"God and Man at Davidson"

First Things roving, critical eye alights on DC. In the January 2006 issue, Terry Eastland, publisher of the Weekly Standard and a Davidson parent, describes the sad erosion of Davidson's Presbyterian connection to the point last February where the Board of Trustees revised the mission statement and amended the by-laws to permit non-Christian trustees. (We've addressed the board's action before on this blog.)

Next month, the article should be posted on the FT website, but if anyone wants a copy now, let me know.

In summary, Eastland writes:

It is elementary that colleges exist to educate students, and Davidson students committed to "the historical understanding of Christian faith called the Reformed Tradition" will fairly wonder whether the college is any place to look for instruction in Christian theology or, for that matter, Christian ethics. Not that the college fails to do many things well. It is in the highest rank academically, with many outstanding teachers. But students who confess the historic faith cannot be faulted for looking elsewhere for guidance on such fundamental matters. Indeed, the deepest lesson of the Davidson story is that the Church of Jesus Christ is not to be confused with a church-related college, that a church-related college can go its own way. The Davidson trustees did not intend to teach that, but it is the accurate lesson of the college's last all-Christian board.