Summer 2008 Ivy League Christian Observer

IVY LEAGUE THE

Volume VII • Issue III • Summer 2008

CHRISTIAN

OBSERVER

Princeton Gospel Ensemble Page 11

Penn Prayer Walks Page 13

Navigators Staff Expands at Cornell Page 18

Dartmouth Alumnus Seeks Reform in Hollywood Page 24

Campus Crusade’s Faye Jaffe Has Deep Passion for Brown Page 29

Columbia Students Help Rebuild New Orleans

World Vision President Richard Stearns Challenges Students at the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action Page 23

Brown • Columbia • Cornell • Dartmouth Harvard • Penn • Princeton • Yale

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Harvard Organization Promotes Abstinence Page 38

Yale Climate Change Forum Page 41

Advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the Ivy League The Ivy League Christian Observer is published by the Christian Union, an independent Christian ministry.

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It is God alone who directs the course of the world.

It is only by His power that the 8 Ivy League campuses can be dramatically transformed to increasingly reflect His presence and lordship.

Prayer for the Ivy League is launching a new year-long initiative called “1,000,000 Minutes of Prayer” mobilizing family, alumni, and friends of the Ivy League to pray 1,000,000 cumulative minutes for the Ivy League.

1,000,000 Minutes of Prayer Initiative

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV) the Lord says, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” With the Lord’s encouragement in mind, please join together to pray daily for sweeping spiritual transformation across the Ivy League.

To receive a weekly compilation of prayer requests, devotionals, and updates gathered by us from campus ministries, you may signup online at www.christian-union.org/prayer, send an email to prayer@christian-union.org, or write to: Prayer for the Ivy League, Christian Union, 240 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ 08542, indicating your interest for: Fall 2008, Spring 2009, or Both.

BROWN • COLUMBIA • CORNELL • DARTMOUTH • HARVARD • PENN • PRINCETON • YALE

240 NASSAU STREET PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08542

INSIDE

ILCOEditor@Christian-Union.org

IN TELLECTU AL EN GAGEM E N T

Please help us get this magazine into the hands of those who want it. E-mail or write us in order to: • pass along the names of fellow Christian alumni, parents, staff, faculty, or friends who would enjoy this quarterly update from the Ivy League universities.

• update us on any address change you have.

• be removed from the mailing list.

Editor-in-Chief Matt Bennett, Cornell ’88, *89 Managing Editor Tom Campisi, College of New Jersey, ’88 Senior Writer Eileen Scott, Mount St. Mary, ’87 Field Reporters Grace Chen, Cornell ’10 Biblia Kim, Cornell ’09 Nkem Okafor, Yale Graduate School Ishmael Osekre, Columbia ’09 Joshua Unseth, Brown ’09 Jin Wang, Columbia ’10 Sara Woo, Cornell ’10 Photo Editor Pam Traeger

Not an Exact Science Do Ivy League Christian Scientists Face Discrimination?

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Intelligent Design Viewpoint ‘Expelled’ From the Academy Ivy Alumnus Ben Stein Produces Eye-Opening Documentary

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Prodigal or Prodigy?

Yale Alumni Magazine Pays Tribute to William F. Buckley

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Catholic Biology Professor Sees No Conflict in Evolution Kenneth R. Miller Testified Against Intelligent Design

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 ON CAMPU S

Letters to the Editor Please send us your feedback regarding events and topics described in this magazine at the e-mail or regular mail address listed above.

Keep Your Faith to Yourself Campus Newspaper Series Is Biased Against Christianity

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Cover image courtesy of Judson University, Elgin, Illinois

Ending on a High Note Concert Concludes Successful Season for Princeton Gospel Choir

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

By God’s power and the help of other ministries, the mission of Christian Union is to change the world by bringing sweeping spiritual transformation to the Ivy League universities, thereby developing and mobilizing godly Christian leadership for all sectors of society. Matt Bennett (Cornell BS ’88, MBA ’89) founded the ministry with friends in 2002 in Princeton, New Jersey. To learn more about the ministry, please visit www.Christian-Union.org.

The purpose of The Ivy League Christian Observer (this free quarterly magazine) is to inform Christian alumni, students, parents, staff, faculty, and friends of the Ivy League universities about the spiritual activity on the campuses. Our desire is that you would be encouraged to pray for these universities, give financially to Christian initiatives on the campuses, and use your influence for the cause of Christ.

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Art Project Outrages Yale Community Student Claims to Have Performed Self-Induced Miscarriages

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Penn Prayer Walks Scripture Reflected in Campus Sculptures

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 ABOU T MIN ISTRY Setting a Course, Launching a Ministry CU Aims to Help Steer Harvard Community Back toward Christian Moorings

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Ivy League Christian Observer

Playing for an Audience of One Athletes in Action Camp Provides Intense Challenge

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Navigators Staff Expands at Cornell Ministry Welcomes Three New Team Members

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Partners in the Gospel Christian Union’s Grant Program Helps Ministries Fund Outreach Efforts

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 S P E C IAL R E P ORT: T H E IV Y L E AGUE C O NGR E SS O N FA IT H A ND AC T ION History in the Making Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action Impacts Students, Alumni

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 ‘God Is Not Impressed with Your Ivy League Degree’ Richard Stearns Challenges Students at Christian Union Conference

By Nkem Okafor, Yale Graduate School . . . . . . . . . 23 A Movie Ministry Mogul Panelist Ted Baehr Speaks About the Impact of Media

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Redeeming Law Attorneys Speak of Calling and Challenges at Ivy League Congress

By Jin Wang, Columbia ’10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The ‘Big Red’ Busses Cornell Students Make Road Trip to Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action

By Biblia Kim, Cornell ’09 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 R E A C HING OUT Perfect Love Casts Out Fear in Panama City Princeton Faith and Action Team Hits the Beach

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 The Good News about Jesus Week Penn’s Campus Ministries Take Bold New Approach

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Columbia Students Help Rebuild New Orleans Spring Break Volunteers Participate in Post-Katrina Relief

By Jin Wang, Columbia ’10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Summer 2008

CON TEMPORARY CU LTUR E ‘Judging’ the Influence of the Ivy League Yale, Princeton Alumni Rule in Controversial California Decision

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Oprah Resurrects Professor’s New Age ‘Classic’ ‘A Course in Miracles’ Presents Misguided View of Faith

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 A True Love Revolution Ivy League Students Align Themselves with Abstinence

By Sara Woo, Cornell ’09. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 ‘There’s No Such Thing as a Nonperson’ Princeton Pro-Life Hosts Brother of Terri Schiavo

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Putting Faith in Creation Care Yale Forum Addresses Climate Change

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

IN PERSON Black Churches ‘Love Jesus and Love America’ Boston Pastor: Rev. Wright Is Not a Voice for African-American Christians

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Shining a Light in the Darkness Brown Alumna Devoted to Sharing Faith with Students

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Graduating Into Servanthood Mike McKoy Pursues Christ, Doctoral Degree

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 An Awakening of the Heart Penn Alumna Laura Kaczor Releases CD

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

DEPARTMENTS News-in-Brief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The Mission and Vision of Christian Union . . 50 Ivy League Prayer Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

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From the bottom of our hearts, “Thank You!” Through your generous giving, students’ lives are being changed across the Ivy League.

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www.Christian-Union.org/Giving Giving@Christian-Union.org

INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT

NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE Do Ivy League Christian Scientists Face Discrimination?

The Ivy League has ventured far from its Christian roots. No longer viewed as bastions for deALL IVY veloping clergy and missionaries of character, these elite schools strive for diversity in widely accepted pluralistic and even atheistic environments. Yet even as more evangelicals take their seats in “the halls of power,” as Michael D. Lindsay (Princeton *06) writes, how one’s faith affects the order of seating at the academic table can vary between disciplines and between scholars.

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While the wrongly perceived dichotomy between faith and science is oft at the forefront of debates between religion and academia, faith is perhaps even more conspicuously absent from the social science arena than from the physical sciences, says Richard Baer, professor emeritus at Cornell University.

Baer, Harvard Div. ’65, has taught environmental ethics at Cornell for more than thirty years. During that time, he said he’s taught at a university that “in the humanities and social sciences, to some degrees, is an enormously discriminatory institution and, in some ways, an enormously narrow-gauge institution.”

Baer said he experienced this kind of censorship while at Cornell. Although he made comments based on theology and church history that were relevant to discussions with peers, “the reaction was always identical: no one ever wanted to discuss it. No one ever disagreed. They ignored me,” he said.

For Princeton research physicist Robert Kaita, the experience of being a Christian scholar is somewhat different. The daily work of his science is such that it requires focus on details and calculations, he said. “It’s only when I step back and say, ‘Does this make sense, (and) why am I doing this?’ That’s where faith comes in.

I have to assume the universe is intelligible and God made it intelligible.”

Cornell Professor Emeritus Richard Baer, Harvard *65, and Princeton physicist Robert Kaita discuss the challenges of being a Christian professor in the Ivy League.

“You simply are not exposed to some of the deepest and most important ideas, values, beliefs, and history that form who we are in the Western world as a culture,” he said. “They are simply not on the table. We seldom explore the values of Christian faith. This has a profound understanding of how we do ethics.”

According to Baer, 80 percent of Americans do ethics in a broadly religious framework, but that assumption is not brought into the teachings or conversations about the subject at Cornell. “You either do ethics the way atheists and non-believers do or you don’t do ethics at Cornell,” he said.

Further, he believes university efforts have fallen very short of attaining the heterogeneousness it claims to seek. “Diversity studies are the least diverse of all. These rarely make an effort to seek out others who are terrific scholars but are conservatives,” Baer contends.

“The dominant mode in academia today is you treat people who hold the ‘wrong ideas’ as though they are non-persons.

Summer 2008

You don’t honor them enough to fight with them. You don’t engage the argument.”

The experiential differences between Kaita and Baer—who were panelists at Christian Union’s Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action this April—seem to be indicative of the fields in which they work.

The notion that more skepticism exists in the “harder” sciences is a misperception, said Kaita, citing Robert Wuthnow’s The Struggle for America’s Soul: “As a sociologist, [Wuthnow] looks at the data which shows that if you go to the harder sciences, what you find is a larger percentage of people who are Christian than non-Christian. If you go toward the ‘softer’ sciences in a typical university, you find just the opposite.”

Again, this perception goes back to the nature of the fields, Kaita explained: “I think we do have certain advantages in physical sciences in that there isn’t really that much room to create a god after your own image. You can check [research] and verify it. You can’t say, ‘By my philosophy I choose this interpretation.’ There is a certain linkage to reality beyond yourself.”

Additionally, Kaita said he personally hasn’t experienced bias or discrimination because of his faith. However, he has heard of it occurring more in the biological sciences. In general, Kaita believes that has more to do with the beliefs and

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INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT experiences of individuals as opposed to a “group-think mentality” among scientists.

“I think there are people in the sciences that have problems with Christians and may be outspoken; but that is not intrinsic to the science,” he said. “People who tend to be more outspoken and colorful are those with axes to grind for various reasons. One family professed Darwinism because a son drowned.”

For Baer, however, the situation is more critical. At the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action, he told attendees: “I hope and pray that as Christians we can have an influence in making universities academically more of a genuine marketplace of ideas. Because of the way universities function today, there is an enormous discrimination ideologically, morally, and so on against you, against us, as Christians.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

INTELLIGENT DESIGN VIEWPOINT ‘EXPELLED’ FROM THE ACADEMY Ivy Alumnus Ben Stein Produces Eye-Opening Documentary “Anyone? Anyone?” That’s what Ben Stein droned in his portrayal of a notoriously monotCOLUMBIA onic economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Today, Stein calls out those infamous words once again on the movie screen. This time, his voice echoes in empty classrooms and lecture halls as he seeks to unmask the stifling of free speech in the discussion of intelligent design in academia.

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In the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ivy alumnus Stein takes on the academy and atheists to expose the discrimination against individuals and ideas that open the door to the possibility of the earth’s creation by an intelligent being.

Stein earned an economics degree from Columbia University in 1966 and a law degree from Yale University in 1970.

Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, admitted to Stein that he doesn’t know how life was created but said the notion of aliens makes a good hypothesis.

As well, The New York Times called the film “one of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time.” The newspaper, where Stein serves as an economics columnist, said the movie is a “conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.”

Ben Stein, Columbia ’66 and Yale *70, has taken on the academy in defense of Intelligent Design in the documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Additionally, Matt Stevens of E! Online, called Expelled a “flunkout of a documentary.” He told readers that Stein’s “credibility is blown on this poorly constructed diatribe, and you’d be smart to save your bucks.”

Clearly, the former host of Win Ben Stein’s Money thinks otherwise.

The movie is not as much about the specifics of intelligent design as it is the deliberate absence of it from the discussion table. Through interviews with fired academicians and activist atheists, including Richard Dawkins, Stein sets the scene for a learning environment where alternative theories and open debate are banned.

“Big Science in this area of biology has lost its way,” said Stein. “Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s antiscience. It’s anti-the whole concept of learning.”

Not surprisingly, the film has received mixed reviews.

Others, including two Ivy League graduates, have openly endorsed the film.

John Serba of the Grand Rapids Press said the movie “seems to be a dishonest exercise in reductionism and absurd extrapolation” and that Stein uses “straw-man arguments that worthwhile thinkers avoid.” He also noted that

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Dr. Tom Woodward, Princeton ’72, said he was “stunned, amazed, shocked, entertained, enlightened, moved and overwhelmed” by the film. “Everyone I talked to after the

The Ivy League Christian Observer

INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT screening used words like fabulous and incredible,” said Woodward, the director of the C.S. Lewis Society.

As well, Movieguide Editor Ted Baehr described the production as a “wry, funny, well-crafted documentary.”

In addition, “Atheists might want to go out of their way to stop this movie by buying up theaters and perhaps even buy out the distribution itself because [the movie] may undermine them and bring an end to the academic gulag,” said Baehr, Dartmouth ’69.

Although one reviewer from The Star-Tribune of Minneapolis labeled the move as “a hard-core, fundamentalist bit of right-wing propaganda,” Stein, who is Jewish, doesn’t necessarily align intelligent design with religion. However, in the movie’s trailer he said he believes the world was created by a “loving God.”

speech, it offers a startling insight into the atheistic mind. It features Dawkins reading from sections of his book where he characterizes the God of the Old Testament as “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak.”

He also describes God as “misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal…”

Also in the film, atheist William Provine acknowledges that embracing evolution leaves “no hope in any deep meaning.

We are here today and gone tomorrow.” Provine is a professor of the history of biology at Cornell University.

Ultimately, the film’s Darwinists could not explain how life began; they offered only hypotheses that consisted of crystals and aliens. As well, they could not present hope for the end of life.

Also, the film’s press kit addresses differences between intelligent design and creationism: “Creationism typically relies on a religious text or religious faith as its basis, and attempts to reconcile science with it. The theory of intelligent design (ID) relies on scientific data to show that design in nature is the product of an intelligent cause or designer.”

“People will be stunned to actually find out what elitist scientists proclaim, which is that a large majority of Americans are simpletons who believe in a fairy tale,” said Walt Ruloff, co-founder of Premise Media, the company that produced Expelled. “Premise Media took on this difficult mission because we believe the greatest asset of humanity is our freedom to explore and discover truth.”

While the film revolves around intelligent design and free

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

PRODIGAL OR PRODIGY? Yale Alumni Magazine Pays Tribute to William F. Buckley On the occasion of his death, Yale Alumni Magazine featured William F. Buckley ’50 on its YALE cover with the caption “Yale’s Prodigal Son.” Yet, inside are featured three views of Buckley that are more reflective of a prodigy than a prodigal, one who was full of audacity of intellect rather than wastefulness or remorse.

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In 1951, Buckley published the book God and Man at Yale, in which he accused the university of having an “intellectual drive toward agnosticism and collectivism.” Yet, despite its caustic review of the university, Yale presented Buckley with an honorary degree upon the 50th anniversary of its publishing.

How did Buckley take on the then conservative university for not being conservative enough Summer 2008

and for leaving God out of the academic mix and still receive an honorary degree for it? Partly because he was that smart, and partly because he was that grand.

Yale Alumni Magazine recently recalled the legacy of William F. Buckley.

Buckley, a Catholic, started writing God and Man while at Yale. Some thought him reckless for taking administrators and faculty to task without interviews or opportunities for rebuttal.

But Buckley saw the state of the university with a clarity and insight that left no shadows for political correctness or doublespeak.

“I propose, simply to expose what I regard as an extraordinarily irresponsible educational attitude that, under the protective label ‘academic freedom,’ has produced one of the most extraordinary incongruities of our time: the institution that derives its moral and financial support from Page 7

INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT Christian individualists and then addresses itself to the task of persuading the sons of these supporters to be atheistic socialists,” Buckley wrote.

In his memoir of Buckley, Gaddis Smith ’54, PhD, ’61, reflected in the alumni magazine about the response God and Man received: “In fact, the response at the time was less selfexamination than fear, revulsion, and damage control…It was not important to him to distinguish between outright attacks on religion and failure to proselytize; both were sins.”

Gaddis also reflected with personal affection on the largerthan-life fellow Yalie: “I met Bill Buckley first in the spring of 1951 as a freshman and aspiring Yale Daily News editor. My colleagues may not have believed in God (I never asked) but we certainly believed in Bill’s extraordinary brilliance – although not necessarily in his big ideas.”

Still, those “big ideas” led to big success and influence for the Irish Scotsman, who seemed to be in a social no-man’sland where he was denounced for having and for having not enough.

“But Buckley’s Irish and Swiss roots, his Catholicism, his family’s new money, his diploma from an upstart Dutchess County prep school placed him firmly outside Yale’s inner circle of upper-class, high-Protestant privilege,” wrote Sam Tanenhaus, Yale ’78 MA, in his reflection of Buckley.

However, if viewed an outsider by his Yale contemporaries, others saw his social stature and wealth as a discredit to his authenticity as a writer of a book such as God and Man. A 1951 review of the book questioned Buckley’s authority to write of religion and conservativism without having paid enough spiritual dues.

“Has a young Saint Paul emerged from the Yale class of 1950 to bring us the long-awaited Good Tidings of a New Conservatism and Old Mortality? The trumpets of advance publicity imply it. However, this Paul-in-a-hurry skips the prerequisite of first being a rebel Saul,” wrote Peter Viereck, Harvard ’37, in The New York Times. “The difference between a shallow and a profound conservatism is the difference between the easy, booster affirmation that precedes the dark night of the soul and the hard-won, tragic affirmation that follows it. True, we need, as Buckley argues, more conservatism and traditional morality. Still, they must be earned by suffering and a change of heart, not by glibly being ‘his class’s Bright Young Man’ (to quote the Yale Class History on Buckley).”

But that “bright young man” went on to influence future generations of conservatives like former presidential speechwriter David Frum, Yale ’82, ’82 MA, who wrote about the first time he met Buckley over dinner at a New Haven restaurant: “He put searching questions to the students at the table and listened patiently to what each of us had to say. Under his interrogation…we all were made to feel as if our self-conscious ramblings amounted to something like . . . intelligent conversation. That was a quarter century ago. I would go on to enjoy many more conversations with Buckley. Yet none has ever lingered in my memory like that first one.”

And as memories linger for those who knew him, the university stung by his caustic words embraces its conservative son as his words resonate with men and women at Yale and beyond.

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

CATHOLIC BIOLOGY PROFESSOR SEES NO CONFLICT IN EVOLUTION Kenneth R. Miller Testified Against Intelligent Design For Brown University professor and biologist Kenneth R. Miller, science is the study of what BROWN can be seen of God’s creation of life; his faith is the experience of God in that life.

author of Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, and in June, he released his new book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul.

A lifelong Catholic, Miller has spent the past several years advocating evolution while professing his faith. He is the

Miller said he was inspired to write the book after his experience as the lead witness for the plaintiffs in the 2005

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The Ivy League Christian Observer

INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT Dover Area School Board trial in Pennsylvania. In that case, parents successfully brought suit against the school board for requiring Intelligent Design be taught as an alternative to evolution.

Although seen as a proponent of evolution, Miller sees himself as a scientist who believes in God’s presence in creation.

“I believe God created everything in nature,” he said, pointing out that every Sunday at Mass he, along with millions of other Catholics, recites the Nicene Creed, which includes the belief in the creator of all things seen and unseen. “Evolution is something we see,” Miller said.

purpose to life, but didn’t see it as part of his scientific pursuits: “Scientists think all the time about the meaning of their work, about the purpose of life, about the purpose of their own lives. I certainly do. But these questions, as important as they are, are not scientific… It doesn’t say that they’re not important, it doesn’t say that any answer to these is necessarily wrong, but it does say that science cannot address it. It’s a reflection of the limitation of science.”

Miller acknowledged that ID can still be valid, even if he doesn’t believe it to be scientific. “Explanations that lie out of science can be true, but they’re not scientific,” he said.

For Miller, science and religion are not mutually exclusive. And he believes that his views are in line with the teaching of the Catholic Church, which is less explicit on its views of the creation of life than it is on the sanctity of life.

As the primary witness for the plaintiffs in the Dover case, Miller gave testimony against the defense claims that Intelligent Design was not religion, but science. Miller was not testifying against religion or faith, he said, rather against ID as legitimate science.

“My opinion is that evolution is an eminently testable theory and that it is broadly and generally accepted by the scientific community,” Miller said in his testimony in the Dover case. “My opinion is that intelligent design is not a testable theory in any sense, and that as such, it is not generally accepted by the scientific community.”

While there are Catholics who do not believe in evolution, the Church itself does not discount it.

Brown biologist and alumnus Kenneth R. Miller ’70 believes that Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools.

Michael Behe, a Penn alumnus (’78) and professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, disagreed with that assumption as the lead witness for the defense in the Dover case.

The author of Darwin’s Black Box: A Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Behe believes Intelligent Design is valid science.

“In brief, in Darwin’s day, the cell was an obscure entity,” testified Behe. “People thought it was simple, but the progress of science has shown that it’s completely different from those initial expectations, and that, in fact, the cell is chock full of complex molecular machinery, and that aspects of this machinery look to be what we see when we perceive design. They look like they are poorly explained

by Darwin’s theory. And so I proposed that a better explanation for these aspects of life is, in fact, Intelligent Design.”

Expanding on his own testimony at the trial, Miller acknowledged the significance of searching for meaning and

Summer 2008

“The Catholic Church says there are not two truths,” said the Rev. Henry J. Bodah, Catholic chaplain, Brown University.

“Something cannot be true in science but not true in religion. If science can prove that evolution is basically true, we have no problem with it.”

Further, he contends that Miller’s thinking is in line with most other Christian traditions, such as mainline Protestants.

“People think if you can explain it, you’ve taken God out of it. Why can’t God be involved?” Rev. Bodah questioned.

The conception of a child can be explained scientifically, but that doesn’t mean God doesn’t have anything to do with it, he said.

Miller’s new book is sure to spark more discussion about the relationship between science and faith, and for him, that’s a good thing.

“If we in the scientific community leave the public square vacant, that discourse will be filled by people who are suspicious of science or against science. We have an obligation in a democracy to make a case for science,” he said.

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

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ON • CAMPUS

KEEP YOUR FAITH TO YOURSELF Campus Newspaper Series Is Biased toward Christianity Classroom Stirs Debate, Mixed Views.” The article leads with the story of a Christian student named Alex Mercado ’11, who shared the Gospel with a fellow student over lunch. According to the article, the student who received the Word responded to Mercado via e-mail that “she felt he had discounted her faith.”

In an attempt to explore the religious beliefs of Dartmouth students, the campus newspaper DARTMOUTH recently featured a four-part series entitled “Examining Religious Life at Dartmouth.” While comprehensive in the religions it covered, The Dartmouth’s “examination” revealed more of a bias against Christianity than the core beliefs that lie at the root of true faith.

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The Dartmouth reported that Mercado then decided “this kind of advocacy was inappropriate at the college... Mercado said he now tries to spread his faith by leading an exemplary life.”

Focusing on the laws and customs of the Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu religions, the paper portrayed an environment of “inclusion” and accommodation on the part of the university. Christianity, which doesn’t have strict dietary laws and customs but does follow the Lord’s command to share the Gospel, was portrayed much differently.

In other words, according to West, keep your faith to yourself.

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What Christians might find most stunning, yet not surprising, is the bias against Christianity as well as the mischaracterization of those quoted in the story, contends Chris West, campus director of Christian Impact (www.dartmouth.edu/~ccc), who was interviewed for the article.

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AoA suit withdrawn, Vt. girl missing since Thursday funds still questioned

By ALLIE LOWE

The Dartmouth Staff

By WILLIAM SCHPERO The Dartmouth Staff

Following Friday’s confirmation that the Grafton County Superior Court had approved the dismissal of the Association of Alumni’s lawsuit against the College, new information has come to light about the funding of the suit and the involvement of The Hanover Institute, a non-profit organizationthathastraditionallysponsored causes critical of College policies.

The court action brings to an end the eight-month legal saga in which the Association attempted to bar the College’s Board of Trustees from adding eight members not elected by alumni to its membership.

An August 2007 attorney-client communication recently provided to The Dartmouth by newly-elected Association President John Mathias ’69 indicates that The Hanover Institute entered into a contractual agreement with the Association’s former law firm, Williams and Connolly, to fund the suit. The communication, an “engagement letter,” also outlines a “common interest” shared by the Association and the Institute, and is signed by Institute-founder John MacGovern ’80 and Frank Gado ’58, the former Association legal liaison and an officer of the Institute.

According to a transcript from the See AOA, page 3

Five days after Vermont initiated its first Amber Alert, Brooke Bennett, a 12-year-old resident of Braintree, Vt., remains missing.

Bennett was last seen at a Cumberland Farms convenience store in Randolph, Vt. on the morning of June 25, where, she told relatives, she was planning to meet a friend to travel to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The investigation into Bennett’s disappearance currently focuses on the Randolph property of Bennett’s uncle, Michael Jacques, who drove Bennett to the convenience store before her disappearance and was arrested on unrelated sexual assault charges on Sunday, according

Obama, Clinton visit Unity, N.H.

By ALLIE LOWE

The Dartmouth Staff

UNITY, N.H. — This small town was thrown into the national spotlight on Friday as presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former rival for the nomination Sen. Hillar y Clinton D-N.Y. made their first joint public appearance after an unusually protracted nomination battle.

The event, which took place in a field outside the town’s small elementar y school, marked a concerted effort by the former opponents to change the political tone. The Obama campaign sought to capitalize on the town’s symbolic title to spread a message of solidarity within the Democratic party.

“I don’t think it’s at all unknown among this audience that this was a hard-fought primar y campaign,” Clinton said at Friday’s event. “But today and every day going forward, we stand shoulder to shoulder for the ideals we share, the values we cherish and the countr y we love.

We may have started on separate paths, but today our paths have merged.”

Obama similarly portrayed the two former adversaries as “allies,” lauding Clinton’s work both as a senator and as a rival for the nomination, and pointing to the work the two will do together in the coming months to secure a

Democratic presidency. At one point, Obama’s praise for Clinton inspired an audience member to yell out, “Hillar y rocks.”

“She rocks. Hillar y rocks,” Obama responded. “That’s the point I’m tr ying to make.”

Obama spoke both to his respect for Clinton and her role in the Democratic party — and to that

of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who was absent on Friday.

“When Hillar y Clinton gets up in the morning, even in the face of the toughest odds, the most vicious attacks, she is doing so with the same motivation that took See UNITY, page 6

Courtesy of Vermont State Police

Brooke Bennett to a Vermont State Police press release.

Jacques is a “person of interest” in Bennett’s disappearance, according to the Vermont State Police.

Flyers alerting the Dartmouth community to Bennett’s disappearance were posted on the College’s campus on Friday.

Jacques, a 42-year-old registered sex offender, was arrested for aggravated sexual assault against a Randolph minor who had been inter viewed in connection with the investigation into Bennett’s disappearance, Vermont State Police director James Baker said at a Monday press confer-

VIVA ESPANA!

ence. The State Police has asked investigators from the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations to look into the sexual assault case, which may include other victims, Baker said.

Jacques pled not guilty to the charges in Chelsea District Cour t on Monday and is now being held on $250,000 bail, the Associated Press reported. The involved minor said she had been assaulted over a five-year period, beginning when she was nine, according to an affidavit released

by State Police detective William Jenkins, as reported by the Associated Press. She claimed to have received a phone call and a note telling her that she, along with two other girls, had been enrolled in a “program for sex” in which Jacques was the trainer, the affidavit said.

See BENNETT, page 3

Students feel crunch from rising fuel costs

By VICTORIA BOGGIANO The Dartmouth Staff

“There’s an assumed value that virtuous religion practices on its own and leaves others alone,” West said.

There was a bias to the Christianity article, he believes, that was obvious from the start. “I think clearly the writer, given the way he started the article, tipped his hand immediately.”

The article went on to discuss some of the various controversies surrounding Christianity at Dartmouth: reaction to the Christian journal Apologia, the 2005 Convocation address by former Student Body President Noah Riner ’06, and Lucy Stonehill’s relatively recent column in the Dartmouth itself titled “See You in Hell.”

The tonal differences in the articles are first apparent in the headlines. For example, “Chabad, Hillel Help Build College’s Jewish Community” heralds the story of Dartmouth’s former antiSemitic admission practices and how A four-part series by The Dartmouth on the university now accommodates the examining religion gives a biased view cultural needs of the faith such as diet of Christianity.

But the article does not address the and observances of holy days. “Alfaith’s core beliefs of salvation and the sharing of that gift Nur Functions as Hub of Muslim Life in Upper Valley” looks of salvation out of love for one another. And while the piece at the issues arising from practicing the customs of the Musgives some historical background to ministries like Navilim faith, such as praying five times daily and abstaining from gators (www.dartmouth.edu/~navs) and Christian Impact, alcohol; and it discusses the social ignorance of those who it leaves out their purpose. are suspect of all Muslims due to the radical behaviors of “I wish that our core purposes were better expressed or exsome. “Students Practice Wide Variety of Religions” tells the pressed at all. I think there is a positive way, even for a nonstory of minority religions on campus.

Christian, to express that groups like ours are here to Beginning with its headline, however, the article about Chrispromote faith in Christ,” said West. tianity takes a more controversial approach: “Christianity in Hanover, New Hampshire

TILMAN DETTE/The Dartmouth Senior Staff

Students gathered in Collis Student Center on Sunday afternoon to watch Euro 2008, the UEFA European Football Championships between Spain and Germany. Spain won the match 1-0.

www.thedartmouth.com

Editor’s Note: This is the second article inatwo-partseriesfocusingontherising cost of fuel and its effect on the College.

Briana Carroll ’10 brought her car to campus for sophomore summer expectingtoputthevehicletofrequent use. The increased cost of gas, which now rests at over four dollars a gallon, however, has forced Carroll to think twicebeforemakingeventhesmallest trips.

“Now I literally think about driving to the Co-op and West Leb,” she said.

“I pay for my own gas, and it is $65 to fill up now.”

Students hoping to travel home from Hanover to see family and friends are also forced to face steep costs.

“It’s $130 round-trip to go home,” Lauren Ladolcetta ’10, a resident of West Windsor, N.J., said. “I still go home because I want to see my See FUEL COST, page 7

Copyright © 2008 The Dartmouth, Inc.

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

Page 10

The Ivy League Christian Observer

ON • CAMPUS

ENDING ON A HIGH NOTE Concert Concludes Successful Season for Princeton Gospel Choir The Princeton University Gospel Ensemble celebrated a successful year with an energized, upPRINCETON beat concert. The student-directed group performed for nearly three hours on May 4 before a packed audience at Nassau Christian Center in Princeton. At the conclusion of the event, at least two individuals responded to an altar call and accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

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“We couldn’t ask for anything more than that,” said Adrienne Simpson ’08, musical director. “The music means nothing if we’re not ministering to people.”

As the exhilarating concert began, Rev. Win Green told the audience that Christians should confound the world with their joy. Despite being composed in the “blast of the furnace of slavery,” gospel music is some of the “most joyful music on the planet,” said Green, campus pastor at Nassau Christian Center.

Nassau Christian as well as performances in a variety of campus and off-campus events. Among them, the ensemble participated in Princeton’s Black History Month events and Hallelujah services.

“We had a very good year. We grew in membership,” noted Simpson, who said this year’s ensemble was more diverse in terms of ethnicities, backgrounds and declared majors.

“We just bonded a lot more this year.”

The Princeton University Gospel Ensemble (www. princeton.edu/~puge/) features thirty-five to forty regular members; most do not possess formal musical training, Simpson said. Membership is open to interested students.

The ensemble, which relaunched in its present format in 1983, boasts a repertoire that includes spirituals, hymns, A recent Princeton University Gospel Ensemble concert held at Nassau Christian Center celebrated contemporary gospel, and a the Lord through song and led attendees to accept cappella selections. Cordaro Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Rodriguez ’08 is the pianist for Highlights of the evening inthe group, which also features a bassist, a keyboardist, and cluded poetry readings by Jonathan Walton, Columbia ’08, percussionists. and rap renditions by Denzel Cadet, Princeton ’10. In addition, the event featured musical performances by Kenny Grayson, foreman of Princeton’s electrical shop, and by Scot Stevens and Christ Glory, a gospel band from Philadelphia.

The Nassau Christian Center concert also included tearful recognitions of the ensemble’s seniors and concluded with an altar call given by Green.

“It was a joy to feed off that energy and to use my gifts to share God’s truth,” said Cadet of his participation in the ensemble’s capstone concert.

“There is nothing you can do that can cause God to love you any less or love you any more,” Green told the audience of ensemble friends and family. “He’s already given it all.

You are beloved of His heart just because He made you.”

Simpson said she was pleased with the group’s 2007-08 campaign, which included two end-of-semester concerts at

Summer 2008

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer

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ON • CAMPUS

ART PROJECT OUTRAGES YALE COMMUNITY Student Claims to Have Performed Self-Induced Miscarriages

Y YALE

A show of senior projects involving art students opened at Yale this spring, but the exhibit that drew the most attention was never on display.

Art student Aliza Shvarts ’08 began preparing for her project months before the Undergraduate Art Senior Project Show after receiving permission from her instructor. And just a week before she was to unveil it, Shvarts sent a press release to the Yale Daily News. What unraveled next was a tale of two “arts” that had little to do with aesthetics and everything to do with morality and human dignity.

First, there was the unsettling “art” project itself. Shvarts described her work to the campus newspaper as a portrayal of self artificial insemination followed by the consumption of abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. The exhibit was to include video recordings of the miscarriages as well the blood collected from them.

The Yale community responded with shock to the newspaper’s report. Subsequent accounts described students as appalled and disgusted by the so-called artistic intent. It appears that even a campus environment that pushes the envelope on morality had its limits – sort of.

ity and controversy. The same day the article appeared in the Yale Daily News, the university released a statement explaining that Shvarts admitted to officials that she had not inseminated herself and that the project was actually “performance art,” which puts emphasis on the actions of the artist, not the reality of whether or not she induced the miscarriages.

The next day, however, the newspaper published an op-ed piece by Shvarts that reiterated her initial claim. “I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages,” she wrote. However, later in the article she admitted that, as a result of the timing of the miscarriages, she did not know whether she was actually pregnant. And that aspect, she contends, is an element of the “art.”

Yale senior Aliza Schvarts raised controversy and disgust over her senior project depicting selfinduced abortions.

Of course, “freedom of expression” advocates might have disagreed with Shvarts’ concept but supported her right to create it. Unsurprisingly, the Yale Women’s Center also came on board in support of Shvarts. In a statement to the Yale Daily News, the organization said, “Whether it is a question of reproductive rights or of artistic expression, Aliza Shvarts’ body is an instrument over which she should be free to exercise full discretion.”

But the story broadens even further, into a pallet of ambigu-

“This ambivalence makes obvious how the act of identification or naming—the act of ascribing a word to something physical—is at its heart an ideological act, an act that literally has the power to construct bodies,” she wrote.

Shvarts has refused further interviews about the matter, leaving what really happened in her art studio blurred and keeping her in control of the performance.

“I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” Shvarts told the newspaper. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”

While the nature of art has been debated for centuries, nearly 200 students on campus declared that Shvarts’ work was not art. In an unprecedented partnering of pro-life and pro-choice supporters, the students crafted and signed a letter to Yale University President Richard Levin protesting the display of the piece.

The Yale community responded with shock to the newspaper’s report. Subsequent accounts described students as appalled and disgusted by the so-called artistic intent.

It appears that even a campus environment that pushes the envelope on morality had its limits – sort of.

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The Ivy League Christian Observer

ON • CAMPUS “Abortion is not art. This is true regardless of whether one supports or opposes the practice of abortion,” the students wrote. Pro-choice advocates on campus and nationwide have opposed the project, saying it minimalizes the pain of abortion and miscarriage and degrades women.

she did not commit the acts she described, Yale refused her project space in the annual art show. In addition, the university has taken “appropriation action” toward the instructor responsible for the art project as well as an adviser, according to a statement by Peter Salovey, dean of Yale College.

Further, if Shvarts was counting on the backing of her fellow women students at Yale, she apparently miscalculated. In a letter to Shvarts that appeared in the Yale Daily News, a group of women, including some divinity students, wrote, “It would seem that, as a woman, you have scorned both the dignity of women who wait to bear children and the pain of those who have grieved over a miscarriage or an abortion.”

Shvarts privately submitted an alternate project to meet her requirements, however, details of the piece were not provided.

Because Shvarts would not abide by the university’s request to confirm in writing that her work was performance art and

Whether Shvarts’s piece was actually an assault upon her body and human dignity, or merely performance art may not be known. But, for the students who signed the Levin letter, one thing is certain—“This project has already irreparably passed beyond what respect for human dignity will contemplate.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

PENN PRAYER WALKS Scripture Reflected in Campus Sculptures The Christian purposes of Harvard and Yale were boldly stated at their foundings. At the PENN University of Pennsylvania, however, the rich Christian heritage imparted by George Whitefield has been overlooked by some in favor of the more secular moorings of Benjamin Franklin. Yet, beneath the canopy of trees that line Locust Walk and other areas of the campus are biblical symbols that inspire those “with eyes to see.”

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To help open Christian eyes to the works of art of biblical significance, Michael Hu, Penn’s campus director for Campus Renewal Ministries (www.campusrenewal.org) and PennforJesus (www.pennforjesus.com), has developed a prayer walk that he shares with those exploring the university. According to Hu, about half of the sculptures have biblical relevance. He explains those significances during the prayer walk, while also incorporating time for prayer itself.

The Covenant, which is the largest sculpture on campus, is rooted in the Old Testament and depicts Abraham at the altar of sacrifice with Isaac.

“It shows God standing on the word of His promise to Abraham in Genesis 15,” according to Hu. “God made many promises to Abraham, and as a faithful covenant keeper, He has kept every single one.” Hu tells fellow travelers, “As Christians we inherit the promises of God that He gave to Abraham, as well as all the rest in scripture.”

Summer 2008

Hu calls participants to begin the prayer walk by “standing upon the promises of God as the foundation of our lives.”

Even sculptures that aren’t as obviously biblically based as the Covenant are used by Hu to evoke God’s reign over all life. At The Compass, which is located at 37th Street, Hu encourages walkers to “Pray for God to touch every corner of this campus…that God may use those He has saved on this campus to reach the ends of the earth.”

Later on the tour, Hu uses the statue of Whitefield, a preacher of the Great Awakening, to make walkers aware that there are Christian seeds to the university. Whitefield’s Charity School in Philadelphia was the building given to Ben Franklin to start the university.

Hu says the focal point of the “Heart of the Campus” prayer walk is the LOVE statue. It is here that Hu encourages walkers to pray about love, sharing that “love is the most important quality as well as commandment in the Bible.”

The prayer walk concludes, as the Bible does, with Revelation. As participants gather around the Pillars of Philadelphia, Hu explains their scriptural significance.

“In the book of Revelation, Philadelphia was the one church which God did not find anything against, oftentimes referred to as the ‘faithful church’ or ‘overcoming church.’”

He says, “Here are the ruins of a pillar that was in the orig-

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ON • CAMPUS

photos by Pam Traeger

Biblical inspiration can be found in sculptures throughout Penn’s campus.

inal city of Philadelphia, home of the faithful church of the book of Revelation.”

Hu also reads from scripture as he leads participants on their journey through the artistic symbolism. And it is through

this verbal sculpting of art and scripture that the travelers are inspired to continue their path of prayer and worship that leads them to the Lord.

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

A B O U T • M I N I S T RY

SETTING A COURSE, LAUNCHING A MINISTRY CU Aims to Help Steer Harvard Community Back toward Christian Moorings Harvard College was founded in 1636 to educate early colonists to service as ministers of the gospel. In that vein, the college adopted the motto Veritas pro Christo et ecclesia, meaning “Truth for Christ and His Church.” Today that motto is still seen on shields carved into buildings around the campus. However, with 93 percent of current students having no involvement with a Christian ministry, truth for Christ and His Church is seemingly absent from the hearts of many.

To revive Christ-inspired service to the nation among Harvard’s students and graduates, Christian Union (CU) will launch a campus ministry providing thousands of students with the opportunity to hear the Gospel and grow their faith.

The ministry launch is scheduled for the fall and is poised for growth over the next four years. Christian Union seeks to

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partner with existing campus ministries at Harvard to achieve the overall mission of bringing spiritual transformation to the Ivy League by God’s grace, according to Matt Bennett (Cornell ’88 and *89), founder and president of Christian Union.

Why Harvard and why now? Because the university’s drift from its original Christian moorings is increasingly more apparent in society, Bennett explains. “Christ” and “Church” have been removed from the original motto.

Only the word Veritas (truth) remains. But in what that truth is grounded is no longer clear.

“There is a higher percentage of Christians in China than at Harvard,” Bennett says, pointing out that the Northeast has the fewest evangelicals in the nation who can reach out to the campus community.

“The moral dryness of Harvard is also noted by the larger soThe Ivy League Christian Observer

A B O U T • M I N I S T RY ciety,” Bennett said, citing Bill Gates’ commencement address to the Harvard community in May 2007.

Christ on campus and will have ample opportunities to hear the Gospel each year.

“I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world, the appalling disparities of health and wealth and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair,” Gates said. It was decades before he discovered this truth.

CU’s first steps toward reaching the entire Harvard community will begin with reaching out to Harvard College and the Business School.

Bennett believes the ministry can have a “profound impact” on the lives of students.

To bring this truth or “veritas” to students while still at Harvard and provide them with the biblical foundations to engage the world for Christ is what Christian Union’s Harvard ministry is all about.

Given that many view Harvard as the most influential educational institution in the country and that its graduates include seven U.S. presidents, six of the nine current U.S. Supreme Court justices, fifty Nobel Laureates, and thirty-three Pulitzer Prize winners, the need to create opportunities for the Gospel to be heard are more apparent and necessary than ever, according to Bennett.

CU plans to reach out to these two campus publics through key initiatives such as evangelism, discipleship, service, and Christian friendship. The Harvard ministry will be modeled after Christian Union’s Princeton Faith and Action ministry (www. pfanda.com).

photo by Pam Traeger

Christian Union will launch a Harvard ministry this fall. Pictured: Holden Chapel, the university’s original chapel, was built in 1744 and is still used today for various functions, including choir practice.

“Christian Union wants to see the spiritual and moral climate radically changed for the benefit of Harvard individuals, larger society, and the world,” Bennett said.

And it has some ambitious goals toward that end. In the short term, CU plans to establish a ministry team at the university. By 2020 the ministry hopes that 100 percent of Harvard students, faculty, and staff will know a true follower of

Bennett recognizes the outstanding efforts of local churches in Boston and current campus ministries like Campus Crusade (www.reallifeboston.com), InterVarsity (www.intervarsity. org), Reformed University Fellowship (www.hcsharvard.edu/~ rcf/) and others.

“We look forward to ministering at Harvard and coming alongside others seeking to make an impact for Christ in that community,” said Bennett. “We believe that God calls all ministries to give their attention toward strongly assisting and supporting peer ministries. We believe that this brings honor and praise to Christ.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

To bring this truth or “veritas” to students while still at Harvard and provide them with the biblical foundations to engage the world for Christ is what Christian Union’s Harvard ministry is all about.

Summer 2008

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The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) determined that there are 5 skills every child needs in order to become a competent reader: ~phonological awareness (the ability to recognize the basic sounds that make up language) ~phonics (the ability to match sounds with their appropriate letters) ~ (the ability to recall information quickly ~vocabulary ~comprehension (the ability to understand the meaning of a word, sentence, and story) Given the interdependence of these skills, the E.G.G.S. Learning Program works on all of these skills in every lesson. The program is made up of eight units with eight lessons in each unit. Every lesson includes all the worksheets and manipulatives needed as well as guidance for how best to use these materials. Easy to use progress monitoring sheets and graphs are included to help teachers track student development.

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E.G.G.S. was founded by Dr. Patricia Frawley, a learning consultant with over 20 yrs. of teaching experience, who developed a reading acquisition program, called Project STAR, that has had overwhelming success in a public school district in New Jersey. To date over 350 kindergarten students, completed the program with very few students needing further intervention. And while most students graduate from the program on grade level, the true success of the program is the sense of selfactual progress in reading acquistion.

Below are the results from the 2005-06 school year.

Orthography is a test of an individual’s familiarity with letters and is a key indicator of success or E.G.G.S. Learning Program began over 15 points behind but closed that gap to less than 1 point by the end of the year!

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By the end of the program, students will have learned how to identify and write every letter of the alphabet; learned 25 sight words and studied enough word families to enable them to read simple stories. They will, in essence, have gotten a great start to reading!

To learn more about the E.G.G.S. Learning Program visit our website at

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A B O U T • M I N I S T RY

“I have never experienced something that broke me down so much physically, followed by an intense, emotional vulnerability that really opens up your heart to God.”

PLAYING FOR AN AUDIENCE OF ONE Athletes in Action Camp Provides Intense Challenge A pair of Brown University football players said they each grew spiritually and physically when BROWN they recently participated in one of Athletes in Action’s Ultimate Training Camps.

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In June, Rob Ranney ’08 and Jimmy Tull ’08 trekked to Fort Collins, Colorado, where the ministry holds its annual camps at Colorado State University. “This camp has been a real, awesome ‘reset’ and the first time I’ve actually felt that real, personal connection with the Lord,” said Ranney, who plans to graduate in December.

kicker/punter. “The biggest thing I’ve gotten out of the camp is not attributing your performance to your self-worth.

I’m going to change my concentration from playing for my coach or teammates or to compete – to playing for an audience of one, just playing for Him.” The students spent much of the week learning the ministry’s major spiritual principles and applying them in competitive sessions before facing the camp’s ultimate challenge, a 24hour sports marathon. “You have to rely on the Holy Spirit,” said Ranney of the exercise.

During the week-long camps, Athletes in Action (www. aia.com), an Ohio-based division of Campus Crusade for Christ (www.ccci.org), teaches student athletes how to compete from a biblical perspective.

Tull, who graduated in May with a degree in history, said he is motivated to take what he learned from the camp to the teaching and coaching position he will begin later this summer at a boarding school in Virginia.

Past participants from Brown agreed that the most beneficial – but grueling – aspect of the week was the marathon. “I have never experienced something that broke me down so much physically, followed by an intense, emotional vulnerability that really opens up your heart to God,” said Amy Ehrhart ’09, who attended in 2006. “The camp made any obstacle in my two basketball seasons since seem trivial and that allowed for greater spiritual growth for me Brown athletes learned how to compete with a during competitions.” biblical perspective during Athletes in Action’s

“It’s very encouraging to see Ultimate Training Camp. other athletes across the country trying to make faith a strong part of their lives,” said Tull, who played offensive line for the Bears.

Both men said they were challenged spiritually and physically during the camp’s second session, which ran June 1 to 8.

“This week has been huge for me,” said Ranney, a Summer 2008

Likewise, Katie Wood ’10 called the camp the hardest challenge she has ever faced but also the “best and most rewarding.” Wood added, “I am on top of what is my motivation for competing.

It’s all for God’s glory, no matter how good or bad I do.”

Along the same lines, Ranney said he is excited about Brown’s upcoming football season. “I get to employ what Page 17

A B O U T • M I N I S T RY I’ve learned in this camp,” he said.

you start to process things more.”

And Tull said he is motivated to apply the spiritual training from the camp to his new role as a coach. “It’s kind of like a crash course,” Tull said. “The camp is more like a springboard for a couple of weeks or months. As you leave camp,

As well, spending a week in Colorado also served as a refreshing experience. “It’s kind of awe-inspiring,” Tull said.

“It’s so serene and beautiful.”

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer

NAVIGATORS STAFF EXPANDS AT CORNELL Ministry Welcomes Three New Team Members The Navigators is expanding its ministry presence at Cornell University. Three staff members CORNELL will join the team of four at the campus in Ithaca, N.Y. in the fall, Campus Director Doug Weber recently announced. And the entire crew is spending the summer in training and fund-raising efforts.

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“Our mission is to advance the Gospel into the nations through spiritual generation and to disciple the lost,” Weber said. “This is one more expression of that calling being played out in practicality.”

Joining the team is Dahlia Mayberry ’09, who graduated from Cornell in May with a degree in nutritional science.

Mayberry joined the Navigators as a freshman and she is looking forward to becoming part of the Ithaca staff through the organization’s internship program.

versity of Minnesota at Duluth (UMD) in December 2005 with a degree in graphic design, recently completed his second year with the Navigators’ EDGE program at the University of Vermont. Lindsay graduated in May from UMD with a degree in Spanish.

“My goals for my time at Cornell are simply to see students come to know Him and, thus, for His Kingdom to advance among the nations, one reconciled child at a time,” said Matt Kinnick.

The newcomers will join Doug and Janea Weber, who help oversee ministry to 50-plus students with assistance from staffers Michael and Joanna Miller.

Matt and Lindsay Kinnick (left) and Dahlia Mayberry, Cornell ‘09, are the newest members of the Cornell Navigators’ ministry team.

“Lindsay and I will greatly benefit from ministering alongside these couples,” said Matt Kinnick. “I am excited to glean their wisdom in marriage, ministry, and life in general.”

“Coming to college, I was a very young Christian and stumbled through, not knowing what it meant to live out my faith. I have been very encouraged by the fellowship and discipleship I have experienced in Navs,” Mayberry said. “Navs has also become like a family to me, and I am excited about spending more time with that family after college.”

As for the Millers, both are graduates of New York University. Michael earned a degree in acting in 2004, and Joanna majored in dramatic writing and journalism, receiving a degree in 2006.

Mayberry is participating in the Navigators’ EDGE Corps, which offers one- or two-year ministry training programs to young adults interested in serving on college campuses.

This summer, the Millers are assisting with the Navigators’ Green Mountain Summer program for college students, and they are receiving training in campus ministry while in Vermont.

Also coming to Ithaca are Matt and Lindsay Kinnick, who were married in 2007. Matt, who graduated from the UniPage 18

“We are in campus ministry because it’s a perfect time in students’ lives to grow closer to Christ or to find him for the first time,” said Joanna Miller.

As well, the Kinnicks are venturing to the Navigators’ headThe Ivy League Christian Observer

A B O U T • M I N I S T RY quarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as part of their transition to the organization’s “staff-in-training” status. Also trekking to Colorado Springs are Janea Weber, who is participating in training and fund-raising efforts, and Mayberry, who is taking part in an orientation for the EDGE Corps.

as she did as a junior at Iowa State University. “I had looked everywhere to ‘find life,’ but I kept coming up empty and dry. I almost ended my life,” said Janea, who majored in physical education. “God rescued me. He sent a fellow student into my life at just the right time.”

Doug Weber said he is pleased that his team is spending the summer being refreshed, receiving training, and tackling fund-raising concerns. “It’s vital for purposes of advancing Christ’s Gospel that we have the biblical foundation and that we have the finances needed to free us up to bless people as God would have us do,” he said.

“I joined the Nav staff because I wanted to know how to help college students who are harassed and helpless, just like I was, to know Jesus and His Gospel.”

In fall 2006, the Webers took over the Navigator ministry at Cornell (www.curw.cornell.edu/navs); today, they oversee 10 weekly Bible studies. The Webers also are parents to Abby, 7.

As for Doug Weber, he is pleased that the team at Cornell is expanding. “We’re advancing with more interaction with people,” said Weber, who graduated from Bethel University in 1993 with a degree in English education.

“It’s nice to see that God is on the move,” he said. “It’s encouraging to see hearts responding to the Gospel message.”

Janea Weber said she hopes to lead students to accept Christ

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer

PARTNERS IN THE GOSPEL Christian Union’s Grant Program Helps Ministries Fund Outreach Efforts For six years, Christian Union has ministered exclusively to the Ivy League. Yet, despite its pointed focus, the ministry’s vision remains broad when it comes to the unity of the Body of Christ across the Ivy campuses.

Christian Union’s passion for unity is perhaps most apparent in the initiatives fostered through the ministry’s Partnership Program. It is through this program that $130,000 is distributed annually to a variety of campus ministries and programs that also work to bring the Gospel to the Ivy League. Christian Union helped fund over 70 projects from 42 campus ministries in the recent fiscal year.

Although considered unusual among ministries, Matt Bennett, Christian Union’s founder and president, sees the partnership program as a natural result of following the example set by New Testament leaders.

“You see the New Testament Christian leaders in the New Testament cities doing their own ministries and also having a cooperative hand with the other ministries. That’s what’s normal,” he said.

“We feel like a number of these [Ivy League campus] ministries are doing wonderful programs. Our heart always is Summer 2008

what happens on these campuses overall—if it happens through another ministry, that’s great,” said Bennett.

In a sense, the Partnership Program is the embodiment of the ministry’s commitment to unity among Christian ministries. Christian Union does not see itself in competition with other ministries, but in tandem with their efforts, according to Bennett.

He also points out that while Christian unity and partnership are key priorities, the focus of the ministry and its resources is on direct ministry.

Ministries that have been aided by grant funds include Princeton Pro Life (www.princeton.edu/~prolife), Brown’s Campus Crusade for Christ (www.ccci.org), Harvard’s Veritas Forum (www.veritas.org) and UPenn’s Penn For Jesus (www.pennforjesus.com), among many others.

“We really appreciate the support of Christian Union as we seek to share God’s love and truth with the Harvard community. The Veritas Forum served to do that and also brought together many of the Christian groups on campus,” stated a note of appreciation from the Veritas Forum at Harvard.

According to Partnership Coordinator Pam Traeger, grant rePage 19

A B O U T • M I N I S T RY quests are received for a variety of necessities.

Grant money has been used to subsidize the salaries of administrative assistants who support the ministries, to help cover the cost of rent for meeting facilities, and to enable students to attend events such as the March for Life in Washington, D.C.

ton. In addition to providing space to hold meetings and events, some ministries locate their administrative offices at these centers, which amounts to free office space.

Further, Christian Union works in cooperation with other ministries to host specific events. For example, each year the ministry partners with Campus Crusade for the Ivy Leadership Conference, which helps provide opportunities for interns to join Campus Crusade for Christ, Bennett said.

In addition, some events are supported annually, such as fall freshman outreaches, retreats, and community outreaches.

The Partnership Program isn’t just about money, however. According to Bennett, Christian Union aids ministries through such avenues as ministry centers currently located at three Ivy campuses; There is the Mott House at Cornell, the Judson House at Brown, and the Wilson House at Prince-

Each academic year, Christian Union provides grants to help support fellow campus Christian ministries throughout the Ivy League.

Ultimately, according to Bennett, the purpose of Christian Union is to “see these campuses change and develop for Christ. By providing funding, we can help make that happen.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

Grant money has been used to subsidize the salaries of administrative assistants who support the ministries, to help cover the cost of rent for meeting facilities, and to enable students to attend events such as the March for Life in Washington, D.C....

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The Ivy League Christian Observer

S P E C I A L R E P O RT T H E IVY L E AGUE C ON GRESS ON FAITH AN D ACTION

HISTORY IN THE MAKING Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action Impacts Students, Alumni The mission of Christian Union—by God’s power and with the help of other ministries—is to change the world by bringing about sweeping spiritual transformation at the Ivy League Universities, raising up godly leadership for all sectors of society.

media, and the arts. It also featured world-renowned plenary speakers and panelists who discussed critical issues such as the persecuted church, forgiveness, and cultural engagement.

Participants also explored how partnering faith with vocation can advance the kingdom of God in society.

On April 11-13 at Yale University, Christian Union’s Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action swept mightily through New Haven, Ct. and left an indelible mark on 475 students and alumni.

“I was unable to handle religion and profession side by side, but the conference showed me how Christianity can be followed in work,” remarked one student.

“God visited us there,” said Matt Bennett, founder and president of Christian Union. “The Ivy League will never be the same.”

Attendees were also challenged to ask themselves the fundamental questions of life and Christianity and to seek the answers through Jesus Christ.

“God’s presence was thick,” said conference emcee David Kim (Penn ’94), director of the Gotham Fellowship at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.

“If you do not take steps now to shape the nature of the spirituality you will live the rest of your life, it will be shaped for you by the forces operating in the world,” cautioned plenary speaker Ken Costa, chairman of both Lazard International and Alpha International.

“It really made a very great impact on my life,” said one student. “It helped me to be close to Christ and definitely put a sense of meaning in my life.”

From the opening session on Friday evening, where powerful praise and worship ignited revival fire in attendees, to the closing meeting on Sunday, where a stirring humanitarian message by Baroness Cox brought students to tears, the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action (ILCFA) maintained a unique balance of scholarship, Biblical teaching, and Holy Ghost power. Additionally, it was estimated to be the largest gathering of Ivy League Christians in history.

The event attracted prominent Christians in the fields of medicine, law, business, the academy, ministry, government,

According to Costa, the greatest global challenge for all people is finding meaning and purpose in life. “This search is essential to establishing lasting peace, sustainable economic activity, and strong communities. It is a great challenge, as great as any of the others like climate change [or] poverty...”

But also like these other weighty issues, the answers are not always self-evident.

“If you don’t know what you want to do right now, join one of the ministries present here,” suggested plenary speaker Charles Gilmer (Penn ’81), president of The Impact Movement. He also encouraged the audience, which was richly

Conference photos: Anne Ulrich

Students from all eight Ivy League schools attended the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action.

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S P E C I A L R E P O RT T H E IVY L E AGUE C ON GRESS ON FAITH AN D ACTION diverse in its ethnic makeup, to consider their service in the context of their cultures.

But this was not a weekend centered on self-awareness and fulfillment. Rather, it was an exciting journey into how one’s gifting could be used for the greater benefit of God’s kingdom.

sider what they might do to halt the torture and heartache.

And they did pray that very morning after the Baroness finished speaking. The room hummed with spontaneous prayers that cried out simultaneously in deep tones, much like drumbeats across Africa.

World Vision President Richard Stearns, Cornell ‘73 and Penn *75, quite squarely grounded the students in the reality of who they are in the sight of God. “God isn’t impressed with your Ivy League degrees,” he told the audience, which in turn applauded the remark.

Stearns, the president of the world’s largest relief organization, reminded the students that to love God is to love one’s neighbor. What’s different today, he pointed out, is that one’s neighbor can be a continent away.

“If Christ is Lord, nothing he asks us to do is optional,” Stearns told the crowd. As a result, he asked them, “Are you willing to be open to God’s plan for your life?”

Ken Costa, chairman of Lazard International and Alpha International, told Ivy League students and alumni that the greatest global challenge for all people is "finding meaning and purpose in life."

The Saturday evening session with Stearns was punctuated by spontaneous prayer for revival.

Being ready to go when and wherever God calls you was a common theme of the conference.

In addition to prayer, the students had many opportunities to consider how to put their faith into action and impact the world for Christ at the many panel sessions. In all, the ILCFA was a powerful mosaic of speakers and messages that took participants from the famine of Africa to the front row of the entertainment industry.

Guest panelists spoke of life as Christian professors in the academy, while physicians and lawyers told attendees about bringing faith to hospitals and courtrooms.

Other panelists spoke of being a Christian in the spiritually challenging worlds of Hollywood and the media.

But this conference wasn’t just about talking. Even the panelists themselves were inspired. Philip Cooke, founder of Cooke Pictures and one of the entertainment panelists, wrote about the conference on his blog Friday evening.

“I have to admit that it’s quite thrilling to see the Christian faith so vibrant and alive on these campuses,” he wrote. “These universities are graduating the influencers in global culture, and speaking into their lives is indeed an honor.”

As the plenary speaker for the Sunday morning session, Baroness Caroline Cox, chief executive of Humanitarian Aid ReIt was an entire weekend of enlightenment, lief Trust, spoke of the persecuted church encouragement, and emotion for many stuCharles Gilmer, Penn ’81, in the desperate lands of Burma, Sudan, dents, who at times could be seen huddled shared a powerful message Northern Uganda, North Korea, and Nigeand led a prayer time on in prayer or crying in the arms of a fellow ria. Students and alumni were powerfully Saturday morning. student. The event changed the Ivy League moved by the faces of Christian brothers because it changed individual lives—returnand sisters in these forsaken parts of the world. Beneath the ing focus, direction and meaning for many who had gotten crystal chandeliers of the ballroom where she spoke flashed off course, or who never had a clear direction. hollowed faces of persecution, disease, and famine; many As one student said, “[The Ivy League Congress on Faith of the faces belonged to children. and Action] brought me back to what it truly means to folDespite the circumstances in which these Christians live low Christ.” and worship, there is still hope, Cox said. She encouraged the audience to pray for healing in these lands and to conPage 22

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer The Ivy League Christian Observer

S P E C I A L R E P O RT T H E IVY L E AGUE C ON GRESS ON FAITH AN D ACTION

‘GOD IS NOT IMPRESSED WITH YOUR IVY LEAGUE DEGREE’ Richard Stearns Challenges Students at Christian Union Conference After being confronted with a question that would radically change the course of his life, CORNELL Richard Stearns left his substantial salary, 10bedroom house, and corporate business lifestyle to become president of World Vision, Inc., an international Christian relief and development organization with the mission to end poverty, fight hunger, and transform lives.

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That question, which Stearns couldn’t dodge, was asked by a persistent recruiter: “Are you willing to be open to God’s will for your life?”

Stearns (Cornell ’73 and Wharton School of Business *75) shared his story to a captivated crowd of 475 Ivy League students and alumni at the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action, held April 11-13 at Yale University. The event was sponsored by Christian Union (www.Christian-Union.org).

Christian faith influence the kind of person you will become both personally and professionally? And what does God specifically expect from you? For those of us who made a commitment to follow Christ, it is the only important question for us to answer…We all need to live with that question on our lips.”

“God is not impressed with your Ivy League degrees. He looks at the character of your heart…You are called to be agents of change in the world for Christ. You are called to be the tangible evidence of this new kingdom of God… You are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through you.”

The students were impressed with Stearns’ story, describing it with words like “riveting,” “inspiring,” and “convicting.”

“Listening to Richard Stearns was a life changing experience,” said one student. “I can never feel or think the same way about my life again.”

With 23 years in the corporate sector, Stearns was reluctant to leave his president and CEO photo by Pam Traeger position at Lenox Inc. to be an ambassador for For Stearns, his journey as World Vision presRichard Stearns (Cornell the poor. “Surely, this is a huge mistake,” he ident began with a trip to Rakai, Uganda, ’73 and Penn *75), thought, rationalizing that he did not know president of World where he stood at Ground Zero of the AIDS Vision, spoke to much about the poor, relief and development, pandemic and witnessed the pain and poverty attendees of the Ivy or fundraising. “[But] in my heart,” he said, “I of orphaned children. “What I saw in Uganda League Congress on knew what was at stake with that question.

Faith and Action about broke my heart and changed forever my unthe need for Christians God was asking me that day to choose. He was derstanding of just what it meant to follow to care for the neighbors asking me what kind of disciple I was willing Christ,” he said. worldwide. to be. What was the most important thing in He left Uganda seeking the presence of the my life? Was it my career? My financial security? My famchurch in the midst of the epidemic. “[The AIDS crisis] is ily? My stuff? Or was I committed to following Christ rean issue in which the church has largely abdicated its role gardless of the cost – no matter what?” until recently,” he said. It was not until Stearns decided to “Sometimes we have to distinguish between what we want take a role in the AIDS efforts that World Vision began to and what is God’s will for our lives,” said Stearns. By June actively lead the movement. “We were one of the first and 1998, he sold his home, moved his family from the most vocal voices within the Christian evangelical commuPhiladelphia area to the state of Washington, and started as nity to go public on this issue in a big way,” said Stearns. the new president of World Vision.

By working with African churches, World Vision At the conference, he asked the audience, “What does God (www.worldvision.org) developed strategies and tactics for expect of us as followers of Christ?”

AIDS prevention, cared for the sick, and lobbied for orphans, in addition to advocating for better governmental policies and “You are young, gifted, accomplished, successful, ambiprograms and U.S. PEPFAR legislation. “World Vision has tious and Christian,” he told the students. “How will your

Summer 2008

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S P E C I A L R E P O RT T H E IVY L E AGUE C ON GRESS ON FAITH AN D ACTION really been [trying] to call the church back to the front lines of compassion to deal with the AIDS crisis as Christ would have us to do,” said Stearns.

“Acting on AIDS,” a program started by Christian college students with the support of World Vision, is a grassroots movement to raise awareness and promote activism of the global AIDS pandemic at U.S. colleges and universities.

“College students have an influence,” said Stearns. “They are young and idealistic enough to want to do something about these things; they believe the world can be changed. We [want to] get these kids motivated and equipped to become advocates, so they can go out into their spheres of influence

and start to change the way people think in their generation.”

“As a Christian, you can have only one end or goal that you are committed to: to serve Christ, to bring the whole Gospel to the whole world, and to demonstrate the values of God’s coming kingdom. Everything else then becomes a means to that end,” he said.

At the end of the speech to the students and alumni, he asked his opening question again: “What does God expect of you?” With a big smile, he finally answered, “Nothing less than your total commitment.”

By Nkem Okafor, Yale Graduate School

A MOVIE MINISTRY MOGUL Panelist Ted Baehr Speaks About The Impact of Media “Evil happens when good men do nothing,” says Ted Baehr, Dartmouth ’69, quoting Sir EdDARTMOUTH mund Burke. That’s why Baehr is doing all he can to improve society by “protecting the eyes of innocents and making young people media-wise.”

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Baehr is the founder and chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission (www.mediawisefamily.com), a California-based advocacy group dedicated to educating the entertainment industry and its audiences about the impact of the media. A primary vehicle Baehr uses to educate the public is MOVIEGUIDE, an Internet and print publication that works toward “redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles” by influencing entertainment industry executives and helping families make wise media choices.

Working in the entertainment industry comes naturally to Baehr, whose parents, Robert “Tex” Allen and Evelyn Pierce, were actors.

Raised in a self-described “new-age” environment, faith and worship were not part of the Baehr family script. In fact, as a young adult Baehr was invited to attend a church service and wondered what churchgoers would do on Sunday. For him, Sunday meant coffee and the New York Times.

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After receiving his Juris Doctorate from New York University, Baehr worked in law but was then prompted by friends to join them in the entertainment industry producing movies. Baehr was not a Christian at that time.

It wasn’t until his late twenties, when Baehr was encouraged by a family friend to read the Bible that he decided to explore the “short version”—the New Testament. And it was in that reading and exploration that Baehr discovered a new setting for his life, one that put Christ as his Lord and Savior.

As founder and chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, Ted Baehr, Dartmouth ’69, is working to increase morality in Hollywood movies.

photo by Annie Ulrich

Today, Baehr travels the world talking to executives and audiences about the dramatic impact the mass media has upon our culture and particularly young people.

At the Ivy League Congress on Faith in Action in April, Baehr was part of the media panel that addressed Ivy students and alumni.

“Most people and media executives would agree that violence influences young people,” he told conference participants. He explained how citizens of other countries identify Americans as violent, even though they’ve never met one personally. They base that opinion upon the movies they see coming from the states, Baehr said, movies such as Rambo and others that make violence the star of the show.

The Ivy League Christian Observer

S P E C I A L R E P O RT T H E IVY L E AGUE C ON GRESS ON FAITH AN D ACTION Despite the international image, Baehr says, the average American wants good to triumph over evil. He also said that young men and women would prefer their movies without the sexual content that’s become mainstream. And it’s that message that Baehr tries to get across to media executives.

Baehr points out that the work of MOVIEGUIDE is not simply to critique movies with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” rating. “We do something very unique,” Baehr explained. “It’s something only God could call you to do. We are an advocacy group in Hollywood.”

When MOVIEGUIDE started in 1985, only six percent of the movies were aimed at families; by 2008, forty-five percent of the movies released in theaters were aimed at families. Those family films grossed an average two hundred percent more than movies aimed at the adult marketplace, the ministry reports.

As such, MOVIEGUIDE analyzes the most popular films of the day and values them according to their Christian worldviews, depiction of Christianity, redemption, etc. And that doesn’t limit their work to obviously Christian-oriented films like the highly successful Chronicles of Narnia. Less overt films like I Am Legend and Spiderman III are also described favorably by MOVIEGUIDE for their messages of redemption and positive portrayals of Christianity.

But redeeming the movie industry is more than touting statistics. “If you educate a man’s mind and not his heart, you’ll have an educated barbarian,” Baehr said, paraphrasing Theodore Roosevelt.

“We can debate figures all afternoon; the answer is humbled repentance,” Baehr said. He challenges industry leaders to be humble and asks them if they are obedient to the Word of God. “We need to humble ourselves,” he said, “When we humble ourselves, revival can take place.” And, he said he believes “there’s a deep-seated revival going on” in Hollywood.

Because 12- to 24-year-olds are the most influential demographic for the entertainment industry, Baehr places a special emphasis on informing these young people and their parents, so they can make “wise choices” and ultimately impact the industry in the years to come.

Another quote by Theodore Roosevelt might best express the heart of Baehr’s mission: “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

REDEEMING LAW Attorneys Speak of Calling and Challenges at Ivy League Congress Attorneys should use their profession as an opportunity to express Christian love. That was ALL IVY one of the messages from a panel discussion during the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action.

of choosing law as a profession. Such impoverished purposes can include desiring to perform free or “pro bono” work, witnessing to other lawyers, and drawing attention to social causes.

During the law vocational panel, Michael Schutt said attorneys are called to love their neighbors and called specifically to love through the profession of law. Schutt is an associate law professor at Regent University and the director of the Institute for Christian Legal Studies, which seeks to encourage law students, attorneys and professors to study Biblical truth as it relates to legal matters.

Attorney and Ivy graduate Lawrence VanDyke noted that attorneys can “go into law believing it is a platform for some other type of work.” But, he warned, “they do not understand what practicing law really means.”

Along related lines, Schutt is the author of Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession. InterVarsity Press published the book, which exhorts students and lawyers to embrace Christian integrity in practicing law.

VanDyke said he did not receive a Moses-like calling from God into the field of law. VanDyke received his undergraduate degree in engineering and chose to attend law school over seminary. He graduated from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review

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Schutt began the panel by discussing “impoverished views” Summer 2008

Thus, a large percentage of lawyers are dissatisfied, noted VanDyke, who specializes in appellate and constitutional law.

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S P E C I A L R E P O RT T H E IVY L E AGUE C ON GRESS ON FAITH AN D ACTION However, VanDyke noted that instances that prompt doubt can occur and stressed the importance of making an informed and prayerful personal decision.

and Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

As for the third panelist, J. Alexander Cooke said he was compelled to study law by his fascination and appreciation for the complexities of legal matters rather than a specific divine calling. Cook noted that he embraces the “adrenaline of making deals” and the “human drama of working with clients.”

Attorneys J. Alexander Cooke and Michael Schutt spoke of the challenges facing Christians pursuing law careers during panel discussions at the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action.

Cooke, who earned his law degree from Yale University in 2004, is an associate with the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He clerked for the Hon. Morris S. Arnold on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

The panel also probed difficulties Christians might face in a law career and how to overcome them from a Biblical perspective. VanDyke mentioned his personal experience of deciding whether to pursue law school or become a pastor.

His home church could not understand why he would want to practice litigation instead of serving in a nurturing role.

Likewise, Cooke spoke of his personal temptations of working too many hours and taking pride in his salary and long hours.

He emphasized the importance of discipline, which, for him, includes time off for rest and mission trips. He also disciplines himself in offering financial donations and focusing on humility.

In addition, Schutt introduced a difficult contradiction between the American legal system and the Christian faith. “The American legal system works from the foundation that the law engineers people to act in a certain way, which is not Biblical,” he said.

VanDyke added that while this may be true, Christian lawyers know and can rest in the fact that “God is true.”

By Jin Wang, Columbia ’10

THE ‘BIG RED’ BUSSES Cornell Students Make Road Trip to Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action More than two busloads of Cornell students made their way to the Ivy League Congress on CORNELL Faith and Action at Yale on April 11-13. In all, 475 students and alumni from the Ivy League converged on New Haven, Ct. for the event, which was sponsored and partially underwritten by Christian Union.

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Participating Cornell groups included: Cornell Christian Fellowship (www.ccfiv.org), Grace Christian Fellowship (www.rso.cornell.edu/gcf), both the English and Korean speaking congregations of the Korean Church at Cornell (www.kccem.org), Cornell International Christian Fellowship (www.cornellicf.org), Chinese Bible Study (www. rso.cornell.edu/cbs), Higher Call (www.rso.cornell. edu/highercall), Campus Crusade for Christ (www.ccci.org), the Navigators (rso.cornell.edu/navs), and Singaporean Christian Fellowship (www.ccfiv.org).

There was a buzz on campus about the Ivy League Con-

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gress on Faith and Action (ILCFA) for many months before the event as individuals and groups took the initiative to encourage people to go.

Ben Hutton ’08 of Campus Crusade for Christ said, “After Aubrey and Liang [two fellow seniors] said it was good their freshmen year, we wanted to take all of Cru with us this year.”

Cornell International Christian Fellowship used the Congress in the stead of its annual spring retreat, and even offered scholarships to offset the normal fee, which was only $25 (including lodging and meals). Announcements went out to ministries in December. Students slowly started signing up, and through winter break, people were reminded to take advantage of the more-than-accommodating price, a weekend out of Ithaca, and the opportunity to hear what God is doing on other campuses and worldwide.

As Cornell students signed up, it was evident there were

The Ivy League Christian Observer

S P E C I A L R E P O RT T H E IVY L E AGUE C ON GRESS ON FAITH AN D ACTION different expectations and motivations. Sophomore Chris Kim thought it would be “a good opportunity to see the general consensus of Christians in the white collar working world and other Ivy League schools. I thought there might be some relevant stuff discussed.”

Graduate student Behzad Varamini stated, “I didn’t go with a particular goal in mind. I went because I have no idea what the future holds for me and wanted to be encouraged, challenged, and discern a little for myself.” Some students thought it was largely a networking event, or signed up because other friends had decided to go, without knowing anything about it.

through their involvement and concern with the spiritual state of their alma mater and their pursuit of God. In retrospect, Varamini admitted, “I expected successful Christians to be exalted and talk about how they got to where they are without compromising their faith. What I got was honest, humble, vulnerable brothers and sisters sharing their joys and burdens and experiences in their workplaces and careers. Also, I got real fellowship, real rest, and real worship.”

COAH organized a prayer meeting, and so many people showed up that two groups were formed. “The challenge [was made for us] to take a higher view of God and a lower view of our lives, and to see With the approach of the Conour privileges as means which gress, transportation was organA contingent of nearly 200 students from Cornell we are called to faithfully ized for two coach buses and made the long bus trip from Ithaca, N.Y. to New Haven, Ct. for the Ivy League Congress on Faith and apply in the service of others numerous cars, and last-minute Action. and the magnification of God,” sign-ups were taken. COAH said Eugene Kwon ’06, a min(Campus On A Hill) took the istry intern for the Korean Church at Cornell. initiative to pray for conference events, for the Holy Spirit to be present at the Congress, and for logistics to go Such occurrences showed that the ultimate goal of the Consmoothly. gress was not only personal discernment and growth, but The bus rides to Yale allowed the time and space for conversation with other brothers and sisters, and once there, the workshops and larger sessions were only part of the experience. It was not unusual to meet other Cornell Christians for the first time. Seeing and interacting with other members of the body demonstrated the work God is presently doing at Cornell. Another aspect of the Congress was Cornell alumni, who interacted with and encouraged students

also love of the entire body. Cornellians experienced the Congress as one more step towards Christ. Though New Haven was far from Cornell, the reality of the body coming together and worshiping was, as Kwon put it, “a definite testimony to the fact that God is doing something special here in Ithaca.”

By Biblia Kim, Cornell ’08

“The challenge [was made for us] to take a higher view of god and a lower view of our lives, and to see our privileges as means with which we are called to faithfully apply in the service of others and the magnification of God.” Eugene Kwon ’06 Summer 2008

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IN PERSON

BLACK CHURCHES ‘LOVE JESUS AND LOVE AMERICA’ Boston Pastor: Rev. Wright Is Not a Voice for African-American Christians A Boston pastor with Harvard ties took to the nation’s airways this spring to resolutely anHARVARD nounce that controversial Chicago minister Jeremiah Wright does not speak for the country’s entire African-American religious community.

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In April and May, the Reverend Eugene Rivers, pastor of Azusa Christian Community and a leader in the nation’s circuit of African- American preachers, appeared on a series of talk shows including Hannity’s America, Hardball, TODAY, and Morning Joe. During the segments, Rivers, who attended Harvard University, said presidential contender Barack Obama’s former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ is not the voice of the African-American church.

But the remarks that drew the most attention from Rivers centered on Wright’s claim before the National Press Club that he was speaking for the African-American church, rather than himself.

In characteristic, bombastic style, Wright continued. “Why am I speaking out now?” he asked. “If you think I’m going to let you talk about my mama and her religious tradition, and my daddy and his religious tradition and my grandma, you got another thing coming.”

But on Hannity’s America, Rivers responded that Christ’s Gospel message “transcends race. It’s not about black-liberation theology.”

“What you need is the Bible, the Word of God. You need to practice and preach it,” said Rivers.

“When you go around the country, people think the rhetoric – the spectacle, to use Obama’s language, that we saw with Wright – was representative of the black church,” Rivers said during the April 30 broadcast of TODAY. “I want to say to the American people, that [impression] is false. There are 65,000 black churches that represent 23 million people. They love Jesus, and they love America. They don’t trade in that kind of rhetoric.”

Harvard alumnus the Rev. Eugene Rivers went on the record with several media outlets on behalf of the African-American Church in America.

On April 29, Obama (Columbia ’83, Harvard *91) formally ended his relationship with his pastor of twenty years one day after the newly retired minister reignited controversy over race during an appearance before the National Press Club. A month earlier, the presumptive Democratic nominee delivered a stirring speech on race with conciliatory overtones after excerpts from some of Wright’s more incendiary sermons made global headlines.

In the most widely quoted sermon, Wright used profanity and condemned the United States for mistreatment of racial minorities. “Not, ‘God bless America,’” he began, before reproving the country for “treating its citizens as less than human.”

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Likewise, during an appearance on Morning Joe, Rivers said many congregants of African-American churches are patriotic. “We love living in America,” said Rivers. “We would say that if you think living in America is that bad, you can go to Lagos, Nigeria, or Port-auPrince, Haiti.”

As for Rivers, members of his own family have been busy pursuing the American dream at Harvard. Rivers studied philosophy there before he gained national exposure, including a spot on the cover of Newsweek, for his efforts to transform lives in a gritty section of Boston. Son Malcolm ’09 is majoring in African-American studies, and daughter Sojourner will be a freshman in the fall. His wife Jacqueline ’83 and *85, whom Rivers met at Harvard, is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in African-American studies and sociology.

In addition, Rivers focused much of his airtime during Hannity’s America offering an explanation for why Obama did not immediately sever ties with Wright after the preacher’s inflammatory sermons captured the national spotlight.

Rivers described Wright as a father figure who introduced Obama to Christ. Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old as his Kenyan-born father left to pursue doc-

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IN PERSON torate studies at Harvard.

“Here was a kid who did not know what he was,” said Rivers. “He [Obama]’s Indonesian. He’s Hawaiian. He’s half-white. He’s half-black. Dad [Wright] says, ‘Kid, I’m going to give you an identity that you didn’t have.’”

Also on Hannity’s America, Rivers asserted that Wright eventually “abused a relationship that had a certain amount of strategic utility for him. It was an unequal relationship. Jeremiah is the father figure. He’s the pastor. He’s the shepherd.

He has a power relationship vis-à-vis a much younger man.”

Rivers went on to describe Wright as a “tragic” figure: “Here was a very talented man who chose to waste enor-

mous talent with Ebonics rhetoric and over-the-top nonsense and gibberish that does nothing to solve problems…”

On TODAY, Rivers commended Obama for his decision to resign his church membership from Trinity.

“There are tens of thousands of church folk who are praying for Senator Obama, who completely support what he did,” Rivers said. “There are black church leaders who reached out to Senator Obama that are willing to stand with him and help him correct the error and heal the breach that may have been generated… to fix the misunderstanding that was generated by the rhetoric.”

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer

SHINING A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS Brown Alumna Devoted to Sharing Faith with Students

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In some ways, Faye Jaffee might be considered an unlikely candidate to be working with an Ivy League campus ministry.

First, she grew up in sun-and-fun-blessed San Diego, California. Second, she comes from a multi-faith background that did not reference a personal relationship with Christ.

And third, the Brown alumna, who hails from a family of ultra-achievers, earned a bachelor of arts in linguistics which she could have polevaulted into a high-charged government career.

how to walk with God... I’ve been able to pour my life into these women.”

After graduating from Brown, Jaffee spent a year interning with Campus Crusade at Brown and later joined the ministry’s staff at Dartmouth College. In summer 2007, Jaffee rejoined the Campus Crusade team at Brown.

“I have a very deep place in my heart for Brown,” said Jaffee, who participated as a student in Crusade’s College Hill for Christ.

But as she approached graduation in 2002, Jaffee searched her heart and decided her passion was introducing college students to the Jesus she met as a teenager.

“The only thing I really care about is my relationship with God and encouraging others,” said Jaffee, who serves with Campus Crusade for Christ at Brown (www.collegehillfor christ.com). “Most of what I’ve focused my attention on is helping Christian women learn Summer 2008

Campus Crusade for Christ ministry team member Faye Jaffee, Brown ’02, (far right, third row) plans to transition from Brown to Dartmouth.

Even more transition is ahead for Jaffee as she plans to marry CCC filmmaker Jason Gillespie in August. The couple intends to relocate in January 2009 to Dartmouth, where they will serve with Crusade’s campus outreach (www.dartmouth.edu~ccc).

Jaffee said she feels a special calling to help reach students in the Ivy League. As an undergraduate at Brown, Jaffee said she was “shocked by the campus atmosphere and hostility toward Christianity. I Page 29

IN PERSON was sort of looking for Christians to hang out with.”

Because of her Christianity, Jaffee felt challenged by the other students at Brown.

“New England can be a difficult place for young believers,” she said. “There’s so little Christian witness in this part of the country. No one is coming here. There’s a lot of spiritual darkness in Rhode Island.”

Jaffee, who originally planned to study in coastal California, visited Brown because her father graduated from the university in 1970 with a degree in electrical engineering.

Her own decision to attend Brown was a “long shot.”

“I had been praying that God would allow me to walk on a campus and feel at home. I showed up and fell in love with it immediately,” she said.

As for her continued involvement in campus ministry, Jaffee said she believes she is following the Lord’s heart: “I want to invest in what He cares about.”

Jaffe said college students are at an incredible age for wrestling through spiritual ideas: “It’s a real concentration of future leaders and a concentration of leaders who have time to think and talk… They are people who will carry influence in their communities, churches, and work places.”

times means functioning as a big sister. “Many students are far from home, and they have very little help. They just need people to come along and care for them,” she said.

Geoff Freeman, Crusade’s campus director at Brown, said Jaffee’s enthusiasm is contagious: “Faye cares very deeply about the individual student’s soul. As a result, the women of the ministry have grown tremendously, especially in how the Gospel applies to every area of life.”

As for her future, Jaffee said it could involve missions. Her future husband works through Crusade’s headquarters in Orlando, Florida, to translate the Jesus film into new languages; and his position involves international travel about 40 percent of the year. Jaffee’s own interest in missions has taken her to locations in the United States, Mexico, Israel, and China.

“We dream of raising (up) a team of students to go with us to share the Gospel in a place that doesn’t have it so readily available,” she said.

Ultimately, Jaffee loves “talking with people who are open to talking about spiritual stuff but who don’t yet know God.” “I cherish the opportunity,” she said. “I think about how I can move this person one step closer to God.”

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer

At a practical level, her involvement with students some-

GRADUATING INTO SERVANTHOOD Mike McKoy Pursues Christ, Doctoral Degree As a graduate student at Princeton University, it would be natural for Mike McKoy to be consumed with the deadlines and demands of academia.

But the New Jersey native has taken a stand to put Christ first in his life and is focused on evangelizing fellow graduate students through a new Christian Union outreach.

“This life we have here in graduate school is not just about producing papers,” said McKoy, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in political science. “I was rebuilt as a servant of God in grad school. He’s using me as a vessel to speak into other people’s lives.”

In summer 2007, McKoy was part of a group of friends who decided to form Graduate Faith and Action with the help of Matt Bennett (Cornell ’88 and *89), the founder and presi-

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dent of Christian Union. The ministry, which serves as Christian Union’s outreach to graduate students at Princeton University, meets for monthly dinner and ministry sessions at Bennett’s home in Princeton.

“Our guiding belief was that we needed to separate ourselves from work and have a place to go to relax and give praise,” said McKoy, who serves as treasurer of the campus organization.

So far, about 15 to 20 students have been participating in the group’s monthly activities.

“I hope that we, as graduate students, provide meaningful relationships with one another,” said McKoy. “We have a better idea of the struggles of graduate students than anyone else. Graduate student lives are very stressful, very work-

The Ivy League Christian Observer

IN PERSON centric. The real ministry happens in personal relationships.”

graduate ministry (www.princeton.edu/~ ivgrad) at Princeton.

Reaching graduate students provides a key opportunity because many students are making critical career, personal, and spiritual decisions. Also, grad students are an often-overlooked population on Ivy League campuses, McKoy noted.

“I’m always looking for ways to share my faith. If you’re honest about Christ’s role in your life, He’s going to open doors for you.”

After completing his doctoral degree, McKoy said he may pursue a government role using his expertise in national As for McKoy, his challenge since ensecurity issues tied to Asia, but he ultirolling at Princeton in 2006 has been to mately wants to teach at a university. put Christ as his top priority. As part of Princeton graduate student Mike McKoy has made Jesus his top After finishing undergraduate studies, that, he has felt the need to shed the pride priority and is working with McKoy traveled to Asia and later taught that sometimes accompanies matriculaChristian Union to help fellow history and English to high school stution at prestigious institutions. “I was unstudents do the same. dents with behavioral disorders at an alaware of how much pride there was in my ternative school in West Caldwell, N.J. life,” said McKoy, who graduated from Duke University in 2002 with degrees in history and political science.

For now, McKoy is focused on sharing Christ’s message of “Literally, everywhere I went, people were telling me how great I was. When you have everyone telling you that, you think, ‘They’ve got a point.’ The pressure for Princeton is for success. The environment is a very dangerous mix of pride inflation and pride destruction.”

But McKoy ultimately decided to combat academic pride by focusing on relationships, worship, and evangelism.

“Your ego becomes tied to success. That’s not the life Christ has called me to,” he said.

Since arriving at Princeton, McKoy has made it a point to share his faith with his classmates and professors. “I make it clear pretty early that I’m a Christian,” said McKoy, who also is involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s

salvation and peace at Princeton, especially to weary graduate students in need of refreshment.

Matt Escarra, president of Graduate Faith and Action, said he is pleased that the new ministry is providing an opportunity for students to relax from the pressures of advanced studies. “It’s a fun time,” he said. “People really enjoy themselves. I’ve heard positive feedback.”

McKoy agreed.

“This is a place for us to become refreshed and renewed in Christ so that as individuals, we can go out and share our faith,” he said.

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer

AN AWAKENING OF THE HEART Penn Alumna Laura Kaczor Releases CD Wake Up! That’s what singer, songwriter, and Penn alumna Laura Kaczor ’04 would like to PENN see happen in the hearts of her listeners through her recently released CD, Wake Me Up. Currently on tour for the album, Kaczor shares her life and testimony through the words of her songs while also sharing the inspiration she receives from the Lord.

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Kaczor’s love for music began in childhood, according to

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her mother, Mary Kaczor. She told the story of how, at ten years old, Laura was motivated to write and record a song for her neighbor Rose, who was dying of cancer. The woman was so moved by the song, she listened to it every day, Mary said.

Although faith in Jesus Christ has been a part of her life since she was a child, Kaczor experienced her own transformational awakening through music.

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IN PERSON The Kaczors had gone to “traditional, non-denominational” churches for as long as Laura could remember. Then, one summer during high school, a new youth pastor arrived at Kaczor’s church, bringing with him a passion for contemporary worship.

The pastor formed a small worship group called Powered Up. Only a few young people initially joined and Kaczor, a multi-talented musician, played the drums. The music moved her and her own passion for worship was sparked.

“It was awesome to see…having that encounter with God through worship,” Kaczor said. “It totally changed my life.”

Even when Kaczor entered Penn to study economics, she still had a heart for worship. As a freshman, she became a member of Penn’s renowned a cappella group Full Measure, and was soloist on the album Not for Nothing. She also served as worship leader for Penn’s Campus Crusade for Christ (www.upennccc.org).

Although labeled a Christian musician, Kaczor recently finished a project called Wildflowers, which contained original Americana songs and was produced by Grammy-awardwinning producer John Carter Cash, son of legendary country music performers Johnny and June Cash.

Recording artist Laura Kaczor, Penn ’04, sings with passion to awaken the hearts of listeners.

Being part of Full Measure was a large part of her spiritual growth, Kaczor said. Members were some of her closest friends. They prayed together “very diligently and had such a heart for the Lord.”

She even writes about Full Measure on her Web site, www.laurakaczor.com.

“Being in Full Measure was a huge part of my musical education. I learned how to perform in a music group, and I learned to really listen. I also saw how disarming music is.

It really is a universal language, and an excellent vehicle for communicating a message,” she wrote.

But Kaczor’s involvement with youth worship wasn’t limited to the Penn campus. For the past seven years, she has been the worship leader and co-emcee for Jesus Fest, a worship and evangelism event that attracts more than one thousand young people from the Northeast. It’s an event at which many young people have given their lives to Christ.

And touching people’s lives for Christ is what Kaczor’s

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music is all about. Described by fellow Christians as “an anointed singer/songwriter, musician, worship leader, and speaker,” Kaczor said she’s always known she has a strong ability to reach people. And that is what she keeps on her mind and heart as she journeys her way through the music industry.

But Kaczor is not concerned about how her music is categorized; it’s all inspired from the Lord, she says. In fact, she doesn’t care much about where the music industry puts her on the charts; she’s more concerned with what the Lord puts upon her heart.

Kaczor also admits that the industry, with its lures of fame and money, presents challenges to a Christian performer.

“It’s difficult,” she said, “when you feel like you’re being called [to do this] and you come against closed doors.” But she keeps herself grounded through a “good community of faith and friends at church.”

She also remembers that commercial success doesn’t determine her true achievement. She considers herself successful if she can touch one heart and help inspire that heart toward Christ.

Music is how Kaczor communicates her faith with others and with the Lord. It’s something she just has to do. “It’s a gift God has given,” she said. “Not everyone can sing and lead people in song. I want to give back.”

And whether it’s been to a dying neighbor or one thousand young people, Kaczor’s music has given inspiration to many and awakened the passion for Jesus Christ in the hearts of listeners of all ages.

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

The Ivy League Christian Observer

REACHING • OUT

PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR IN PANAMA CITY Princeton Faith and Action Team Hits the Beach It would be hard enough to approach a six-footthree-inch, 300-pound football player holding a PRINCETON beer in his hand. But imagine approaching a whole group of them just to talk about Jesus.

Only two said they were not interested in hearing what the team had to say. According to Campus Crusade for Christ, the gospel message was presented 2,856 times and 410 people accepted Christ during the outreach.

That’s not a comfort zone for many people. But for Princeton Faith and Action ministry leaders Dan Knapke, his wife Laurie, Adrian Mullings, and three student team members, talking to sun-scorched, beer-quenched college students who flocked to Florida for spring break was commonplace.

Despite the openness on the beach, Mullings admitted that approaching these young strangers was intimidating.

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The team was part of Campus Crusade for Christ’s annual spring break outreach in Panama City.

As Princeton Faith and Action (www.pfanda.com) members combed the beaches to engage people in conversation, they were struck by the readiness with which many students accepted them.

“The fear, anxiety, and nervousness come naturally with evangelism,” Mullings said.

One of the ways to overcome the natural emotion of fear is through supernatural love, Mullings explained. When you can focus on your love for Christ and the students themselves, he said, the anxiety and fear take a back seat and you become empowered.

“The nervousness will never go away,” Mullings admits. But through love, he says, it can be rendered powerless.

Mullings received much of his inspiration from the words of 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”

Mullings was so captivated by the power of love over fear that he brought Mullings recalled one particular musthe message home with him and shared cle-bound football player who was PFA ministry leaders spent spring it at an Impact meeting at Princeton positive he wasn’t going to Heaven, break evangelizing on the beaches in University. Impact is a campus ministry Panama City, Florida. and then with tears nearly in his eyes, to African-American students. Mullings felt the joy of salvation after hearing spoke of his beach experiences and his the Gospel message. Even when his companions began hesitations and encouraged the Impact students to pursue taunting Mullings, the student stood up and told them, “Be beach evangelism next year during spring break. quiet. This is serious.”

However, evangelizing to students isn’t limited to a certain At that, the friends joined in the conversation and Mullings time of year or location. In fact, according to Knapke, his was able to share the Gospel with all three of them. main focus for the week was helping the students overcome “They said, ‘We all believe in Jesus, but we don’t know their fears of evangelism so that they could help the people what that means.’ ” Mullings explained. who are part of their everyday lives.

Mullings said he felt the Holy Spirit’s leading and inspira“This isn’t about creating beach evangelists,” Knapke said. tion while talking with the students. He spoke with them Instead, it’s about helping students close the gap between about starting a relationship with Jesus through analogies their desire to share their faith and their ability to do so. and language to which the students could relate.

And, he said, the best way to close that gap is to spend five days in Florida at the beach, asking people to do things that “They really understood that and were thankful,” he said. In are “radical.” the end, each of the young men took more literature to read and one prayed with Mullings.

“But after five days of doing this,” Knapke said, “their evangelistic lives will never be the same.”

According to Knapke, the PFA team approached about thirty-seven young people on their first day at the beach.

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer “The response we got from the students was incredible,” Dan Knapke said. “It felt like we were doing a service project…We were expecting to be rejected, but the opposite happened.”

Summer 2008

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REACHING • OUT

THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT JESUS WEEK Penn’s Campus Ministries Take Bold New Approach For thirteen years, ministries at the University of Pennsylvania have come together for one PENN week in the spring to celebrate Jesus Christ and build unity among the church body. This year however, Jesus Week took a slightly different approach as it focused on impacting the Penn community and taking God’s Word and love into the streets.

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According to Michael Hu of PennforJesus (www.pennforjesus.com), evangelism was the cornerstone for Jesus Week 2008. In the past, he explained, Jesus Week featured worship, prayer events, and speakers that mostly targeted Christians on campus. This year, organizers designed events that were geared toward those who were seeking more information about God and those who could be described as spiritual but not religious.

For example, this year’s speaker was James Sire, author of The Universe Next Door. Sire spoke on “Signals of Transcendence” and, according to Hu, directed his words to the nonChristians in the audience. Additionally, instead of the traditional café music event, Jesus Week 2008 featured an unplugged concert by Penn alumna Laura Kaczor ’04, who shared stories during the concert.

for—it will scare people away. It’s too forward,” he told the Daily Pennsylvanian.

The Newman Center, Penn’s Catholic community on campus, opted out of participating in the event this year due, in part, to the change in focus.

“We decided not to participate in Jesus Week this year because we did not wish to partake in the evangelization efforts that had become newly central to the week,” said Newman Council President Liz DiIulio, in the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Father Charles Zlock, director of the Newman Center, said the decision was made primarily due to mission and time constraints. “Evangelism and evangelization are both at the heart of the Catholic Church’s mission,” Zlock said, noting that lack of participation was not due to a lack of desire to share God’s word.

“This fell a little outside the mission of the Newman Center,” Zlock said. The students were also extremely busy with service missions, charity fundraisers, and Holy Week liturgical activities, he added.

Despite community skepticism and changes in participants, the Jesus Week team went forward with its own mission of reaching Penn stuHu said the decision to pursue Organizers of this year’s Jesus Week broke dents for Christ. To help keep their evangelism was a unanimous one from tradition and focused on reaching out to focus, they put their efforts into among the ministry leaders who non-Christians in the Penn community. three aspects of evangelism: congathered to plan the event; each versation, service, and prayer. indicated that God had placed evangelism on their hearts.

While this new focus excited Jesus Week organizers, others Some students engaged fellow students in conversations on campus did not share their vision. about the Gospel, while others chose to approach students The Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper quoted Malka Fleischmann ’10, chairwoman of Programs in Religion, Interfaith and Spirituality Matters, as saying that “she admired the organizers’ passion but feared that some people may take issue with their prayer offerings.”

Nicholas Barber ’08 also expressed concern. “I really think it will have the opposite effect of what they’re trying to go Page 34

and ask if they could pray for them. Still others served the Penn community and displayed God’s love that way.

How students responded to the evangelism depended upon the day as well as the type of evangelism approached. By and large, Hu said, non-Christians were more responsive to offers for prayer than they were to engaging in direct discussions.

The Ivy League Christian Observer

REACHING • OUT Interestingly, however, non-Christians were not the only ones blessed by these evangelism efforts. According to Hu, the ministry members were also edified by the experience and gained a newfound confidence in their ability to share God’s word with strangers.

Hu said that for several weeks after the event, he read e-mails from students talking about how they were going out to do some more evangelism and to pray for others on their own.

In the end, it turned out that in their effort to broaden the reach of Jesus Week to the entire campus, these Christian students stepped out in faith, building upon their faith and confidence in the Lord and ultimately fulfilling the founding purpose of Jesus week by becoming a stronger, united Christian body on campus.

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

COLUMBIA STUDENTS HELP REBUILD NEW ORLEANS Spring Break Volunteers Participate in Post-Katrina Relief During Columbia’s Spring Break, twenty students from the three main ministry groups on COLUMBIA campus traveled to New Orleans to participate in post-Katrina relief and recovery efforts.

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Jenny Kim, a first-year student and member of Korea Campus Crusade for Christ (www.kcccusa.org), participated in Columbia’s Alternative Spring Break sponsored by Columbia’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and Hillel. A diverse group of thirty-two students fundraised through campus activities and received training for six weeks prior to Spring Break. During the trip, they worked with the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) for one week in the Lower Ninth Ward – the most devastated area of New Orleans.

Three students from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (www.columbia. edu/cu/ivcf) traveled to New Orleans for the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) on March 14-16. President Bill Clinton hosted the meeting of CGI U at Tulane University, where hundreds of students, university officials, and global leaders convened to Summer 2008

discuss how to make a difference in the areas of energy and climate change, global health, human rights and peace, and poverty alleviation. The weekend conference included a panel, which discussed the rebuilding of a sustainable New Orleans. The meeting concluded with a service project in the Lower Ninth Ward in conjunction with Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, which plans to construct 150 affordable environmentally friendly homes for Katrina victims. The CGI U service project, along with Pitt and an interview with President Clinton, was featured on Good Morning America.

The largest group of students that traveled to New Orleans was composed of sixteen students from Korea Campus Crusade for Christ and Columbia Students for Christ (www.columbia studentsforchrist.com).

Along with a larger group of about forty students from the New York Metro area’s various Campus Crusade for Christ ministries, the students worked on gutting, roofing, and rebuilding homes.

Students from Columbia’s Korea Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship spent spring break in New Orleans helping victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The group was hosted by the United Church of Christ. “They were very cordial,” said sophomore Edward Kim ’10. “We enjoyed a night of genuine New Orleans cookPage 35

REACHING • OUT ing and fellowship with them. It was so encouraging to see the body of Christ coming together to be His hands and feet in a place that much of the country has already forgotten.”

Other Columbia students also attested to the continuing plight of New Orleans. Almost three years after Hurricane Katrina, much work still needs to be done to revive many of the ravaged neighborhoods. “The work left still seems insurmountable,” voiced first-year student Ki Hoon Kim.

“The people down there really need the love and grace of Christ.”

Kim and others were also very grateful for the experience.

“I’m glad God used me,” said Kim, “In the future, I would not hesitate to return. We did what we could only because of God’s victory won on our behalf.”

By Jin Wang, Columbia ’10

C O N T E M P O R A RY • C U LT U R E

‘JUDGING’ THE INFLUENCE OF THE IVY LEAGUE Yale, Princeton Alumni Rule in Controversial California Decision As thousands of students graduated from the Ivy League this May, history shows that many ALL IVY will go on to excel in positions of leadership that will impact the nation and, indeed, the world. It is because of the indelible mark these students will make on society that ministries such as Christian Union are working to transform Ivy League campuses.

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“Many of our country’s future leaders will graduate from these schools, and as the leaders go, so goes the country,” said Christian Union Founder and President Matt Bennett, Cornell ’88 and *89.

For many Christians, the need for Christ-centered leadership was brought home on May 15 when the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. Two of the judges who voted with the majority in the case are Ivy League graduates, Associate Justice Carlos R. Moreno, Yale ’70, and Chief Justice Ronald M. George, Princeton ’61.

“This decision put marriage at risk all across the nation and again highlights the need for a Marriage Protection Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so that this divisive campaign for the oxymoron of ‘same-sex marriage’ will be ended once and for all,” stated Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will reportedly uphold the ruling and not support a proposed amendment to overturn the decision.

State Supreme Court Justice Ronald George, Princeton ’61, recently voted against the ban on same-sex marriage.

The California court stated, “Permitting opposite-sex couples to marry while affording same-sex couples access only to the novel and less-recognized status of domestic partnership improperly infringes a same-sex couple’s constitutional rights to marry and to the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the California Constitution.”

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While this decision was made regarding California, Christians and conservatives outside the state are concerned about its far-reaching affects.

“The California Supreme Court has taken a jackhammer to the democratic process and the right of the people to affect change in public policy. Four judges discarded the votes of 4,618,673 Californians who approved the state’s ‘Defense of Marriage Act.’ Voters understand that children should not be deprived of a mother or a father,” said Perkins.

However, voters will have another opportunity to express their positions on the issue in November when they vote on a ballot measure regarding same-sex marriage.

Interestingly, Ivy League alumni were also involved in a profound ruling a year ago when the Federal Supreme Court

The Ivy League Christian Observer

C O N T E M P O R A RY • C U LT U R E ruled against partial-birth abortion. The justices in the majority of that five-to-four vote all graduated from Ivy League schools.

However, future laws are only one area affected by today’s Ivy graduates. With projected long-term military involvement worldwide and the ever-increasing medical advances that raise moral questions of human dignity, the faith, or

lack thereof, these leaders bring to their professions and vocations can forever change the nation and the world.

As Bennett states, “For the sake of the future of our country, because of the leadership these people will give, we must do whatever it takes to see these campuses transformed.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

OPRAH RESURRECTS PROFESSOR’S NEW AGE ‘CLASSIC’ ‘A Course in Miracles’ Presents Misguided View of Faith Forty years after A Course in Miracles was written, the New Age “classic” is getting new life COLUMBIA thanks to mega-media personality Oprah Winfrey. But many Christians familiar with the work are concerned that Winfrey’s popularity will overshadow the truth behind this misguided course in spirituality.

One of the principles from the book states: “Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead because you made sickness and death yourself, and therefore abolish both. You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the creations of light are real.”

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) was written by Dr. Helen Schucman, a Columbia University professor of medical psychology. Schucman contends that the book was inspired by an inner “voice” that identified itself as Jesus.

“A slain Christ has no meaning,” states the book, “But a risen Christ becomes the symbol of the Son of God’s forgiveness on himself…”

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Oprah Winfrey is currently offering weekly study groups in A Course in Miracles on her XM Satellite radio show that is hosted by author Marianne Williamson, a proponent of the course. New-Age authors such as Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth) and Rhonda Byrne (The Secret) have also been regulars on The Oprah Winfrey Show. A video called “The Church of Oprah Exposed” was posted in late March on YouTube.com. The video, which refers to Oprah’s viewers as “the largest church in the world,” has since been viewed more than five million times.

The course consists of three books including the main book, a student workbook, and a manual for teachers. While it speaks of love, at its core it teaches the power of the mind and self. In effect, this course in miracles is a journey to the mind whereby one loses the soul.

InterVarsity Campus Director Ashley Byrd discusses the dangers of “New Age” ideologies like those found in A Course in Miracles.

“A Course in Miracles is full of heresy, often wrapped in confusing, contradictory, nonsensical rhetoric,” wrote James A. Smith on the Baptist Press news site. ”Sometimes, however, ACIM is blatantly clear in its false doctrine. And, since Jesus was supposedly the voice heard by Schucman, these assertions are especially outrageous.”

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According to ACIM, there is no sin or guilt. There are only illusions, and it is the purpose of the “Holy Spirit” to be the bridge between those illusions and “reality.”

It contains statements such as, “The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.” Workbook headings include: “My salvation comes from me,” and “I am the holy Son of God Himself.”

“This course, which makes affirmations that individuals are in total control, meets the need that people feel is lacking in their understanding of God being in control,” said Ashley Byrd ’98, director of InterVarsity (www.columbia.edu/ cu/ivcf) at Columbia. “It’s a form of security and empowPage 37

C O N T E M P O R A RY • C U LT U R E erment stemming from a poor understanding of God’s sovereignty. In my opinion, this course is very similar to secular humanism on campus, [which is] targeted to people desiring a spiritual dimension to their humanistic worldview.”

According to Byrd, students at Columbia don’t seem that aware of the book, but he does see dangers in it and other New Age philosophies like it.

“It is dangerous to study this book without being aware of the way it reshapes one’s thinking. It is meant to recalibrate the way one sees the world into a view of life that is contrary to the biblical worldview… But Christ accomplishes the rehumanization of the world and restoration of the earth in ways that are counter-intuitive and in direct opposition to ACIM,” he said.

The “voice” of this course doesn’t like the notion that sin brings pain and suffering and death. It doesn’t like that in the true act of salvation, Jesus suffered for our sins. There ought to be no suffering because, according to workbook lesson 101, “God’s will for me is perfect happiness.”

Even salvation itself, in ACIM, becomes a watered down, happy place of one’s mind: “Salvation is a thought you share with God, because His Voice accepted it for you and answered in your name that it was done. Thus is salvation kept among the thoughts your Self holds dear and cherishes for you.”

Consequently, it is this type of language that has Christians concerned about the pull of Oprah Winfrey toward this course. Even before she established this study, some in the Christian community expressed concern about celebrity taking the place of biblical teachings.

In a 2005 Breakpoint broadcast, Charles Colson, Brown ’49, addressed the issue.

“I’m not saying don’t watch Oprah,” Colson said. “She’s talented and generally provides wholesome entertainment.

But don’t confuse it with the faith…many people are turning Oprah and TV into their own personal gods of self-fulfillment. And that’s the kind of ‘religion’ that does far more harm than good.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

A TRUE LOVE REVOLUTION Ivy League Students Align Themselves with Abstinence At Harvard University, students have taken a stand for abstinence. Founded in June 2006 by HARVARD students Justin Murray ’07 and Sarah Kinsella ’07, True Love Revolution (TRL) promotes pre-marital abstinence and sexual fulfillment in marriage.

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Though only a couple of years old, this small student-run organization has already spawned a nation-wide response that varies from mocking criticism to full-fledged respect.

One has only to Google-search to find a long list of opinionated articles from colleges across the country, as well as detailed coverage by prestigious newspapers such as The New York Times.

Perhaps one reason for such widespread interest in TLR is due to its relevance. According to the National College Health Assessment Survey, 71 percent of today’s American college students are sexually active. Therefore, an Ivy League group advocating abstinence would certainly trigger an onslaught of both negative and positive responses.

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It is important to note that True Love Revolution (www.hcs.harvard.edu/tlr) is not the only one of its kind; Princeton University also has a abstinence advocacy group called the Anscombe Society (www.princeton.edu/~ anscombe). Named after the Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, the group believes “in the inherent dignity of every human person” and is based on principles found in “sociology, psychology, medicine, philosophy, theology, and human experience.” However, in a New York Times interview, Murray is quoted to say that TLR was founded to focus more on the emotional aspects of choosing abstinence.

Though many of its members claim a faith in God, Harvard’s True Love Revolution promotes itself as a non-religious group in order to show that choosing abstinence is a decision based on rationality – in other words, choosing abstinence simply makes sense.

Firstly, in addition to restating traditional reasons for choosThe Ivy League Christian Observer

C O N T E M P O R A RY • C U LT U R E ing abstinence (avoid pregnancy, avoid STD’s), the TLR website also addresses pre-marital sex in light of recent emotional and psychological studies. According to these studies, early sexual activity and having multiple sexual partners is “strongly associated with increased depression, greater likelihood of maternal poverty, and higher rates of marital infidelity and divorce in future marriages.” As succinctly put by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, “There is no condom for the heart.”

Along with emotional and psychological studies, TLR also provides information about studies done on the “bonding” hormone called oxytocin. Released during sex in both men and women, this hormone couples the partners physiologically during intercourse. When such a hormone is released during sex only to be followed by subsequent lack of personal commitment, many people, especially women, face sentiments of abandonment, emptiness, and deprecated self-worth.

Men as well as women are expressing interest in abstinence at Harvard, as proven by the equal numbers of male and female membership in TLR. Leo Keliher ’10, the other 2007 co-president, is quoted in The Phoenix to say, “One of the worst things about popular culture’s perception of sex is that guys don’t feel like they have any control over themselves. They’ve given this message, ‘Oh, I have to indulge my sexuality. I have to do this because I’m a man.’

They don’t feel responsible.” In The New York Times, Keliher said that the real meaning of masculinity is “being able to deny yourself for the sake of the woman…To have that kind of self-control is really what it means to be a man.”

But perhaps TRL’s most convincing and reasonable defense of chastity is simply this: the organization is not against sex, but True Love Revolution member rather for it. A February 2008 handout Leo Keliher, Harvard ’10, said, from TLR says that, “Contrary to some “One of the worst things about popular culture’s perception common assumptions, chastity and abstiof sex is that guys don’t feel nence…does not necessitate being irralike they have any control over tionally religious, sexually repressed, themselves.”

In The New York Times, Janie Fredell ’09, afraid of the opposite sex, or afraid of sex the 2007 co-president of TLR, brought up in general.

Rather, chastity honors sex and allows it to flourwomen’s rights in relation to chastity. She challenged the ish to its full capacity.” earlier feminist notion of a woman exercising her rights by freely having sex, arguing instead that it is far more dignifying for a woman to assert control over her own body by saying no to men. Furthermore, she stated that “virginity is extremely alluring,” though “its mysterious allure…is not rooted in an image of innocence and purity, but rather in the notion of strength…It takes a strong woman to be abstinent, and that’s the sort of woman I want to be.”

In today’s culture, there are those who might mock chaste individuals as “prudes” or religious zealots. But such romanticized or presumptuous notions are dispelled when one is presented with the rather sensible, personally beneficial, and positive reasons for choosing to abstain from sex before marriage – not to undermine or shun sex, but rather to respect its worth.

By Sara Woo, Cornell ‘09

‘THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A NONPERSON’ Princeton Pro-Life Hosts Brother of Terri Schiavo The death of Terri Schiavo in 2005, after a court ordered the removal of her feeding tube, amounted to “judicial homicide,” according to

her brother.

pus’ pro-life organization. Schindler discussed the agony his family experienced after Schiavo, 41, died of marked dehydration nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed at the urging her of husband.

Bobby Schindler expressed his poignant opinions during a speech he gave in April at Princeton University to the cam-

“My family’s only intention was to bring Terri home,” Schindler told forty-plus members and guests of Princeton

P PRINCETON

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C O N T E M P O R A RY • C U LT U R E Pro-Life. “They were forced to witness what no parent should have to witness.”

Schindler centered his remarks on what he felt were the legal injustices and shift in medical ethics that conspired against Schiavo, who collapsed in 1990. He described Schiavo as a voiceless woman who was victimized by the disability of brain damage.

Schindler’s characterization of Schiavo’s death as “judicial homicide” was not original; rather, he repeated some of the fiercer opinions that were reported in the bitterly controversial case that made global headlines.

Opponents, however, maintain that Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed after a court examined the conditions under which she would have wanted to have been kept alive by artificial means. As well, they argued that she remained in a “persistent vegetative state” with minimal chance for improvement or awareness of her surroundings.

Nonetheless, more than two dozen disabilities organizations came together to express concern for protecting Schiavo’s civil and human rights as a disabled American. Also, the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities Inc. filed a federal lawsuit in 2003, contending that the removal of Schiavo’s tube represented abuse and neglect.

In addition, Schindler asserted that Michael Schiavo had an “enormous” conflict of interest that prevented him from acting in his wife’s best interest as her guardian. Namely, Michael was in a decade-long relationship with his fiancée at the time of Terri’s death. Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze’s children were born in 2002 and 2004, and the couple married in 2006.

“We stood by her bed as she fought valiantly,” Schindler said.

Today, the Schindler family focuses its energy on operating the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to helping disabled or incapacitated individuals and their families.

Bobby Schindler spoke to Princeton students about the sanctity of life and his family’s struggle to save the life of his sister, Terri Schiavo.

During his visit to Princeton, Schindler warned students that some bioethicists are creating a new class of humans as “nonpersons,” clearing the way for the euthanasia of individuals with advanced Alzheimer’s and similar conditions.

“Sadly, we are living in a country that has become more godless,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a nonperson.”

Such reclassifications are part of an emerging “culture of death,” Schindler warned, noting that the most vulnerable are the oldest and youngest members of society.

“My sister Terri was not the first and only person who was starved to death. Her case was the most visible,” he said.

“What is most alarming is that we have become so desensitized and that we no longer know how to love in this country.”

As well, Schindler told Princeton students that Schiavo’s condition was not terminal and she only required “basic care,” namely sustenance supplied via a feeding tube. He also dispelled the notion that his sister was in a vegetative state and insisted she exhibited some awareness.

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Though “much confusion still exists about Terri’s condition, Terri was not terminal or dying, and her brain injury was not going to cause her to die,” Schindler said.

As well, the family took its case to the nation’s bookstores in 2006 when it published A Life that Matters: The Legacy of Terri Schiavo – A Lesson for Us All. Not surprisingly, Michael Schiavo released a competing version of the divisive end-of-life case entitled Terri: The Truth.

Princeton students appreciated Schindler’s dedication to the pro-life cause and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to hear the Schindler family’s version of the controversial saga.

“We’re trying to expand and show the community that we want to talk about all of the life issues,” said Roscoe Cafaro ’09, president of Princeton Pro-Life. “We forget that these are actual people. It’s really nice to come back and be refreshed and to realize that you’re not just fighting for an idea.”

Another member of Princeton Pro-Life, Shivani Radhakrishnan ’11, agreed. “End-of-life issues are of paramount importance,” she said. “The intrinsic value of human life must be respected from its very beginnings to its natural ends, which leads us to consider these end-of-life issues to be so grave.”

As for Schindler, he is dedicated to preserving the dignity of life. “We must all work together if we wish to end discrimination,” he said. “Politicians must understand that the issue of life is the most significant issue we must face. We must value the sanctity of human life. We cannot compromise on this issue.”

By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer The Ivy League Christian Observer

C O N T E M P O R A RY • C U LT U R E

PUTTING FAITH IN CREATION CARE Yale Forum Addresses Climate Change As clouds threatened rain on the chilly late April afternoon, Yale Divinity students and members YALE of the New Haven community came together at the Divinity School Quadrangle for the Second Annual Interfaith Solidarity on Global Climate Change. Ironically, the threat of inclement weather was the reason event coordinators believed the turnout was less than last year, yet it did not deter those in attendance from recognizing how their faith influences their attitude toward ecology.

Y

Students at the Divinity School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies jointly sponsored the event, which, according to Gus Spohn, communications director for the Divinity School, is “another example of the increased awareness of the links between religion and the environment.”

The purpose of the event was to “build bridges of religious environmentalism between Yale and the faith communities in the greater New Haven area.” Attendees were treated to a complimentary lunch from Claire’s Corner Copia and children spent their time coloring, doing crafts, and planting their own white spruce sapling. The North Shore Troubadours provided live music in front of Marquand Chapel.

The interfaith group also gathered in a circle for a time of public “meditation” and a moment of silence. Attendees were also invited to participate in workshops discussing “Sustainable Community Outreach” and “Inconvenient Ethics: Using Al Gore in a Faith Context?”

The issue of climate change and the environment has often been divided into separate camps of liberals and conservatives. However, more and more people of faith are beginning to look at the environment. Josh Hill, a Yale Divinity School student and one of the event coordinators, credits the involvement of evangelists such as Calvin DeWitt with opening the dialogue between faith and ecology.

DeWitt was responsible for framing the Statement of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which was signed by several well-know evangelists including Richard Stearns, President of World Vision; the Reverend Ron Sider, President of Evangelicals for Social Action; the Reverend Bill Hybels, Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church; and the Reverend Dr. Leith Anderson, Interim President of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“Over the last several years many of us have engaged in study, reflection, and prayer related to the issue of climate change (often called “global warming”). For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or a major priority,” the document states. As a result, the statement outlines four “simple but urgent claims” that the signers hope will encourage readers to “take appropriate actions.” These claims state: Human-Induced Climate Change is Real; The Consequences of Climate Change Will Be Significant and Will Hit the Poor the Hardest; Christian Moral Convictions Demand Our Response to the Climate Change Problem; and The Need to Act Now is Urgent.

photos by Eileen Scott

Students and faculty from the Yale Divinity School joined the New Haven community in celebrating the earth during a climate change event held in April.

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C O N T E M P O R A RY • C U LT U R E While the need to act now may be urgent, one Ivy League evangelical has been addressing faith and environmental stewardship for over 20 years. Richard A. Baer, Jr., Harvard ’65, is a professor of environmental ethics at Cornell who wrote a 1985 article for Agriculture and Human Values entitled “Agricultural Ethics at State Universities: Why No Input from the Theologians?” In the article, Baer writes, “For Christians today to ignore the needs of future generations and to maltreat the land upon which they will depend is for one part of the body to harm another part, thus dishonoring Jesus Christ, who is the head of the body, and also dishonoring fellow Christians to whom they are bound together through mystical communion with Christ.”

According to Divinity School student Esther Braum ’08, it’s “exciting” to see the shift in thought and action on the part of the faith community when it comes to “creation care.”

Apparently, though, it does not take a degree in theology or ecology to understand the importance of caring for the environment. One six-year-old attendee at the Yale event seemed to understand the issue fairly well.

“We’re here helping the environment,” he said. “Without this planet we wouldn’t live, so we have to help the planet.”

By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer

THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS World Vision President Richard Stearns (Cornell ‘73 and Wharton School of Business *75) enjoys a bagel and the Ivy League Christian Observer at the Ivy League Congress on Faith and Action in April.

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The Ivy League Christian Observer

NEWS-IN-BRIEF ALL IVY Atheism Remix Responds to New Threat on College Campuses

Atheism has been deemed the “new predator” on campuses

by Dr. Albert Mohler.

His new book, Atheism Remix, is being touted as an answer to the challenge.

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, believes atheism is the new predator threatening college freshmen on campuses across America.

His new book, Atheism Remix, provides a Christian response “to the challenge of New Atheism.”

In the book, Dr. Mohler responds to atheism’s leading thinkers, including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, and pinpoints eight major distinctives that make the New Atheism “new.”

Ministries at Princeton, Cornell Celebrate Reunions More than 125 students, alumni, and family members came to the Christian Union’s Princeton Reunion Brunch at the Wilson House on May 31.The ministry also held four prayer sessions for Princeton University.

In addition, Christian Unionled worship sessions were held at Nassau Christian Center. Speakers included Dr. Archie Fletcher ’38, George Gallup Jr. ’53, Rev. Kenneth Jasko ’78, George Vergis ’83, and Roland Warren ’83. photo by Cathering Elby

Archie Fletcher, Princeton ’38, was among the alumni welcomed back to the Ivy League during the many reunion events in May.

Summer 2008

At Cornell University, fifteen ministries jointly hosted a breakfast reception on June 7 at the Chesterton House’s (www.chestertonhouse.org) Crossroads Life Center.

Report: Campus Environment Promotes ‘Hook-Up’ Mentality While students want love and romance, their behavior on campus proves otherwise. That’s what author Donna Freitas concluded in her Wall Street Journal article (April 4) that reports the results of her survey of 2,500 students.

Freitas concludes that students feel bad about hooking up, would like peers to act less casual about sex, and “dream of living with at least some restrictions on their sexual relationships.” The reason for the disconnect, she writes, “lies in community.”

Author Donna Freitas concludes that college students feel badly about “hooking up,” but do it anyway.

“Most campuses do not provide an environment where acting on romantic desires, rather than sexual ones, is feasible,” she writes. “It takes a village to set standards for dating.”

BROWN Colson to Speak at The Leadership Summit Prison Fellowship Founder Chuck Colson, Brown ’53, is among the speakers at The Leadership Summit on August 7-8. Some 100,000 church and business leaders are expected at conference sites in more than 200 locations, where talks from various experts will be beamed Chuck Colson, live via satellite. The broadcast Brown ’53, is a featured speaker at originates out of Willow Creek The Leadership Community Church in BarringSummit. ton, Illinois and is coordinated by the Willow Creek Association, a network of 12,000 churches. The president of the Willow Creek Association (WCA) is Jim Mellado, a 1991 graduate of the Harvard Business School. Bill George, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, is also on the roster of speakers.

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NEWS-IN-BRIEF Seeker-Friendly Website Designed for Brown Students Students at Brown now have an opportunity to explore Christianity through EveryBrownStudent.com. The web site, sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ International (www.ccci.org), offers students answers to questions like Is There a God? Why You A new website offers Can Believe the Bible, and Why Brown students Jesus’ Disciples Refused to opportunities to Keep Silent. Seekers can view pursue faith in Christ. video testimonies by Christian students, e-mail their own questions, and find out how to establish a relationship with Jesus Christ. There is also information about weekly meetings at the Judson House, Christian Union’s campus ministry center.

Brown CCC Director Joins Regional Team Geoff Freeman is leaving his position as campus director of Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) at Brown but will continue to impact students as a regional director for CCC in the Northeast.

“I am looking forward to playing a role in what God is doing in this influential part of the world on college campuses today,” Freeman said. “I have seen God accomplish much at Brown over the last five years and look forward to what He has in store for the next five.”

Brown Campus Crusade for Christ Director Geoff Freeman is moving on to a regional position with the ministry.

CHRISTIAN UNION Christian Union Holds Benefit Event in Big Apple Christian Union (www.christian-union.org) held its New York Christian Union Benefit Reception May 13 at the Harvard Club in Manhattan. The program included testimonies from Ivy League students and presentations by Page 44

Joseph Holland (Cornell ’78, *79 and Harvard Law ’82) and Christian Union Founder and President Matt Bennett (Cornell ’87 and *88).

Another highlight was New York City-area New York City Christian Christians came together Union President Lolita May 13 at the Harvard Club in Manhattan for the City Jackson (Penn ’89) leadChristian Union benefit ing Ivy League alumni reception. and friends in a moving rendition of “Crown Him with Many Crowns.”

Christian Union Members Pursue New Ventures in Film, Theology Two members of Christian Union’s team at Princeton University are pursuing new opportunities. Charles Kim, a ministry fellow since 2005, left in June to explore career options in Christian Union bids farewell to ministry fellow the film industry. Kim, Charles Kim, Yale ’96, who graduated from Yale and ministry intern University in 1996 with a Adrian Mullings, Princeton ’04. biology degree, is working with a film team to promote youth sports inside inner-city neighborhoods in New York. As well, Adrian Mullings, an intern since 2006, left in May to study during the summer at Wycliffe Hall, a theological college within Oxford University. Mullings graduated from Princeton in 2004 with a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Princeton Faith and Action Surveys Freshmen Princeton Faith and Action, a ministry of Christian Union, surveyed Princeton freshmen this spring to better understand their spiritual needs and desires. Princeton Faith and Action (www.pfanda.com) students distributed the surveys in three of the six residential dining halls.

Of the 443 freshmen surveyed, 118 indicated a desire to join a Bible study, have a conversation about Christianity, or receive a book about Christianity, according to Lorri

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NEWS-IN-BRIEF Bentch, ministry fellow. Additionally, 50 percent of those positive responses were from non-Christians, she stated. Princeton Faith and Action staff and students have followed up with respondents by distributing books and engaging in evangelistic conversation with the students who indicated interest.

litical?” during a symposium held at the campus this spring.

A Christian Unionsponsored survey revealed that nearly 25 percent of the participants would like to join a Bible study.

COLUMBIA Columbia Opens New Religion Institute Columbia University announced the opening of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life. According to the university, the institute was launched to “examine the changThe Institute for Religion, ing role religion plays Culture and Public Life in the contemporary recently opened at Columbia. world, and to promote religious understanding and cultural tolerance.”

While the institute actually opened its doors this spring, a formal opening will be held in the fall. It’s only with time that Christians will be able to measure how their faith is included in a program of “tolerance and diversity.”

Symposium Examines Political Nature of Religion As the U.S. presidential election heats up, students and community members at Columbia asked “Is Religion PoRandall Balmer (Princeton *85), professor of religion at Barnard College, was at the “Is Religion Political” symposium at Columbia.

Summer 2008

The event featured a panel discussion that included participants such as Randall Balmer, professor of religion at Barnard College; Jay Lefkowitz, special envoy on human rights in North Korea; and David Allen White, literature professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, among others. The symposium was part of the newly established Kraft Program Series, which is sponsored by the Kraft Family Fund for Interfaith and Intercultural Awareness.

Jesus Week Celebrated at Columbia From March 31 through April 5, Columbia University Christians came together to celebrate Jesus Week. Campus fellowships organized several Christian students at Columbia events, beginning came together for a week of with a night of worship, praise and edification praise. Subseduring the annual Jesus Week activities held this spring. quent events examined the love of Jesus and what it means for Christians to emulate that love to the world. The week included a sermon, student testimonies, discussion, and performances by the Columbia Gospel Choir and a Christian a cappella group. The week culminated with a benefit concert co-sponsored by the University’s scholars program for child soldiers in Uganda. Proceeds went to World Vision in Uganda.

CORNELL Cornell Students Participate in National Day of Prayer Cornell University participated in the 57th Annual National Day of Prayer on May 1 as Bethel Grove Bible Church held open prayer from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Each new hour began with worship, song, or scripture. Psalm 28:7—which states “The Lord is my strength and shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped”—inspired the Page 45

NEWS-IN-BRIEF

photo courtesy of Bethel Grove Church

Cornell participated in the National Day of Prayer with worship through song and scripture.

theme for this year’s event: “Prayer! America’s Strength and Shield.” According to the National Day of Prayer Task Force, roughly 40,000 volunteers nationwide conducted more than 35,000 prayer gatherings.

Chesterton House Plays Host to GCF Roundtable On April 26, the Chesterton House at Cornell sponsored a Graduate Christian Fellowship Roundtable entitled Science: A Misused Weapon in a Religious War. Dr. Randy Isaac, executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation, participated in the discussion.

The premise for the roundtable was that “the real war is not between science and Christianity but between different religious perspectives.” Evolutionism, creationism, and Intelligent Design were discussed as “key combatants” in the war between metaphysical naturalism and theism.

Dr. Randy Isaac, executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation, participated in the Cornell Graduate Christian Fellowship roundtable, Science: A Misused Weapon in a Religious War.

Mike Huckabee Addresses Cornell College Republicans

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee recently spoke to Cornellians about the role of faith in politics.

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abee brought his faith to the forefront of primary debates in his bid for the GOP nomination. After his talk at Cornell, the former Arkansas governor also held a questionand-answer session.

DARTMOUTH Dartmouth Seniors Sent Off with Annual Prayer Service On May 20, Agape Christian Fellowship at Dartmouth (www.dartmouth.

Agape Christian Fellowship edu/~tucker/rsl/groups/ celebrated its graduating members at its annual agape) honored graduates Senior Send-off on May 20. during its annual Senior Sendoff, which is held to show appreciation to the seniors for their service and contributions to the ministry. It is also an opportunity for ministry members to corporately thank God for the seniors’ contributions and to ask for God’s blessing upon them.

During the event, underclassmen of Agape laid hands on the seniors, prayed for their futures, and thanked God for all of their accomplishments at Dartmouth.

Christian Union helped fund the event through its grant program.

Dartmouth Students Unite to Repair Cemeteries in Eastern Europe Dartmouth students from different faiths and ethnicities once again traveled to Eastern Europe to repair cemeteries abandoned since the Holocaust.

The trip, known as Project Preservation, is organized

by Dartmouth Hillel.

Former presidential contender and noted evangelical Mike Huckabee visited Cornell University in April to deliver a talk entitled “In God We Trust: The Role of Faith in Politics.”

Huckabee spoke before a crowd of 1,200 on April 15 in Bailey Hall at the invitation of the Cornell College Republicans and other organizations. A former Southern Baptist pastor, Huck-

Dartmouth students united to repair abandoned Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe

“I am deeply moved that each year a diverse group of students of different faith traditions and ethnicities are committed to and willing to confront firsthand the legacy of one of the most tragic events in the history of western civi-

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NEWS-IN-BRIEF lization, the genocide of the Jewish people of Europe,” said Hillel’s Rabbi Edward Boraz.

that combined intellectual edification and soul-stirring inspiration,” Jackson wrote.

Dartmouth students have restored seven Jewish cemeteries.

Ichthus Receives Rave Reviews Harvard’s Christian journal, Ichthus, is getting noticed. The publication has received praise from author Chuck Colson, Brown ’53, and Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First Things.

Navigators, Christian Impact Host Reception for Alumni More than 30 alumni and students attended a reception sponsored by two campus ministries during Dartmouth College’s annual reunion on June 14.

Dartmouth’s Navigators

and Christian Impact coThe Navigators (www. hosted a reception in dartmouth.edu/~navs) honor of alumni. and Christian Impact (www.dartmouth.edu/~ccc/about.html) held the event for the classes of 1997 through 1999. This was the third year for the Navigators and Christian Impact to hold a joint reception, said Chris West, director for Campus Crusade’s Christian Impact.

“Alums who are interested in the Gospel’s progress have a shared interest in both of our groups,” West said.

HARVARD Divinity School hosts ‘Theorizing Race and Ethnicity’ Event

John L. Jackson, Jr., associate professor at Penn, participated in the Theorizing Race and Ethnicity in Theology speaker series at Harvard Divinity School and wrote about the experience in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Summer 2008

On May 15, Harvard Divinity School hosted “Theorizing Race and Ethnicity in the Study of Religion,” the final event of its speaker series. Panelists included John L. Jackson Jr., associate professor at Penn, who wrote about the event in The Chronicle Review, May 29, 2008.

“The Harvard panel proved to be one of those (sometimes rare) academic events

“The Harvard Ichthus is one of the most encouraging publicaIchthus, Harvard’s tions I have seen in a long time.

Christian journal, It is equipping young men and has received women to understand what an positive reviews from prominent orthodox Christian commitment Christian media means and why thinking Chrismembers. tianly and holding a biblical worldview is so crucial,” said Colson. Neuhaus commented, “This lively publication reflects the growing number of young Christians who are discovering the high adventure of the Christian intellectual tradition…”

Vatican responds to Bioethics Article

by Harvard Professor The Vatican newspaper recently took a stand to assert that preserving human dignity should be the sole standard in biomedical technology. L’Osservatore Romano published its decree in response to a piece in The New Republic by Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard University. In “The Stupidity of Dignity, An article by Harvard Conservative Bioethics’ Latpsychology professor Steven Pinker est, Most Dangerous Ploy,” prompted a response Pinker asserts that members from the Vatican. of the President’s Council on Bioethics use the concept of dignity to hinder progress and impose conservative Christian values.

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NEWS-IN-BRIEF PENN Newman Center Provides Mentors for Local Children

photo courtesy of Penn Newman Center

The Penn Newman Center expanded its efforts in supporting local Big Brothers and Big Sisters, leading Penn to be one of the largest volunteer sources for the program.

The Penn Newman Center at the University of Pennsylvania (www.newman. upenn.edu/ext) expanded its community outreach efforts in the spring semester.

The organization has been working with Big Brothers/Big Sisters to match Penn students with disadvantaged children from the local community.

According to Father Charles Zlock, Penn provides the largest number of volunteers to the program, with forty students from the Newman Center alone acting as mentors for kids in the Philadelphia area.

Fundraiser Gives New Hope to Esperanza Center The Penn Christian Community hosted its annual fundraising dance to help support the Esperanza Health Center.

The annual Esperanza Dance, sponsored by the Penn Christian community, was held May 2. The event helps raise funds for Esperanza, a Christian-based medical clinic in North Philadelphia that works in cooperation with local churches and other organizations. “Compelled by the love of God in Christ Jesus,” the clinic serves more than 5,000 patients annually and provides health care services to uninsured patients on a sliding fee scale based upon income.

Christianity limits individual self-expression. The purpose of the café is to change that perception and inspire new Christians to join in celebrating God through the many expressions of worship.

The New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir hosted its Praise Café for the second year in a row.

Christian Union has helped support the event for the past two years through its grant program.

PRINCETON Princeton ‘Justice Run’ Benefits Children of War Manna Christian Fellowship (www.princeton.edu/~ manna) raised more than $6,300 in the spring when it held a 5-kilometer run to benefit World Vision’s Children of War Center in Northern Uganda.

Some 177 runners participated in The Justice Run, which was held on April 19 Princeton Faith and Action and other at Princeton University.

Christian ministries The Children of War Cenpartnered with Manna ter helps to rehabilitate Christian Fellowship for a benefit 5K run this April. children hurt by extreme violence by offering medical and psychological attention, education, and training.

Co-sponsors of the race included Athletes in Action (www.princeton.edu/~aia), Princeton Faith and Action (www.pfanda.com), and Impact Christian Fellowship.

Princeton Theological Seminary’s Seminarians for Peace and Justice (www.ptsem.edu) also sponsored the event to raise money for World Vision’s Good News India.

Penn Praise Café Serves New Believers

Manna Event Raises Money for Uganda

The New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir (http://dolphin. upenn.edu/~nspirit) opened the doors to its Praise Café again this spring, providing the Penn community an opportunity to praise the Lord through dance, spoken word, and song.

Manna Christian Fellowship recently sponsored a poetry and musical performance to raise funds for World Vision’s Children of War Center in Northern Uganda.

Choir members said they often find that people think

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More than seventy people attended GospelSpeak, which was held on April 3 at Café Vivian at Princeton University. The

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NEWS-IN-BRIEF Manna Christian Fellowship used music and poetry to raise money for World Vision’s Children of War Center in Northern Uganda.

Christian-themed event featured five students from Princeton and one from Columbia University reading selections of their poetry. Rappers Lyricks and DJ Zo performed as well.

“Everyone was very receptive,” said Ben Kung ’06, a student who helped organize the performance. “It’s courageous to step on stage and read your poetry.”

Former Princeton Grid Star on Staff with FCA

Former NFL player Keith Elias, Princeton ’94, inspires student athletes off the field as a Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ staffer.

Former Princeton University and NFL running back Keith Elias ’94 is a staff member with New Jersey/New York City Fellowship of Christian Athletes (www.fcanj.org). Elias, the 1993 Ivy League Player of the Year, rushed for 4,208 yards in his college career, establishing 21 school records and four Division 1AA records. Elias went on to play with the New York Giants and the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL. During the school year, Elias works with FCA, which oversees Huddle Groups in high schools and on college campuses. The ministry also hosts summer sports camps throughout the United States.

YALE Rivendell Institute Hosts Planet Narnia Author The Rivendell Institute at Yale University sponsored a meet-the-author Author Michael Ward event featuring spoke to the Yale Michael Ward, community about his book, Planet Narnia: author of Planet The Seven Heavens Narnia: The Seven in the Imagination of Heavens in the C.S. Lewis, during a meet the author event Imagination of sponsored by the C.S. Lewis. In Rivendell Institute. the book, Ward Summer 2008

contends that Lewis “secretly based The Chronicles of Narnia on the seven heavens of the medieval cosmos.”

In a review of the book, author Eric Metaxas (Yale ’84) wrote, “Hold the phone: this is simply one of the greatest literary discoveries of our time, and it cannot fail to resound for decades and forever alter how Lewis is regarded in the literary world and beyond.”

Blair to Join Yale Faculty in Coming Academic Year Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be among the Yale faculty this academic year, according to the university.

Blair, who converted to Roman Catholicism in December 2007, is expected to teach about “Faith and Former British Globalization.” In a recent speech on Prime Minister the topic at Westminster Cathedral, Tony Blair will Blair said asking him if faith is imjoin the Yale portant to his politics is like “asking faculty this fall to teach about someone whether their health is imFaith and portant to them or their family. If Globalization. you are someone ‘of faith,’ it is the focal point of belief in your life. There is no conceivable way that it wouldn’t affect your politics.”

Moss Succeeds Pastor Wright at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ Yale Divinity School graduate Otis Moss III *95 has succeeded Jeremiah Wright as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The church received an outpouring of media coverage due to the controversial statements made by Wright, who was a spiritual mentor to presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (Columbia ’83, Harvard *91).

Otis Moss III *95 has been named pastor of Trinity United Congregational Church in Chicago, replacing controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright.

According to United Church News, Moss was listed among “Twenty to Watch” Ministers under 40 by The AfricanAmerican Pulpit magazine and was named one of the most influential African-American religious leaders by beliefnet.com.

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CHRISTIAN UNION

THE MISSION AND VISION OF THE CHRISTIAN UNION Christian Union Founder Matthew W. Bennett Shares the Vision and Purpose of the Ministry Following is the mission and vision of the Christian Union, which is printed in each issue of the Ivy League Christian Observer to keep new readers informed of the ministry's purpose and passion.

most 50 percent of Americans are in church, however, adding up the involvement of all students every week in all the para-church, and local churches combined it would amount to less than 10 percent of the student body.

The mission of the Christian Union, by God’s power and with the help of other ministries, is to change the world by bringing sweeping spiritual transformation to the Ivy League universities, thereby developing and mobilizing godly leadership for all sectors of society.

It’s an ambitious vision, but it’s what God has called us to give our lives to. We have a deep passion to see Jesus Christ honored and exalted at the eight Ivy League universities (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale). As you may know, these universities were established many years ago to bring praise and honor to Jesus Christ, but have drifted far from their moorings. For example, Yale was founded in 1701 by the colonists of Connecticut, and in 1726, Yale College laws, reflecting the students’ and university’s devotion to Jesus Christ, ordained that: “Every student shall consider the main end of his study to know God in Jesus Christ and answerably to lead a godly, sober life.”

You may ask, what can be done to bring these universities spiritually in-step with the rest of the country? The most important means to improve the spiritual dimension is to supply enough long-term, capable, godly campus Christian workers.

The spiritual vibrancy of the campuses is most directly related to this reality. Yes, we also need effective strategies, and, of course, we need the Holy Spirit’s presence and power; however, the Spirit works through people, and without campus Christian workers leading the charge, there is little spiritual life. Take Cornell, for example. It has 20,000 students, served by 3,000 faculty and 7,000 staff. That makes a total of 30,000 university people who need to be presented with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and taught the Scriptures. If you were to count all the full-time Christian workers on campus, it would amount to less than five people.

Even with the Herculean efforts of volunteers and the local churches, Christian Union Founder and President, there is no way for the university Matthew W. Bennett, Cornell ’88, *89 to be significantly impacted.

The contrast with today could hardly be more startling. The former assistant dean of Religious Life at Princeton stated of all the faculty on campus that he ministered to, evangelical Protestants were the most fearful of disclosing their religious beliefs to others out of fear of discrimination and ridicule. At Dartmouth, the administration tried to ban the distribution of the book Mere Christianity a few years ago until media attention forced them to back down. In spite of all the rhetoric on campus about the “free exchange of ideas,” there is in many quarters, an intense hostility to Jesus Christ. Reflect on the fact that on every Sunday, alPage 50

Moreover, the few campus Christian workers present are usually not there long enough to become excellent in what they do, nor are they able to establish an institutional memory for the ministry as they transition out. Every few years, most ministries start from scratch all over again through the work of ambitious recent college graduates. After a few years, these dedicated workers usually move and the cycle starts again. The workers move because they see the position as a stepping stone toward other ministry positions, such as the pastorate. What we need are people who see university ministry as a calling in and of itself and not as a stepThe Ivy League Christian Observer

CHRISTIAN UNION ping stone to other ministries. An even bigger reason that people move on is that they get married and have children, and are no longer able to raise the needed support. Living close to campus in these university towns is expensive, and it is difficult to raise the money that’s needed.

To provide enough godly, capable, long-term Christian workers and to meet other challenges, the Christian Union was formed in 2002 to trust God for dramatic change on these campuses. A unique aspect of the ministry is our commitment to both help other Christian ministries on campus through fund raising and other means as well as implementing our own direct ministry programs. Our passion is to see these campuses changed, whether or not it happens through one of our particular programs. We only direct our ministry programs to the Ivy League schools because they are among the most hostile to the Gospel, but also among the most infleuntial in our nation.

Many of our country’s future leaders will graduate from these schools, and as the leaders go, so goes the country.

Thousands of future leaders in business, media, law, government, journalism, medicine, ministry, academia, and the arts are currently enrolled at the Ivy League schools. And when they graduate, they will make an indelible mark on society. Ivy League alumni include the founder of Federal Express, the founder of Amazon.com, the CEO of eBay, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart, Warren Buffet,

eight of the nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the head of the SEC, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the National Intelligence Director, Donald Rumsfeld, the head of the World Bank, Madeline Albright, Janet Reno, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and countless others. The names of those who serve in government are more recognizable than other names, but there is similar Ivy League representation in media, academia, journalism, medicine, and other fields.

For the sake of the individual students, staff, and faculty on the campuses who need forgiveness and peace through Jesus Christ and for the sake of the future of our country because of the leadership these people will give, we must do whatever it takes to see these campuses transformed. I want to urge you to pray fervently for these campuses, to give generously to supply more campus Christian workers, and to use your influence in whatever capacity you have to make an impact. By God’s grace and by all of us working together, we can see significant spiritual transformation.

Yours sincerely in Christ, Matt Bennett Founder and President of the Christian Union

Advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the Ivy League

Summer 2008

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P R AY E R R E Q U E S T S B R O WN

HARVARD

• Pray that graduating students will have the strength to

• Please pray for the new team of Christian Union ministry

overcome temptations that could take them away from serving God, and for them to carefully consider whom they are trying to please.

fellows as they join existing ministries in the work of advancing the Gospel on the Harvard campus. Pray that students’ hearts will be receptive to the message of Christ.

• Campus Crusade for Christ/Athletes In Action had a year

filled with blessings through weekly Life Groups, gatherings, and morning prayer. Pray that God would continue to use the students to boldly live like Christ and to provide opportunities to serve others in the Brown community.

• Pray for Pat and Tammy McLeod, leaders of Campus

Crusade for Christ at Harvard, as they and a group of students travel to South Africa over the summer to minister and serve. Pray that God would protect them from physical and spiritual harm and that they would experience unity as a team.

C O L U MB IA

PENN

• Pray for the InterVarsity Graduate Ministry members as

• Keep in prayer those students who will remain on cam-

they meet each Friday evening over the summer for a time of prayer, fellowship, and encouragement.

pus over the summer and the ministry groups that have been formed for the purpose of fellowship and learning.

• Pray for unity within the Christian ministries at Colum-

• Pray that many Christian students would have a passion

bia. Also pray that team members would have relationships with non-Christians that will change hearts and minds for Jesus Christ.

to walk with God and boldly share their faith in Him this coming year. Pray that God would sharpen their hearts and their spiritual senses to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

CORNELL

PRI NCETON

• Be in prayer for the leaders of Cornell Navigators and

• Impact Christian Fellowship had a year of growth. Pray

the new staff who have recently joined them. Pray that they make Christ-glorifying decisions as they work together and begin planning for the fall semester.

that this will continue and the ministry’s zeal and witness will spread through the African-American community on campus.

• Hold up to God those students who have just graduated.

• During the summer, many students are traveling to unfa-

Pray that, as they go out into the world, they would keep strong in their faith and resist temptations.

miliar cultures throughout the world to work and minister. Pray for God’s protection, for strength, and for boldness.

DA RT MO U T H • Keep the leaders of the Navigators in prayer as they go

through a time of transition and take on new roles within the ministry.

YALE • Pray that Christian faculty and staff members will take

every opportunity to boldly share their faith with colleagues and students who cross their paths.

• As the Summer Christian Fellowship meets for times of

• Reformed University Fellowship continues to minister to

prayer and fellowship, pray that each person who attends will be encouraged, strengthened, and grow in their knowledge and love of God.

students at Yale. Pray that the leadership will spend quality time with the Lord this summer, be spiritually refreshed, and prepare well for the year ahead.

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The Ivy League Christian Observer

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