A Sea Of Red

Here is a rather interesting article from Inside Higher Ed magazine:

What Would Jesus Do (in College)?

In 2006, Eastern Mennonite University cracked a list of top colleges for “conservatives, old-fashioned liberals, and people of faith.” It was a dubious distinction. The Virginia university, coming out of a pacifist tradition, names “peace and sustainability” as core values.

“Many of the colleges, not all, but many of the colleges in that publication would have a rather different stance than we might have on a number of current issues,” Loren Swartzendruber, president of Eastern Mennonite, says of the listing. “It did spark for us this continuing conversation about how we position ourselves and what those terms mean in the public domain.”

“The growth of the right-wing Christian population in this country, or should I say, at least the visibility of the right-wing – which gets attached to ‘Christian’ in the minds of people – creates a disconnect for us. Because we are clearly Christian. We have no intention of giving up that identity. But we are, I think, a different kind of Christian.”

And here is a tie into LU from the Eastern Mennonite crowd ...

“It’s a truth in advertising kind of thing,” he says. “If [students] assume they’re going to find at EMU what they would also find at Liberty University [the nearby institution founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell] they’re not going to be very happy here. They’re going to run into it headlong. They’re going to hear about the peace tradition. They’re going to hear a lot of language about what it means to be a follower of Jesus in this world. From our perspective, that means less nationalism, and a much more global perspective, care for creation. What they would find here is a concern for personal piety … but we’re not willing to stop there because we also believe that the New Testament is pretty clear that there is a social dimension to what Jesus called us to be and to do.”

This is actually a very interesting read. I find it ironic that the things we stand for that make us such a target are the very things that make us stand out and avoid the issues of the schools featured in the article.

Click Here for Full Story

Eastern Mennonite is, after all, socially conservative in some ways. Alcohol is banned on campus. Students sign on “to refrain from sexual relationships outside of marriage.”

I didn't know that about EMU.

Cider Jim wrote:

Eastern Mennonite is, after all, socially conservative in some ways. Alcohol is banned on campus. Students sign on “to refrain from sexual relationships outside of marriage.”

I didn't know that about EMU.

They ARE Passivist. They seemed mortified that a parent would actually yell at umpires at a college baseball game.

"a" parent or JT? Is Fumble making a confession?

Back to the original premise of the thread. The continued growth and high profile of Liberty has been tremendous for not only LU but also other conservative schools who point to us as a point of clarification in the marketplace.

But schools with Christian foundations that they continue to adhere but who choose more moderate and frankly liberal positions on non-essential issues are pulling their hair out. They certainly don't want to identify with LU but at the same time they are competing against state schools for students. Its quite the quandry for college marketers.

To the extreme right of us, schools continue to market themselves in comparison to "Liberal University".

It will be interesting to see the continued impact of our growth.

Huh. Back in the day, EMU was THE biggest party school in the state, even ahead of Radford.

Alcohol being banned on the EMU campus along with sexual relationship outside of marriage? That is simply laughable and gives a very false picture of the typical EMU student. Sure, there are quite a few that are very religious (often an athlete has to miss a game due to his religious beliefs), but that is far from the typical student there from what I have seen and what I have been told from several students there. It is well known in the inner circle of the ODAC that a lot of the students (especially the athletes) there are drinking and doing drugs on campus virtually every weekend while also going to JMU and Bridgewater to do even more drugs, drinking, and partying. Lord knows what in the world they are doing with the opposite gender, I'm sure there would be tons of tales to speak of that wouldn't even be appropriate on even pornography websites. It's still a very religious school due to the administration there, but you'll find as many people drinking and doing other "immoral" activity as much as students at most other colleges. I know one coach there that has to continually "clean house" due to the "depraved" activities some of his athletes commit.

RagingTireFire wrote:Huh. Back in the day, EMU was THE biggest party school in the state, even ahead of Radford.

Beating Radford at partying is quite an accomplishment, at least according to the true old hags on this board.

Maybe the EMU crowd is a little more "safe" with their partying.

They do take their passivism very seriously. They have no flags on campus and there is no national anthem played before games. It does make the pre game ceremonies a lot shorter!!

Purple Haize wrote:They do take their passivism very seriously. They have no flags on campus and there is no national anthem played before games. It does make the pre game ceremonies a lot shorter!!

and all pre-game music can't have words in it now either.

Purple Haize wrote:They do take their passivism very seriously. They have no flags on campus and there is no national anthem played before games. It does make the pre game ceremonies a lot shorter!!

Why do they even bother playing games? With that philosophy at their core, shouldn't they simply declare everyone to be the winners and just go home?

You realize the partying stuff you guys are saying is the same exact thing people say about us, right?

SuperJon wrote:You realize the partying stuff you guys are saying is the same exact thing people say about us, right?

I thought the same exact thing...of course our students compared to other colleges are pretty tame...but don't try telling a lynchburg resident that who already has their mind made up....

thepostman wrote:

SuperJon wrote:You realize the partying stuff you guys are saying is the same exact thing people say about us, right?

I thought the same exact thing...of course our students compared to other colleges are pretty tame...but don't try telling a lynchburg resident that who already has their mind made up....

apparently haven't seen the shadier LU folks at parties at LC then...although overall, yes more tame than the typical college, but boy there are some major FREAKS that come over to LC sometimes for parties.

flamesbball84 wrote: that come over to LC sometimes for parties.

You're not even trying to hide your shukness anymore, man. It's disappointing.

RagingTireFire wrote:

flamesbball84 wrote: that come over to LC sometimes for parties.

You're not even trying to hide your shukness anymore, man. It's disappointing.

It was an experiment. I wanted to see how long I could go without anyone calling me out on it. I was more than shocked that it lasted as long as it did, nearly 1000 posts before being IDed, I had predicted more like something in the 100-200 range.

flamesbball84 wrote:

RagingTireFire wrote:

flamesbball84 wrote: that come over to LC sometimes for parties.

You're not even trying to hide your shukness anymore, man. It's disappointing.

It was an experiment. I wanted to see how long I could go without anyone calling me out on it. I was more than shocked that it lasted as long as it did, nearly 1000 posts before being IDed, I had predicted more like something in the 100-200
range.

You were known long before anyone called you out.

SuperJon wrote:

flamesbball84 wrote:

RagingTireFire wrote: You're not even trying to hide your shukness anymore, man. It's disappointing.

It was an experiment. I wanted to see how long I could go without anyone calling me out on it. I was more than shocked that it lasted as long as it did, nearly 1000 posts before being IDed, I had predicted more like something in the 100-200
range.

You were known long before anyone called you out.

In fact, I knew who you were in this thread.

ToTheLeft wrote:

SuperJon wrote:

flamesbball84 wrote: It was an experiment. I wanted to see how long I could go without anyone calling me out on it. I was more than shocked that it lasted as long as it did, nearly 1000 posts before being IDed, I had predicted more like something in the 100-200
range.

You were known long before anyone called you out.

No one called it out, so it didn't count for the experiment. If you know an answer in class, but don't give the answer, you don't get credit for the answer...

flamesbball84 wrote:

thepostman wrote:

SuperJon wrote:You realize the partying stuff you guys are saying is the same exact thing people say about us, right?

I thought the same exact thing...of course our students compared to other colleges are pretty tame...but don't try telling a lynchburg resident that who already has their mind made up....

apparently haven't seen the shadier LU folks at parties at LC then...although overall, yes more tame than the typical college, but boy there are some major FREAKS that come over to LC sometimes for parties.

of course there are some freaks at LU...there are almost 11,000 students there...nobody in their right mind would try to argue with you on that one....stop trying to pretend that we all think LU students are all angels....because that couldn't be further from the truth...

there are almost 11,000 students there

11,300 this fall 2008 semester.