taken at the General Synod last year, which concluded that the Church should move away from selection towards schools that serve the “whole community”.

As part of its new vision, the Church said it would proceed with plans to create 125 new, more inclusive schools, which it hopes will help remedy an “increasingly fragmented educational scene”.
More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/04/07/church-england-rejects-new-grammar-schools-states-will-build/

The most and least educated U.S. religious groups

From Pew-

Attainment of a four-year college degree in the United States, often regarded as a key asset for economic success, varies by race and gender. But the share of people completing a college education also differs by religion, with members of some faith groups much more educated, on average, than others.

By far, Hindus and Unitarian Universalists have among the largest share of those with a college degree – 77% and 67% respectively. Roughly six-in-ten Jews (59%) have college degrees, as do similar shares in both the Anglican church (59%) and the Episcopal Church (56%).

These groups are among the top of a list of 30 U.S. religious groups ranked by educational attainment based on data from our 2014 Religious Landscape Study. 

More here-

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/04/the-most-and-least-educated-u-s-religious-groups/

Why CofE schools must resist becoming more religious

From Spectator UK-

The Church of England’s relationship with state education seems simple enough. Its schools have been a major source of strength, significantly slowing its rate of decline over the past few decades. Many congregations have been swelled by parents seeking a better-than-average state education for their offspring. From an Anglican point of view, what’s not to like?

Well, this: selection by church attendance is unpopular with those who do not benefit, giving the Church an image problem with its non-members. This makes some of its members, including me, uneasy. Also, the integrity of church attendance is in doubt, in parishes near a popular school. The cliché of the pushy parents faking their piety is partly true, and it affects the meaning of contemporary churchgoing. Its schools are a success story with a dubious smell. 

More Here-

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/09/cofe-schools-must-resist-becoming-religious/

Where free speech goes to die Political correctness may run amok at liberal colleges, but what about Christian correctness at conservative colleges?

From Pittsburgh-

Trigger warnings, safe spaces, micro-aggressions — over the past year or so, pundits, politicians and other serious people had a lot of fun bemoaning academia as a liberal la-la land where hands are held and minds are coddled. I’m rather old-school when it comes to free expression. I didn’t go for author and Northwestern professor Laura Kipnis’ notorious essay cheering professor-student affairs, but surely it was overkill for grad students to bring charges against her under Title IX for having a “chilling effect” on student victims’ willingness to come forward. Wouldn’t writing a letter to the editor have sufficed? As for dropping Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” from the Literature Humanities core class at Columbia after students demanded trigger warnings about its accounts of rape: Wasn’t it bad enough that Ovid was shipped off to Romania? Must his beautiful poems follow him into exile?

Attacks on “political correctness” champion educational values: the importance of grappling with challenging ideas and texts, mixing it up with different kinds of people, expanding your worldview, facing uncomfortable facts. How will students grow into strong, independent adults in a tough and complex world if they’ve spent four years lying on a mental fainting couch?

More here-

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2016/01/31/Where-free-speech-goes-nbsp-to-die/stories/201601310180

Rwanda: Rucyahana Whips up Support for Girls' Education

From Rwanda-

A bottom-up approach in girls' education needs to be adopted if the country is to consolidate its current gains in achieving gender parity.

Speaking at an outreach programme aimed at drumming up support for girls' education in Kigali, yesterday, retired Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana said to do this, there has to be a radical change in the way society perceives girls' education.

"We must maintain and sustain what we have achieved as a nation as far as gender parity is concerned," said Rucyahana, who is president of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC).

NURC facilitated the session.

"To maintain the impressive numbers of women we have in Parliament, we have to go down to the grassroots, in the villages and in homesteads. We should make sure that from this level, we give girls as much attention as we do boys. We can't afford to continue treating girls the way we currently do."
More here-

http://allafrica.com/stories/201504220849.html

Religious education 'too weak' in Anglican primary schools

From The Telegraph-

More than half of Church of England primary schools are delivering poor quality religious education lessons that give pupils little more than a “superficial” grounding in the subject, according to official Anglican research.

A study by the Church’s education division found that under-11s were being fed a “narrow diet of Bible stories” rather than in-depth classes designed to boost their understanding of Christianity.
Researchers found that RE was “not good enough” in 60 per cent of primary schools and officially “inadequate” in one-in-six of those inspected.


More here-


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11108784/Religious-education-too-weak-in-Anglican-schools.html

'Selection by faith' axed at new wave of Anglican schools

From Telegraph-

The Church of England today signalled the creation of a new wave of faith schools with no places reserved for Christians to ensure they properly “serve their local community”.

Rising numbers of schools established in the future will operate “open admissions policies” to give equal priority to non-believers and the children of other faiths, it emerged.

The CofE’s newly-appointed chief education officer said the Church wanted to expand the number of Anglican school places to address the crisis in primary education.

It is estimated that an additional 130,000 places will be needed within the next three years because of a rise in the birth rate combined with the effects of immigration in some areas.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10890470/Selection-by-faith-axed-at-new-wave-of-Anglican-schools.html

‘The Way of Wisdom’ at GTS

From The Living Church-

General Theological Seminary will change its style of education beginning in the fall of 2015. The seminary’s faculty reflects on the need for change in “The Way Of Wisdom: A Challenge to Theology and the Life of the Church,” a declaration released April 2.

The Very Rev. Kurt H. Dunkle, General’s dean and president, also introduces “The Way of Wisdom” in his column for GTS News Quarterly.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/way-wisdom-at-gts

Historically black Va. college sees hope in sale

From Virginia-

The St. Paul’s College campus and the 35 buildings on its roller-coaster grounds are for sale in hopes it can continue to educate young black men and women in this rural community.

Located in Virginia’s tobacco-growing belt, the private, liberal arts college closed in June 2013 under crushing debt and questions about its governance, and following an ill-advised foray into football years earlier.

Now the school’s 11th president presides over the largely abandoned grounds and looks ahead to the April 9 sale of a campus that has everything you’d expect of a college, except for students.

More here-

http://www.newsleader.com/viewart/20140329/NEWS01/303290020/Historically-black-Va-college-sees-hope-sale

Archbishop opens door to church schools admissions reform

From Ekklesia-

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement that Church of England schools can move away from religious selection "opens the door" to change, say reformers.

In a recent interview with The Times newspaper, the Rt Rev Justin Welby said: “What you are seeing in the Church schools is a deeper and deeper commitment to the common good. There’s a steady move away from faith-based entry tests.”

He continued: “It is not necessary to select to get a really good school. There are unbelievably brilliant schools that are entirely open to all applicants without selection criteria apart from residence, where you live, and which produce staggeringly good results. It’s a question of – and you can point to them all over the place – it’s a question of outstanding leadership.”

Lambeth Palace immediately put out a defensive statement claiming that in spite of his comments, Archbishop Welby supports the policy of church schools setting their own admissions criteria, including faith-based ones, rather than having to follow non-discriminatory ones.

More here-

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/19451

Bishop of St Asaph backs new mixed faith school for Denbighshire

From Wales-

A BISHOP has welcomed plans for a new mixed faith school in Denbighshire.

On Tuesday, the council’s cabinet agreed to work with both the Wrexham and St Asaph dioceses towards creating a new shared Anglican and Catholic secondary school in the north of the county.

The move leaves a question mark hanging over the fate of the two existing Catholic schools, Blessed Edward Jones in Rhyl and St Brigid’s in Denbigh.

Last night, the Bishop of St Asaph, the Right Reverend Dr Gregory K Cameron said: “The two existing schools, which have a recognised Christian character are not Anglican foundations, so the prospect of provision in which the Church in Wales can be fully involved is welcome. 

More here-

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/bishop-st-asaph-backs-new-6258707

Religion, Intelligence, and Socialization

From Patheos-

The Independent just reported that “religious people are less intelligent.” Whatever remains of the “new atheist” crowd will argue that this study proves that education causes one to reject religion. Atheism is academic. Being enlightened or “bright” means you reject that dim-witted dogmatism of your fathers.

The problem is, of course, that atheism has been dominant in the academy for centuries. Take a group of impressionable young students— selected specifically for their intelligence—who care very dearly about academic approval, and send them to institutions where atheism is the de facto dogma. Have them marry each other, produce more clever children, and send them off to the same institutions. 

What would you expect besides a correlation between intelligence and atheism to develop over time?
The key matter here is this: intelligent people don’t simply reject religion because it’s wrong; they reject it because they are socialized to think it’s wrong. Most students don’t know the basic tenets of various world religions (even at a place like Harvard!). I’ve met many atheists who can’t tell me why they believe in evolution besides a dogmatic appeal to “it’s just science”—a blatant appeal to authority little different than that of religious creationists. Most people develop their beliefs due to social influence and not necessarily or just from intellectual investigation.

More here-

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/fareforward/2013/08/religion-intelligence-and-socialization/

Bursting The Seminary Bubble, Part II

From Forbes (see previous post)

My previous article, The Seminary Bubble, certainly hit a nerve—remarkably so, given that it appeared here at Forbes.com at the center of financial journalism and not one of the usual church discussion watering holes. Critics fell into one of three camps.

First is the gender cop camp. Self-described seminary instructor Sarah Morice-Brubaker writes, “Pssst. There are female seminarians. A lot of them. The fact that you fail to acknowledge this – and make it very clear that you have in mind hetero men when you think “seminarian” – simply makes everything else you say sound less informed and therefore less persuasive.”

Believe it or not, this was the most frequent criticism of my article, which tells me that things are worse than I thought. Liberal mainline seminaries appear to have turned into little gender police states whose denizens quietly tally your pronouns as you talk, calculating gender ratios.

More here-

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2011/05/11/bursting-the-seminary-bubble-part-ii/

The Seminary Bubble

From Forbes-

Imagine an institution that requires its leaders to attend not only college, but graduate school. Imagine that the graduate school in question is constitutionally forbidden from receiving any form of government aid, that it typically requires three years of full-time schooling for the diploma, that the nature of the schooling bears almost no resemblance to the job in question, and that the pay for graduates is far lower than other professions. You have just imagined the relationship between the Christian Church and her seminaries.

Mainline churches are nearly universal in their requirement that their Priests/Pastors/Ministers/Reverends be seminary graduates, and since seminary is a graduate school, this means the students must first be successful undergraduates. So take all of the arguments about a college bubble and add at least three years of tuition cost and forgone income.

But you’re not quite done: My friend Father Jay Geisler counsels seminary students. He tells me that in his experience roughly half of matriculated students do not graduate within three years. In addition, he tells me that the living costs tend to be higher for seminary students than for undergrads because undergrads are almost never married with children, but seminary students often are.  As such, dorm room type accommodations for grads will not do.

More here-

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2011/04/20/the-seminary-bubble/

St. Paul’s College, in Virginia, Reportedly Will Close

From The Chronicle of Higher Education-

Saint Paul’s College, a historically black institution in Virginia that has been struggling shore up its finances and regain accreditation, has informed its accreditor that it will close, the Associated Press reported on Sunday. The AP’s source for that information was Belle S. Wheeler, president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges. Officials of the college could not be reached over the weekend.

Nothing on the college’s Web site indicates a decision to close. An “urgent appeal to alumni and friends,” apparently posted recently, says the Board of Trustees is working diligently to secure the college’s future. The message gives fund-raising totals for April and May, and says the college is about $400,000 away from completing a campaign, begun last summer, to raise nearly $1.8-million.
More here-

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/st-pauls-college-in-virginia-reportedly-will-close/61261

Anglican school where 75% of the pupils are Muslim drops Christian hymns from assemblies

From The Daily Mail-

Hymns have been dropped from assemblies at a Church of England school which has also introduced separate prayer rooms for girls and boys to cater to its mostly Muslim students.

Daily assemblies at Slough and Eton Church of England Business and Enterprise College, where 75 per cent of pupils are Muslim, are not based specifically on the Bible, but may make reference to it alongside other religious texts.

All of the the meat served at the secondary school, which has over 1,000 pupils aged between 11 and 19, is halal.

Headmaster Paul McAteer said the approach was to be 'sensitive to the fact that we do have many different faiths in the school', but added that Christian values were 'more prevalent here than I have experienced in non-Church of England schools'.

Mr McAteer, who pointed out that the Church of England describes itself as 'a faith for all faiths', told the Sunday Times: 'The values we support are very much Christian values of honesty, integrity, justice.'

More here-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2312420/Anglican-school-75-pupils-Muslim-drops-Christian-hymns-assemblies.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Pakistan's only Anglican college receives £2m government grant

From ACNS-

Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion (CUAC) reports that one of its member institutions, Edwardes College in Peshawar, Pakistan, has received a development grant in the amount of PKR 300 million (US$ 3.1 million) from the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. CUAC’s General Secretary, the Revd Canon James G Callaway noted, ‘This significant grant to Edwardes, the only Anglican college in Pakistan, recognizes the vital role our colleges are playing in non-Christian societies: modeling an embracing of diversity for the common good, which is part of the DNA of their Anglican identity.’

Edwardes College, an Anglican-founded undergraduate and graduate institution, is located in the troubled border region of northwestern Pakistan. The school’s Principal, the Revd Canon Dr Titus Presler, explained the potential impact of the award: ‘This grant of 300 million Pakistani rupees will assist Edwardes with the academic programs and physical facilities vital to the degree-awarding status that will enhance our educational contribution to the province and the nation.’ He continued, ‘Amid the extremist violence of the region, it is heartening that this province in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has expressed such confidence in the higher education offered by a church institution. Lots of bad news comes from this area, but there is ground for hope.’

More here-

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2013/2/5/ACNS5304

Bearden: Sisters will teach you a lesson, all right

From Ann Rodgers via Facebook. Originally from Tampa Bay-


We make decisions every day in life that could have a profound impact on our future.

The one that forever altered my stint on this Earth came on the playground at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Birmingham, Mich.

"Let's draw straws to see who will throw the pie in Sister Martin Mary's face," one of my classmates whispered conspiratorially. (A boy, naturally.)

I was in eighth grade, on the brink of being sprung from Catholic school forever. My parents had promised that if I got good grades and stayed out of trouble that final year of school, I could go to the public high school.

No more nuns! No more ugly plaid uniforms! No more daily Mass!

I held up my end of the bargain. And then, on that last day of grade school, with freedom just hours away, I agreed to join the dissidents in this act of rebellion. Only we thought we could pass it off as a humorous send-off. Ha, ha, Sister Martin Mary. You were really tough on us all these years, and we wanted to show our gratitude with this shaving-cream pie.
More here-

http://www2.tbo.com/lifestyles/faith/2012/may/13/banewso1-the-sisters-will-teach-you-a-lesson-all-r-ar-402759/?referer=None&shorturl=http%3A%2F%2Ftbo.ly%2FJrK2G0

Anglicans Launch Scheme to Improve Education Around Commonwealth

From Singapore-

Anglican Alliance has launched a new scheme to help improve education standards around the Commonwealth.

The scheme will support education administrators from around the Anglican Communion in coming to London to learn about the delivery of education services.

The first four education administrators to take part in the scheme are David Agbo from Nigeria, Jacqueline Glasgow-Browne from St Vincent, Joe Takeli from the Solomon Islands, and Seidu Adam from Ghana.

Agbo, Takeli and Adam work for church education services, while Glasgow-Browne liaises with church schools on behalf of government education services.

They will spend eight weeks visiting education services and specialist education institutions in the UK next year and apply what they have learned to their own national contexts.

Their time in the UK will be split between studying local authority education services, workshadowing senior officials, visiting schools and learning from diocesan education services in two Church of England dioceses.

Their stops include Nottingham University, which has a special unit that works on leadership in education and especially on the role of faith schools.

More here-

http://sg.christianpost.com/dbase.php?cat=education&id=904