Cedarville is growing

Despite past controversies (or perhaps because of them?), Cedarville University continues to expand. Ten new majors and five new minors will be added to the curriculum next fall.


Communication Arts

• Journalism
• Intercultural communication
• Comprehensive communication
• Media communication
• Organizational communication
• Political communication

Exercise and Sports Science

• Allied health
• Sport management (minor)

Language and Literature

• Asian studies (minor)
• French (minor)

Music, Art and Worship

• Worship

Science and Mathematics

• Chemistry Education
• Environmental science
• Actuarial science (minor)

For a history of Cedarville University, go here.

Dr. Brown to speak on postmodernism

Dr. William Brown, president of Cedarville University, will speak on the emergent church and postmodernism during campus chapel at 10:00 AM today (April 14). You can hear it online here.

Dr. Brown sent an email to Cedarville alumni, in which he discussed the upcoming chapel program as well as the recent controversy.

More on Cedarville and Claiborne

I don't really have anything new to add beyond what I've already said, but I do want to bring your attention to two posts about Cedarville's (dis)invitation to Shane Claiborne. They were written by two bloggers whose opinions I respect (but with whom I don't always agree), Mark Byron and Scot McKnight.

I'm surprised that Mark Byron isn't a bigger light in the blogosphere. I don't know what his traffic numbers are, but I'm sure that whatever they are, they're not high enough. He's been in the blogging game for several years, and his posts are thoughtful and well-written. I especially enjoy his Edifier du Jour series. If you're not a regular reader of his blog, you really need to become one. (And, Mark, I'm not saying all this just because you've been a faithful reader of mine since nearly my beginning. Truly, I'm not...)

Cedarville cancels Claiborne

Just when I write that I haven't blogged too much about my alma mater, I see another reason to do. Katelyn Beaty, posting to the website for Christianity Today magazine, writes that Cedarville University had invited Shane Claiborne to speak on campus but then cancelled. This cancellation happened after "a small but vocal number of bloggers" complained about Claiborne's appearance because they "saw the lecture as a step toward liberal theology." Although the article indicates that several bloggers were complaining, only one - Ingrid Schlueter - is specifically named. Schlueter was unhappy with the article's focus on bloggers instead of Cedarville's perceived "step toward liberal theology," so she wrote a response.

Naturally, I have a few thoughts....

(1) Despite writing that several bloggers complained of Claiborne's scheduled appearance, Beaty names only Schlueter. Why is that? Was Beaty operating on hearsay, or could she simply not be bothered with informing her readers of the identities of the other bloggers?

(2) Think about what a church is, and what it isn't. Next, think about what a university is, and what it isn't. Should a university act as a church, even it has been "approved" by a specific denomination of churches? What is a university's obligation to its students?

(3) How many non-Reformed speakers must be invited before we can definitively say that Cedarville is on the path to "liberal theology?" How many Reformed speakers must be invited to counter that claim?

(4) Is this just a bunch of hoo-haw?

(5) Peruse Schlueter's blog for yourself. You'll be seeing a lot of this, and consider how many times those kinds of posts appear. Ask yourself, how are these posts any different than gossip?

(6) Which would you prefer: a blog that causes you to think, and or a blog that tells you what to think?

new alumni director at Cedarville University

I don't talk too much around here about my alma mater, but I'm pleased to report this news. If you cycled through Cedarville and never met Jeff, even after he moved on from the admissions office, you probably never talked to anyone else.

it breaks the heart

This is what happens when you are a person who (1) combs the Internet in search of things with which to disagree, (2) believes you've found something the world (or at least, the people who visit your site) must know about, (3) refuses to act like a journalist by directly contacting the involved people, (4) breezily makes thousands of assumptions, and (5) forgets what happens when people assume.

Center for Bioethics at Cedarville University

A recent newspaper headline reads: "Researchers extract stem cells from human amniotic fluid." The article explains that scientists obtained stem cells from human amniotic fluid without harming the child or its mother. The extracted cells were then grown into other highly specialized tissues, including brain cells, liver cells, and bone. So goes the weekly stream of news concerning life issues with ethical implications.

How should Christians respond? Should we embrace those breakthroughs with few ethical concerns, or should we condemn them as violations of the sanctity of life? What is the science involved? What does Scripture teach?

To engage complex questions like these from a biblical perspective, Cedarville University launched the Center for Bioethics in October 2006. The Center influences students, leaders, healthcare professionals, and the general public through sound biblical scholarship, compelling presentations, and cultural engagement on key issues in bioethics.

The development of the Center for Bioethics is a natural outgrowth of Cedarville's outstanding academic reputation in the sciences, our commitment to biblical integration, and our desire to engage the culture with the heart and mind of Christ.

The Center is funded solely by individuals and organizations who share the vision of bringing a Christian perspective to this dialogue and who partner with us through prayer and financial support.

To learn more about the Center and how you can be involved, visit www.cedarville.edu/bioethics

This information taken from the Cedarville University Torch, Spring-Summer 2007, pp. 16-17

shameless name-dropping

I was able to see Heather, an old friend from college, this weekend. We talked about how we can't believe our 15-year reunion is next year, how her band is doing (very well) and how she'll be busy recording in the fall.

See, Cindy Swanson? You're not the only one who knows people in the Christian music world. (hee-hee)

Joshua Bell, D.C. street performer

An absolutely amazing experiment. Watch the videos, too.

If Misha Dichter was playing a piano, would they have stopped to listen?

In my first collegiate year, I had the opportunity to see Bell in concert. This was in early 1990, when he was building the acclaim that he now richly deserves. He gave a performance in front of about 200 people in a small concert hall on the Wright State University campus. I believe I paid about $10 to see him. Listening to - and watching - Bell was extraordinary. He plays much bigger venues now, and for a lot more money.

And, yes, I've also seen Dichter in concert - the same year that I saw Bell. Bell's performance moved me more.

(H/T: ALOTT5MA)

Update: Thanks to my anonymous commentor, I was able to read an actual street performer's thoughts on this experiment. Why did Bell fail to attract an audience? He's not a good busker.

Sweet Sixteen

How are your brackets for the office pool? (A non-gambling one, of course....)

All four #1 seeds are still alive, as expected. No Cinderella teams this year, with the lowest seed being Vanderbilt (#6). What happened to you, George Masons of the world?

Those Purdue guys may have acted tough when they met with Indy Star reporters over the weekend, but Florida showed them how to play a game in the Big Dance: you play tough and you win it. Will Florida go all the way like they did last year? First, they have to get past the Butler Bulldogs, the only Indiana team remaining in the tournament.

OSU is the only Ohio - and Big Ten - team to make it, beating out fellow Ohio university Xavier in overtime. My Wright State Raiders didn't get past the first round.

March Madness brackets

The brackets have been filled. The office pools will start later today.

I find it humorous how they decide to place teams in the location categories: Midwest, West, East, and South. Maryland is close to the Atlantic Ocean and Oregon is close to the Pacific, but somehow they both are in the Midwest section. Wright State, one of my two alma maters, is in the West section - I suppose there was a time when Ohio was considered Out West, but that was 150 years ago or so.

I'm from Ohio but I currently live in Indiana, so let's see how teams from those states fared:

Ohio: OSU (#1-South), Xavier (#9-South), Wright State (#14-West), Miami (#14-Midwest)

Indiana: Butler (#5-Midwest), Notre Dame (#6-Midwest), Indiana (#7-West), Purdue (#9-Midwest)

Raiders defeat Bulldogs

Living in Indianapolis, I'm surrounded by Butler fans. I hope they don't mind that I am rejoicing in this victory! Special congratulations to DaShaun Wood.

For those who don't know: I received an M.S. in mental health counseling from Wright State in 1995. And I was only 8 years old!

I wonder if the Bulldogs like seeing this banner in Hinkle Fieldhouse now!

Five Barriers to Intellectual Growth

Dr. William Brown, current president of Cedarville University, writes an intriguing article on the need for Christian intellectuals.

CU in CT

My undergrad alma mater, Cedarville University, is in the news. There's an article in Christianity Today about CU, the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC), and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) voted in June to sever ties with Cedarville University. GARBC said the school's "public relationship with Southern Baptists was not considered to be in harmony with the GARBC purpose statement."

Earlier this year, the Council of Eighteen, the GARBC governing body, adopted a statement on why the association should separate from the Ohio school. At the 2006 annual conference in June, GARBC messengers ratified the statement 311 to 283. They concluded that "Southern Baptists are inclusivists and permit the presence and ministry of liberals within the convention."

In 2000, the GARBC discontinued its approval system for partner ministries, which included Baptist Bible College and Seminary near Scranton, Pennsylvania. Cedarville and other schools maintained ties with the GARBC through displays at the annual conference and a scholarship program. In 2002, the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio (affiliated with the SBC) decided to recommend Cedarville to the state's Southern Baptists. When Cedarville applied to display at the 2005 GARBC conference, the GARBC declined, because of the school's new SBC affiliation.

I agree with Brian Orme's assessment. He graduated from CU three years after me.

I also like what Brian McCrorie has said.

The university has a written statement about its historical connection to the GARBC, which you can read here.

Read here about the GARBC's reported issues with Cedarville. John Greening, the GARBC national representative, issued a statement about Cedarville - read here.

The overkill in this article about Cedarville's speaking invitation to Brooklyn Tabernacle pastor Jim Cymbala is palpable:

Beware of schools which profess to be fundamentalist and Baptist but which are neither in practice. Beware of the leaven of compromise which is flooding into fundamental Baptist churches, schools, evangelistic and mission institutions. It is not the time to cover ones eyes and pretend that all is well. It is not the time to keep quiet about error and compromise. By refusing to speak out against compromise in their own ranks, God's people pave the road to apostasy.

two articles by an old college friend

Here are two articles by Pastor Mark Vroegop of Calvary Baptist Church in Holland, Michigan. He's an old friend from college, and we toured together in a traveling quartet for a year.

• Creating a Culture of Reconciliation
• Humble Pie on ChristianityToday.com

He will be speaking at our alma mater, Cedarville University, in the 10:00 AM chapel service on Thursday, August 31. Sadly, I will not be able to make it there to see him.

Some info from his church website:

Mark has been the Senior Pastor at Calvary since 1996. His passion is to empower believers to experience life change by delighting in God through the Word. He presently serves on the editorial advisory board for HeartCry - A Journal on Revival and Spiritual Awakening, published by Life Action Ministries. He is a bi-annual speaker for Life Action Ministries' Family Camp and published "Revival as Turning from Idolatry" in HeartCry Journal (Issue 17, Summer 2001). For four years he was a member of the Pastoral Advisory Board for Holland Community Hospital, and he is presently serving on the advisory board of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism.

University presidents & blogging

Do you know of any college/university presidents that are blogging currently? I only know of two - Bill Brown of Cedarville University (my alma mater!) and Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Both are on my blogroll to the right, so you can look for the links there. There's a nice little article on Brown's blog in the Dayton Daily News.

Do you know of any state or non-religious private university presidents who blog? I haven't heard of any.

Just so you know: Although I have an uncle named William Brown, he's not the same person as Dr. Bill Brown.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

I am currently taking a course through Wright State University (Fairborn, OH) so that I can complete requirements for licensure as a counselor in the state of Ohio. I have decided to post one of my assignments for the course, which was to examine the different symptoms of a specific personality disorder and describe how they may relate to other problems (e.g., disorders) for the person. I decided to focus on the narcissistic personality disorder, about which you can find out more information here.


Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) falls into Cluster B of the personality disorder categories; persons with a Cluster B disorder tend to be emotional, erratic, and dramatic (Butcher, Mineka, and Hooley 2004). Persons with NPD are often grandiose - they typically inflate their own abilities and accomplishments while deflating those of other persons. They appear to care only for themselves, disregarding the thoughts and emotions of others. Persons with NPD believe they are worthy of special attention and status, and they often prefer to associate only with those whom they perceive to have a high status as well. They may use others to obtain what they want or believe they deserve. Although seemingly impregnable, they greatly dislike criticism and are often preoccupied with others' views of them. Prevalance is estimated at less than 1% of the general population (Ronningstam 1999).

Due to their high regard for their own abilities and an abhorrence of criticism, persons with NPD may experience episodes of depression because of a sense of missed opportunities and a lack of recognition from others (Ronningstam 1999). NPD has a higher prevalence among bipolar patients (11-47%) but no study has shown a consistency of prevalence between NPD and any specific Axis I disorder. "In clinical samples of NPD, the most frequently co-occurring Axis I disorders were major depression or dysthymia (42-50%) followed by substance abuse (25-50%) and bipolar disorder (5-12%)" (p. 680). Treatment may be difficult due to the person's lack of perception that they are in need of treatment.

Cluster B disorders have the highest co-occurrence with substance abuse disorders (Nace 1990). Persons with NPD may turn to substances to cope with the perceived failure of others to adequately acknowledge or support them. They may use substances in an effort to inflate their sense of self and eliminate depressed feelings or low self-esteem. The treatment for substance abuse of a person with NPD may be greatly affected by the person's belief that he or she is above commonly used forms of treatment and therefore deserving of special attention; the person may also believe that he or she is actually in control of the substance abuse (Richards 1993).


References

Butcher, J.N., Mineka, S., & Hooley, J.M., (2004). Abnormal psychology (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon

Nace, Edgar. (1990). "Substance abuse and personality disorder," Managing the Dually Diagnosed Patient, Current Issues and Clinical Approaches, David F. O'Connell, editor. Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Press, Inc.

Richards, Henry Jay. (1993). Therapy of the Substance Abuse Syndromes. Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc.

Ronningstam, Elsa. (1999). Narcissistic Personality Disorder. In T. Millon, P. Blaney, and R. Davis (Eds.), Oxford textbook of psychopathology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Five pastors ... and me

When I was in college in some small town in Ohio (which seems like an eternity ago), I was able to sing in a quartet during my junior and senior years. We traveled to different churches and camps during the academic year and in the summer. The "quartet" consisted of four singers (I sang bass), a "soundman" (he ran the soundboard and also preached), and a piano player. My junior year I traveled with five guys who are now all pastors: Brian Bales, Chad Coe, Jay LeBlanc, Mark Vroegop, and Erin Weaver. Perhaps I missed my calling somewhere.... Anyway, just by looking at the pictures of these guys, it seems Mark is the most "pastor-like."

My first post

Hello, Good People! Everyone seems to be blogging nowadays, so I thought I'd get in on the action. I will use my first entry as an introduction, to let people know who I am and what I do. I'm a mental health therapist for a hospital in Indianapolis. Although I've had a masters degree in counseling for ten years now, I'm not yet a licensed counselor, but I am working to that end. What I basically do at my job are crisis evaluations - meeting with people who may be depressed and/or suicidal to see if they need to be hospitalized on the psychiatric unit. I sometimes see people who are quite psychotic - they may be hearing voices telling them various things, or they believe that the CIA/FBI is after them, or they believe they're some famous/historical person.

I graduated from Cedarville University (it was Cedarville College at the time) in 1993 with a double major in psychology and behavioral science. I went straight to graduate school because it's very difficult to find work with a bachelors degree in psychology. I graduated from Wright State University in 1995 with a masters degree in mental health counseling. I learned a great deal from my professors at both universities, and I am indebted to them.

I married The Wife (sorry, she won't let me use her real name) in July 1996. She is from Danville, IL. I met her when we were both at Cedarville U. but we didn't start to officially "date" until Fall 1994. She graduated the year after me, and her degree was in business communications (I think - I'm sure she'll correct me on this). We moved into a little apartment in Dayton, OH (my hometown) and lived there for over a year before we got the itch to move to a bigger city. Well, we couldn't get much bigger than Chicago - we moved there in October 1997. However, we soon tired of the busy life in Chi-town and moved to Indianapolis (not quite as big a city as Chicago, but certainly large in and of itself) in August 1998. Except for a nearly two-year stint in Springfield, OH, when I worked for Wittenberg University, we have been in Indy since then.

I have been employed at several places since obtaining my degrees. I worked at a community mental health center in Dayton, a for-profit mental health company in Chicago that specialized in group programs for the severely mentally ill (the company apparently didn't make enough profit, since it has gone defunct since I've left Chicago), Wittenberg University (as a director over several residence halls), and the hospital where I work now.

The Wife is manager of the corporate services department for a corporate realty company here in Indy. She has worked there for over two years now. She has worked at several places since graduating from Cedarville University, including a national accounting firm, a hospital (in their public relations department), and a publishing company.

I have two children - The Sweet (5 yrs) and The Cute (5 mos.) - again, no real names, these are their nicknames we have given them. The Sweet will be starting kindergarten in the fall and she is very excited about it. The Cute will soon be cutting teeth (not so sure she's excited about that) and learning to sit up. I can't describe what it's been like for me to be a father - amazing, wondrous, frustrating, exhausting, exciting, illuminating.... It doesn't get much better than to have your child smile at you and hear her say, "Daddy, I love you."

I think I have revealed enough for now. I can't reveal too much or I wouldn't have anything to write about in the future, now would I?