A political science professor at Butler University asks students to disregard their “American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status” when writing and speaking in the classroom – a practice the school’s arts and sciences dean defended as a way to negate students’ inherent prejudices.

The syllabus of the course at Butler, a small Midwestern liberal arts institution in Indianapolis, spells out that students should use “inclusive language” because it’s “a fundamental issue of social justice.”

“Language that is truly inclusive affirms sexuality, racial and ethnic backgrounds, stages of maturity, and degrees of limiting conditions,” the syllabus states, referencing a definition created by the United Church of Christ.

The syllabus of the class, called Political Science 201: Research and Analysis, goes on to ask students “to write and speak in a way that does not assume American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status, etc. to be the norm.” It is taught by a black, female professor.

In an interview with The College Fix, Jay Howard, dean of Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, denied this practice essentially presumes every student who walks through the door is a racist or misogynist.

He said students must be told not to assume such prejudices because such assumptions are ingrained into the culture and remain there until questioned. With that, a liberal arts education questions these assumptions, and such questions can make for uncomfortable situations, he said.

“Sometimes in order to broaden the conversation and broaden the understandings you’ve got to risk making people uncomfortable,” Howard said. “There’s nothing about a college education that guarantees you won’t be made uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, if you’re never made uncomfortable in your college education, you’re not really getting a college education.”

Howard said the college he oversees does not want students to continue to harbor such assumptions without question, “but neither do we want to exclude the dominant group in society in our attempts to make sure that we’re leveling hierarchies.”

In twenty years, white people will no longer be the majority, but they will still be the largest ethnic group, Howard said. He said using inclusive language would help students prepare for a changing world as America becomes more diverse.

He added that American culture makes speaking inclusively difficult, and the English language is partly to blame.

“Our language doesn’t make it easy to write in ways that are inclusive,” Howard said. “We don’t have a generic singular, I mean we have he and she. There is no pronoun that is gender-neutral there.”

However, not all writing- and language-intensive classes at Butler University mandate students use such “inclusive” language.

Nancy Whitmore, director of the journalism school in the College of Communication, said in an interview with The College Fix that students in her department are encouraged to use diverse sources with a wide variety of opinions, but are not mandated to use so-called inclusive language.

Whitmore said she is unsure what educators in Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences mean when they ask students to write without assuming certain things to be the norm.

“I don’t think I could ever write from a black woman’s point of view because I’ve never been a black woman,” Whitmore said.

Indeed.

My name is Ryan Lovelace, and I dropped that politically correct political science class.

Clearly, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University believes its students were raised as racist and misogynist homophobes who have grown to harbor many prejudices, a stance that is both offensive and hostile to any student’s ability to learn.

As a student at an institution predominantly focused on the liberal arts, I expected to hear professors express opinions different from my own. I did not expect to be judged before I ever walked through the door, and did not think I would be forced to agree with my teachers’ worldviews or suffer the consequences.

Being judged and forced to act a certain way is antithetical to how any institution of higher education should conduct itself.

As a journalism major, I will now strive to avoid the liberal arts college as much as possible, not because the college fails to provide its students with any practical knowledge, but because the college seeks to indoctrinate its students with a hostile paradigm that views people like me—an American, white, heterosexual male from a middle-class background—as evil; whitey-righty need not attend.

Many consider higher education to be in turbulent waters because of rising tuition costs and student loan debt, but students who actually graduate may struggle even more if they view the world as Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences does.

The liberal arts college seeks to include people, but someone will always be excluded, as it is impossible to always include everyone. Furthermore, I’m not sure how to write assuming any other persona but my own. Any attempts to do so would only be offensive to people different from myself.

Lastly, the idea that people have different views from mine is not what makes me uncomfortable. The idea that I must walk, talk and act as the liberal arts college pleases does. I’ll speak as I always have and conduct myself in the way I deem fit. I think paying $40,000 a year should give me that basic right.

This post was written by Butler University student Ryan Lovelace.  You can find this post at:  http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/12062

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

For those who have been entrenched in pornography, how do we reverse these mind-warping effects? How do we renew our minds (Rom. 12:1-2)? 

During anti-porn week, we identified from secular research what viewing porn does to a person.  

This week presents practical advice of how to stay away from the influence of porn.

The Bible does not describe us merely as wayward, broken, and needing a “moral boost” but as those who are dead in sin (Eph. 2:1). Dead men and women do not need reform: they need resurrection. 

For the follower of Christ, the ultimate goal is not merely “quitting pornography,” but is something far richer and more comprehensive. If merely modifying behavior was the most important thing, there are any number of psychological tips and tricks one can use. But for the Christian, as it should be for all people, the goal is not merely recovering from pornography, but being remade by God Himself into the image of the perfect Man, Jesus Christ. 

This is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Just as sure as pornography stirs up lustful cravings in us, the Holy Spirit is a source of new, holy cravings. Romans 8 tells us all true Christians have the Spirit of Christ within them (v.9). Galatians 5 says we are given the “desires of the Spirit” (v.17), and when we keep in step with these desires (v.16) the lusts of the flesh (leading to sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality) will not have their way in us. 

This is what the old Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection.” Laws, rules, and regulations can only tell us what is bad and why it is bad, but they do not change our desire for sinful things. These sinful longings can only be conquered by implanting new “affections,” new cravings, that counter our sinful cravings. This is what the Spirit does in us: He shares His own desires with us, changing us from the inside out. 

Paul tells us we must “keep in step” with the desires of the Spirit with us (Galatians 5:16). 

How do we do this?   Come back tomorrow for hope.

This post is taken from the booklet, YOUR BRAIN ON PORN by Luke Gilkerson.  The booklet can be found at:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/brain-ebook/


BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

As I was tucking my 10 year old princess into bed the other night, a question just kind of fell out amongst the pink blankets and snuggly kisses.

“Anna, what makes God happy with you?”

This was way easier than that science test we had just studied for. After all, she’s a pastor’s kid. A fourth generation follower of Christ. I expected her to nail it.
“When I try hard.”

What? Maybe she’s too tired. Brain shutting down. My 13 year old will get this. So I wandered through the dimly lit hallway into the next room over and posed the same question to my favorite oldest daughter.

“Emma, what makes God happy with you?”

I sat back waiting to be blown away by her youthful wisdom and insight.

“When I get it right.”

Man oh man! Where are they getting this stuff? Maybe there’s a problem with the teacher and not the student? Is this the Gospel I’ve unfolded for them?

I’ve got three kids for a reason, and .300 is a pretty good batting average. So I moved with hope to my son’s room where I found him buried beneath a pile of stuffed animals. Make daddy proud, little man!

“Austin, what makes God happy with you?”

Come on son, you got this! No whammies!

 ”When I do everything I’m told.”

I was shocked. Saddened. Where would my kids have embraced this concept of reward-and-consequence affection? That morality and trying harder were the keys to God’s pleasure? That striving was the way to win God’s heart?

I’m pretty sure they got it from me.

Because that’s what I model. The lie that quietly seeps into my spirit. The default I revert to.

The message of the Gospel is so counter-intuitive to us. That God would give. That grace is free.That sin is paid for. Where’s the transaction? The effort? The pay scale?

What makes God happy is when we give up these self-righteous attempts to find the answers inside ourselves (try harder, get it right, do everything I’m told) and simply turn towards Him. That’s called repentance – a turning away from self and a turning toward God. It’s the realization you could never try hard enough, get it right enough, or obey enough to please the Holy Creator of the Universe. You can’t, so God did.

He smiles when you stop banking on your futile efforts and start embracing His accomplishments.

Jesus.

That’s what makes God happy. Remind yourself. You forget.

“If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it–you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked–well, that trusting-in-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.”

-Romans 4:4-5 MSG

This post is from Erik Cooper.  You can find the original post with comments here:  http://beyondtherisk.com/2012/08/30/what-makes-god-happy-with-you/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

If any politician wants my vote, he or she only needs to offer a realistic and economical solution for getting my three kids out of bed and ready for school in the morning. Why is no one talking about this obvious bi-partisan issue? We parents are fighting our own War on Terror here!

At age 7, of course my son should be responsible enough to put on his own clothes. Yet each morning I find myself opting for sanity. We’ve found the hybrid assembly line/indentured servant approach to work the most efficiently (at least as far as Austin is concerned).

In the midst of this sad excuse for a new NBC sitcom, I found myself daydreaming the other day.

(Insert dreamy soundscape and blurred wavy visuals here).

“All this would fix itself if I could just download my desires into the mind of my little Leave it To Beaver. I wouldn’t have to spend so much time barking orders. He would just innately know what to do! Surely this is technologically possible nowadays? An app? A procedure? An implant?

Something?!”

But not all children are seven years old.

I woke this morning to the news that the Dallas Cowboys have slapped troubled wide receiver, Dez Bryant, with a list of lifestyle rules he must follow to continue playing for the team:

• A midnight curfew.

• No alcohol.

• No strip clubs and only nightclubs pre-approved by the Cowboys organization.

• Twice-a-week counseling sessions.

• A minimum of one security person with him at all times.

• Security will drive the wide receiver to all practices, games, and even personal functions.

These rules are there to protect. To guide. To make wise decisions for a young man who is obviously struggling to make wise decisions for himself. (And, let’s be honest, to protect a very valuable asset to the Cowboys organization). 

But let’s face it, while rules help to control behavior from the outside, they also have a downside:

They stir up our impulse to rebel.

They never fix what is at the root of our bad behavior in the first place.

That’s why the Gospel of Jesus Christ is so potent and powerful. The Gospel doesn’t mean “your sin doesn’t matter, do what you want.” The Gospel means “You can’t fix it, so God did it for you.”

“God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanityin order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God!”

Romans 8:3-6 MSG

Looks like God already pioneered my desire-download idea. He offers to fix our heart, not just manipulate our behavior. To give us His life, not just demand suffocating morality from our old one.

This is the Good News! The Gospel. It’s more than a campaign slogan, it’s hope. It’s life.Have you embraced it?


This post was written by Erik Cooper.  You can find the original post with comments here:  http://beyondtherisk.com/2012/08/28/why-the-rules-wont-fix-you/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.