Sunday, April 24, 2005

"The Standard Equivocation." Davidson College these days is careful not to describe itself as "Christian" or "Presbyterian". Rather, it prefers to describe itself as a place of learning within "the Christian tradition" or "the Reformed tradition".

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, in the May 2005 issue of First Things, writes of two colleges in New York, St. John Fisher College and Nazareth College, founded by Roman Catholics, but which the Diocese of Rochester no longer recognizes as Catholic. They were "decertified by the Church" at some point. Lately the two schools sponsored a performance of The Vagina Monologues, something Davidson College foisted on its students last year. Proceeds from the performance at St. John Fisher went to Planned Parenthood, Neuhaus writes. Apparently, the colleges are among those that misrepresent their religious affiliation. Quoting Neuhaus:

"The standard equivocation employed by dubiously Catholic or definitely not Catholic schools is 'in the Catholic Tradition' or 'in the Jesuit tradition'."

Leave it to Neuhaus to come up with just the right phrase that we can borrow to describe Davidson's religous sense of itself: the standard equivocation.

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