new church life: november/december 2017
The University of San Diego is a Catholic institution, but the dean of its
law school publicly repudiated his professor and promised to compensate
“vulnerable, marginalized” students for any “racial discrimination and cultural
subordination” they experienced.
Several Penn professors snorted disdain for their colleague for embracing
the “bourgeois virtues” of the ‘50s. Certainly there still were issues of inequality
and injustice then but upholding marriage, hard work, personal responsibility
and self-discipline should hardly be feared as threatening law students’
vulnerable psyches.
But the new “progressive” orthodoxy protects feelings above all, and
condemns such views as insensitive to students who feel “vulnerable,
marginalized or fearful that they are not welcomed.” The clear message is: don’t
dare to challenge the smothering group-think of academia, no matter how
valid your research or concerns.
Fortunately, not all colleges and universities bow to these new “divisive
and noxious” sacred cows or “higher learning.”
Bryn Athyn College is more and more a beacon. It’s mission – among the
first things an inquiring student finds on its website – says forthrightly:
“Bryn Athyn College of the New Church serves as an intellectual center for
all who desire to engage in higher education enriched, guided and structured by
the study of the Old Testament, New Testament and the theological writings of
Emanuel Swedenborg. This education challenges students to develop spiritual
purpose, to think broadly and critically from a variety of perspectives, and
to build i