EPPC Adjunct Fellow Moves to WSJ

Posted: Thursday, June 30, 2005
Adjunct Fellow Naomi Schaefer Riley, author of God on the Quad, is leaving EPPC for a position at the Wall Street Journal.  [Full Story]

Higher, Higher Education

Posted: Friday, June 24, 2005
Schools with strong faith identities and strict behavioral codes are succeeding not despite their religious mission, but because of it. The faith of students at schools like these provides them with an additional perspective on subjects from English literature to environmental studies.  [Full Story]

Ed Boards Could Use Some Wal-Mart Smarts

Posted: Sunday, June 5, 2005
What happens when you drop a director of strategic planning for a technology and media company into the Oakland public school system's finance department? Culture shock.  [Full Story]

The Polygamists Next Door
Now's not the time to be neighborly to the religious sect members building a West Texas retreat
Posted: Sunday, June 5, 2005
Scores of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have begun to descend on the sleepy West Texas town of Eldorado and are planning to make a permanent home for hundreds of their members. Earlier this year, rumors flew that the leader of the secretive polygamous sect, self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs, may be planning some kind of Waco-style violent end for the members. It is perhaps commendable that the people of Eldorado want to be as welcoming as possible to their new neighbors, but they should not be lulled into complacency: They have a serious crisis brewing in their back yard.  [Full Story]

Changes at Chapel

Posted: Friday, May 20, 2005
Yale University -- like colleges and universities of all sorts nowadays -- tries hard to welcome students from a variety of faiths. This year, for the first time, Yale provided its Muslim students with halal food and a private prayer space during Ramadan. But Yale is not yet satisfied with its progress. Recently, on the recommendation of a committee charged with finding "ways to strengthen the growing expressions of religious and spiritual life," Yale announced its decision to cut the ties between its chapel and the United Church of Christ. But will that move really strengthen "religious and spiritual life" on campus?  [Full Story]

God and the Teen Set
Review of "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers"
Posted: Sunday, April 17, 2005
When hearing about Jeff Wiese, the high school student who two weeks ago went on the most deadly shooting spree since Columbine, our instinct is to wonder what goes on in the minds of teenagers. We assume that they are a species apart -- balls of raging hormones ready to explode at the slightest provocation or none at all. But as sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton show in their new book, Soul Searching, American teenagers are hardly so foreign. In fact, they're pretty good at imitating their parents. Usually this doesn't come in the form of mass violence, but Smith and Denton offer much evidence that teens' religious practices, moral foundations and theological views closely resemble the ones they were raised with.  [Full Story]

A Push to Curb Drug Abuse Among Orthodox Youths

Posted: Saturday, April 2, 2005
Last weekend, many Jews celebrated Purim, which commemorates their salvation from the hands of a wicked king's minister, Haman, in ancient Persia, by getting drunk. In fact, it is considered a mitzvah to drink immoderately on the holiday, one of the happiest in the Jewish calendar. So why was the Orthodox Union, the umbrella group for Orthodox synagogues in North America, sponsoring advertisements in Jewish publications that said, "Friends don't let friends drink irresponsibly on Purim"?  [Full Story]

Faith and the Fifth Grade

Posted: Thursday, March 24, 2005
Many of us remember the headline, "Declaration of Independence banned from classroom." Just before Thanksgiving, the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit against the Cupertino, Calif., school district and issued a press release with that claim at the top -- and all hell broke loose. A nice, neat, outrageous story. But there is much more to this story, and those of us concerned about the way faith is treated in our public institutions would do well to look into all the facts.  [Full Story]

The Missionary Generation
These young voters are religious, educated and mobile
Posted: Friday, January 21, 2005
As the country settles in for another four years of a born-again president, there are those on both sides of the aisle who wonder how long the religious vote will be a factor in the outcome of national elections. The good news – or bad news, depending on who you are – is that those "values voters" are here to stay. And the easiest way to tell is by looking at younger voters.  [Full Story]

What Would Jesus Do at Harvard?

Posted: Sunday, November 28, 2004
Harvard Professor Harvey Cox has spent his four-decade-long academic career negotiating the delicate boundaries between scholarship and political activism, between the commitments of faith and the norms of a secular university, between the rational study of religion and an experiential understanding of it. His new book When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today is based on a class he has taught for more than two decades.  [Full Story]