The Ark and The Dove

Subversive Christians on Campus

Mike S. Adams most recent column plugs a group called www.CrossExamined.org.
Apparently, the group consists of mercenary apologists (white-hat sophists, perhaps?) that you can bring to your secular campus to stage polite, respectful rhetorical battles with whatever atheist wishes to confront them. It might be something that the Knights or Daughters at the CSC should look into.
The context for his article, by the way, was a survey conducted that reported a predictable strong bias against evangelical Christians on campus.
Personally, I'd like to know what they survey found regarding bias against Christians in general. I know that would certainly say that students that are expressly "evangelical Christians" have a tendency to cause more trouble in classes than other kinds of Christians by derailing conversations or becoming unnecessarily hostile.
And in related news, I totally want to go see Ben Stein's new movie Expelled. The reviews I've read claim that there is a hilarious scene where he catches world-famous atheist Richard Dawkins making a totally circular argument about evolution. The film is supposed to expose how the supposed intellectual elite and academic community irrationally attacks Intelligent Design (although from what I hear the movie is not so much interested in Intelligent Design as the simply irrational fear of it due to a convoluted faith in evolution).

Apparently, "The Simpsons" Still Have It

Just the other day, I was in a conversation about how The Simpsons used to seem so irreverent, cutting edge, and shocking...but that it now seems downright campy in comparison to the often cruder and edgier humor of South Park, and the always cruder Family Guy.
Not so in Venezuela, where it seems the supreme dictator Hugo Chavez has declared The Simpsons unfit for the brainwashing of his youth.
It has to be a feather in Matt Groenig's cap to know that his subversive cartoon has been rejected by a powermonger for doing what it does best.

Michelangelo Would Get an F

FOXNews reports on a high school student who is suing over a zero grade he received because he incorporated religious text into a landscape.

...assistant principal Cale Jackson told the boy his religious expression infringed on other students' rights.

Jackson told the boy, his stepfather and his pastor at a meeting a week later that religious expression could be legally censored in class assignments. Millin stated at the meeting the cross in the drawing also infringed on other students' rights.

I can somewhat identify with both sides of this debate. As a teacher, I've often been confronted with students who challenge my authority and supposedly liberal ideology by seeing how far they can push an evangelical agenda. You often have to resist an urge to shut down the student since they generally (note the generalization folks) don't seem to be understanding the actual point of what you are trying to do in class and are, for the most part, simply derailing pedagogy.

Don't be that student.

On the other hand, I can't really see giving a student a zero grade just for making a Christological argument...especially in an art class. I can see docking points for a student not following instructions (the students were assigned a landscape, and this particular fellow decided to add free-floating Bible citations in the air). The teacher also explicitly stated not to incorporate religious views, so the teacher is arguing that the student violated the terms of the syllabus.

I suspect the real issue is going to boil down to whether or not a teacher is legally permitted to strip a student of their right to religious expression. According to the law, does the expression of a religious viewpoint actually constitute an "infringement" on other students' rights, and therefore warrant a ban in a classroom.

I'm not exactly sure what rights these are. They sound an awful lot like rights to not have to tolerate other people's views. I didn't realize that my right to not have to listen to someone else's belief equated to a right to punish that person for expressing those beliefs. Here, I just thought it meant I had a right to plug my ears, to not believe it what I was told, or to speak to the contrary. Now that I know I can punish others for saying things that disagree with me, I imagine I will have much more interesting conversations in the future.

 

The Three Mages

At first, I had thought I'd be offended by the animation of Larpers at a Christmas pageant that YouTube has been spotlighting. Mostly, I was concerned based on the inauspicious title "IM IN UR MANGER KILLING UR SAVIOR."
It turns out that it's pretty funny.
Funnier still are the animated video responses which the main characters make to their own performances here and here.

Still don't know what Larping is? Prepare to be terrified.