news regarding some recent controversies
A couple things:
1) Wheaton College is experiencing a bit of a scandal. Andrew Chignell, an alumnus of Wheaton and currently associate professor of philosophy at Cornell, wrote an article in which he criticized Wheaton’s outgoing president Duane Lifton. The article was destined for print in a kind of Christian version of the New York Review of Books, called Books and Culture but was blocked by the president of Christianity Today International. (It has since been published online here.) According to one article, this is the first time an article has ever been blocked from publication in Books and Culture. The content of the article was a criticism of Lifton’s administration, casting both he and the provost as watchdogs of orthodoxy who eliminated job candidates and dismissed faculty who were thought to have deviated from the Wheaton statement of faith. Chignell’s contention is (roughly) that these moves were unhelpful and reveal a lack of theological nuance, something one would presumably expect from the “Harvard of Christian Schools”. He expresses concern that this somewhat fundamentalist pattern of thinking and behavior will continue in future presidencies, a notable criticism in light of the fact that the search for the next institutional president has begun.
2) There is a lot of scuttlebutt about the firing of faculty at King’s College London. Apparently budgetary constraints have forced the administration to eliminate positions, even when those moves go against previous verbal commitments to the faculty members. Moreover, this has become a flashpoint of the debate regarding governmental funding criterion and the dubious ‘impact’ requirement. For reflection on the issue of impact see here. For ongoing updates and attempts at responding see the Leiter Reports blog.
3) Finally, the BBC offers an interesting perspective on the US debate over health care here.
