by | Nov 28, 2023 | Uncategorized
A Christian college terminated John G. Stackhouse after an independent report alleged a pattern of inappropriate remarks to students. The professor challenges the findings.
Canadian evangelical scholar and commentator John G. Stackhouse lost his job as a religious studies professor following a six-month investigation into accusations of inappropriate behavior toward students, spurred by an online campaign.
Students said Stackhouse made sexist remarks and unacceptable jokes in the classroom, according to an independent investigator commissioned by Crandall University, the Baptist college in New Brunswick where Stackhouse had taught since 2015. The investigator also said the professor’s email exchanges with a female student amounted to sexual harassment.
A statement from Stackhouse’s legal counsel to CT said he “categorically disagrees” with the report’s findings and disputes the university’s decision to publish them online, “turning a private matter into a public spectacle.”
The summary of findings, released last Wednesday, also noted unanswered questions about sexual harassment complaints against Stackhouse from before he worked at Crandall. Regent College in Vancouver, where Stackhouse was on faculty for 17 years, declined to comment, citing privacy law; a CBC news program reported Sunday that Regent and Stackhouse agreed to a settlement following a 2014 investigation.
When asked about allegations at other institutions, Stackhouse told the investigator, “I do not see how it’s in my interest to answer that question,” the report said. Stackhouse said there had been no open complaint at the time he left Regent, but the investigator concluded that, whether directly or by omission, he misled Crandall prior to his hiring about the circumstances of his departure.
Stackhouse has been a voice calling for accountability at evangelical institutions …
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by | Nov 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
In the commercial capital of Malawi, Pentecostal pastors and churches face fines or removal for making a joyful noise.
Loud Pentecostal worship is part of the soundtrack of Africa’s major cities. From Johannesburg, South Africa, to Lagos, Nigeria, booming preaching and boisterous worship rings through the alleys, apartments, and street corners.
But in Blantyre—the commercial capital of Malawi—church noise is conspicuously absent.
Though located in one of the poorest nations in Africa and the world, Blantyre’s central business district contains one of the largest concentrations of investment banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, and posh restaurants on the continent.
Banks like National Bank of Malawi tussle for space in the district with foreign behemoths like Standard Bank Group (Africa’s richest by assets) and the domineering skyscraper of the Reserve Bank of Malawi, the country’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve.
“It is a Wall Street of the Southern Africa region. The city is just artificially too clean, too smart, and designed for banks,” said Susan Mani, one of a few highly regulated mobile chefs who serve suited bankers and hedge fund managers rice and chicken during a two-hour lunch window.
“The thinking of the city fathers is, ‘Do you want some noisy, prayerful African church beating drums in the basement when hedge fund investors from Singapore or Dubai are meeting in the boardroom of a bank atop?’”
City officials have made it clear their answer is no. While quieter Anglican and Adventist congregations dot the streets of Blantyre, noisy African-initiated churches are unwanted. They face fines or possible removal from the district for their traditional style of worship.
“It’s costly to be caught leading a church where bass drums, loud prayers, and the …
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by | Nov 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
Its main rivals seek truth without transcendence, or justice without redemption. And both flatten the meaning of human existence.
College and university professors in the liberal arts (humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences) are almost entirely left-leaning, liberal, or progressive, and this is especially true among faculty in the humanities and social sciences. The trend is even more pronounced in certain selective schools.
Students who attend liberal arts colleges or universities often adopt more liberal or progressive points of view as a result of their education. There are many great literary depictions of this transformation and the ensuing alienation that often results when such students return home from college. (My favorite is in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Revelation,” where a young woman in a doctor’s office throws her human development textbook at the unenlightened, uncouth, hometown character Ruby Turpin.)
Is this phenomenon accidentally related to the demography of the professoriate or somehow intrinsically related to the craft and content of the liberal arts themselves and the culture and atmosphere of the campus?
The terms “liberal” and “progressive” represent different political traditions in the West, and, when applied to the liberal arts, represent different approaches to education.
“Liberal” liberal arts education represents a modern vision of an Enlightenment-style view of objective truth pursued by rational and empirical methods. The “progressive” model, on the other hand, is often associated with postmodern visions of education, ones suspicious of privileged categories such as knowledge, truth, and understanding. It aims at dismantling systems of illegitimate power, ensuring equal outcomes, and achieving other goals connected to …
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by | Nov 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Harrowing journey with children and grandparents reunites family with husband, as Palestinian Christians sheltering at Orthodox and Catholic churches grow increasingly desperate.
Janet Maher is out of Gaza.
The Palestinian wife of the Egyptian former pastor of Gaza Baptist Church had been sheltering in the Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church with her three children and 350 others—but not her husband. Two weeks before the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Hanna Maher had traveled temporarily back to Egypt, where he had to remain after the war broke out.
Despite the horrors of suffering 43 days of bombardment by herself, as CT previously reported, the family separation is the reason why Janet and her children are now safely in Egypt, reunited with Hanna. But first they had to undergo a harrowing journey that began with tearful goodbyes to a hallowed community.
“I spent weeks with these people and am broken by the experience,” Janet said. “But everyone pleaded: If you get out, tell the world about our situation.”
The death toll in Gaza exceeds 11,000, including more than 5,000 children, according to statistics released by the ministry of health in the Hamas-run enclave and last updated November 10. But save for the shrapnel and scattered remains of human carcasses flying over the walls of the church compound, little of this was known to the Christians inside.
With no television or internet and only intermittent connection to the cell phone network, Janet and her fellow sheltering Gazans knew only the daily reality of war. Most of the day was spent trying to figure out how to procure food, with the young men tasked with trips outside to the local market.
Most often, the day would begin with bombing—sending the people scurrying away from windows and doors to the center of the room. Three times a week, the priest would lead morning prayers. Frequently, they would …
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by | Nov 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Gutted by Gaza, Holy Land Christians exchange holiday cheer for a hallowed Christmas Eve in solidarity with suffering neighbors.
There will be no Christmas lights in Bethlehem this year.
In solidarity with the suffering in Gaza due to the Israel-Hamas war, last week Christian leaders and municipal authorities in the West Bank city decided to cancel all public festivities. For the first time since modern celebrations began, the birthplace of Jesus will not decorate the Manger Square tree.
It is “not appropriate,” stated local authorities.
But the Bethlehem decision is only the most recent. One week earlier, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem asked Christians in the Holy Land to refrain from “unnecessarily festive” Christmas activities. Catholic churches in Galilee requested the same, as did the Council of Local Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land.
“Due to the thousands killed—and in prayer for peace,” said its president, pastor Munir Kakish, “we will only hold traditional services and devotionals on the meaning of Christmas.”
The initiative, however, came first from Jordan, home to the world’s largest concentration of Palestinian refugees—many of whom have become citizens. On November 2, the Jordan Council of Church Leaders (JCCL) announced the cancellation of Christmas celebrations.
Christmas is a public holiday in the Muslim-majority nation, with many city squares and shopping malls feted with seasonal decorations. But congregations throughout the country will now forgo the traditional festivities of public tree lighting, Christmas markets, scout parades, and distribution of gifts to children.
Religious services in all locations will continue.
“In our homes we can celebrate, but in our hearts we are suffering,” said Ibrahim Dabbour, JCCL general secretary and …
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