Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2006 Spring Issue -- Trends: News You Can Use

100 years ago, 85% of the world’s Christians lived in Europe and the United States. Now, 60% of Christians live in the southern hemisphere. There are 200 million believers in Africa, 550 million in Latin America and 360 million in Asia. (Baptist World Association News, 12/5/05)
DePaul University has lifted a vague ban on “propaganda” on January 6 that it used last fall to silence student protests of Ward Churchill, the controversial University of Colorado professor who made news earlier for describing victims of 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center as “little Eichmans.” The College Republicans club members were posting information on campus about Churchill’s controversial views. DePaul officials, prior to his scheduled speeches on October 20-21, 2005, prevented CR from putting up posters, etc. on campus and called such activities as “propaganda” regarding Churchill. Under pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) the so-called “propaganda” ban was lifted. (www.thefire.org, 1/12/06, 12/21/06)
Adult porn has become “big business” generating $57 billion worldwide and $12 billion in the United States annually. (familysafemedia.com and Riverside Press Enterprise, 7/10/05)
William Patterson University student employee, Jihad Daniel, was punished for expressing opposition to homosexuality when he complained about an unsolicited e-mail announcing a film with Lesbian themes. New Jersey Attorney General, Peter Harvey, dismissed Daniel’s complaint asserting that “speech which violates a non-discrimination policy is not protected by First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech.” (“Washington Update News letter,” 7/25/05)
“Liberals who want you to be liberal are moral, but Christians who want you to be Christian are bigots,” was stated by Dennis Prager in a Los Angeles Times editorial (Prager has an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine University and in 2004 was awarded the American Jewish Press Association’s Excellence in Commentary Prize). Prager complains that “Americans constantly hear and read about dangers emanating from the religious right. But what about the dangers from the religious left?” Prager’s Google search of “religious right” yielded 3,890,000 items and his search of the religious left only found 276,00! He also found lopsided results in the New York Times articles since 1981 mentioned the “religious right” 1,689 times and only 29 mentions to the “religious left.” (Los Angeles Times, 12/11/05)
University of Pittsburgh researchers have found that “one type of cell in the human placenta has characteristics that are strikingly similar to embryonic stem cells in their ability to regenerate a wide variety of tissues.” Many potential uses exist to treat liver failure, cure diabetes or new neurons for Parkinson’s disease. “Unlike embryonic stem cells, which are obtained by destroying human embryos, these cells can be extracted from the same placentas that now are routinely discarded after birth. (www.post-gazette.com, 8/8/05)
“Kids swear almost incessantly. They are so used to swearing in the movies, and on TV, and in the music they listen to that they have become desensitized to it,” according to Rockford, Ill. high school teacher, Dan Horwich in the Washington Post. (ptcealerts@parents.org)
Stanford University’s Hoover Institution research fellow and former Pepperdine president, David Davenport, in his editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, observed a “lack of intellectual diversity in higher education in our nation especially when it comes to political ideas.” Davenport cites a recent survey of students at 50 top American universities “showed that nearly half the students feel faculty use the classroom to present their personal view and that political discussions seem totally one-sided (including in a course on Chaucer or biology).” (San Francisco Chronicle, 12/26/05)
“By the time the average person reaches age 70, he or she will have spent the equivalent of 7 to 10 years of their lives watching television, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee--from their February 2001 study. (ptcealerts@parents.org)
The Anglican bishops in Africa are putting principles above the pocketbook because they refused millions of dollars from the American Episcopal Church donors who have endorsed active homosexual clergy following the 2003 election of openly homosexual New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Rwandan Bishop John Rucyahana of the Diocese of Shyira put it, “if money is being used to disgrace the Gospel, then we don’t need it,” according to the Family Research Council. “Africa is the fastest-growing portion of the Aglican Communion, which includes the U.S. Episcopal Church.”(frcpub@frc.org, 6/13/05)
18.9% of female teens in high school say they “felt so hopeless that they made a suicide plan in the last year.” The same 2003 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 14.1% of male teens feeling the same way. (USA Today, 2/23/05)
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control “found that compared to those who never married, had divorced, were widowed or are cohabiting; married people are the least likely to experience feelings of hopelessness, sadness, worthlessness or that everything is an effort.” (www.frc.org, 9/12/05)
Surveys show that Democratic college professors outnumber Republicans in the U.S. “by at least 7 to 1, more than twice the ratio of three decades earlier. Last year professors at Harvard and the University of California system gave $19 to Democrats for every $1 they gave to Republicans.” (Orange County Register, 10/20/05)
A post-Katrina survey of the New Orleans area found that religious groups were the most effective for their outpouring of assistance to those affected. “On a scale of 1-10 the Louisianans surveyed ranked religious groups the most effective with a 8.1 rating. The Louisiana State University Public Policy Research Laboratory conducted the study. (frcpub@frc.org, 12/2/05)
Out-of-state California college students and parents are suing the University of California system along with the California State Universities as well as the state’s community colleges because illegal alien students are not forced to the pay higher fees and tuition. For example at UC campuses undergraduates out-of-state students pay an average of $24,589 to attend this school year, versus the $6,769 for in-state students including illegal immigrants. (Los Angeles Times, 12/15/05)

Rick Rowland, D.Min., is the Assistant Swimming Coach at California Baptist University in Riverside and the External College Age & Young Adult Ministry Leader for the Murrieta Church of Christ in Murrieta, CA serving students at Mt. San Jacinto College.

Note: Rowland just retired from Pepperdine University in 2005 and was a professor in campus ministry and speech communication as well as head swimming and water polo coach.