01: Enrollment in evangelical Christian colleges and universities is outpacing the average increase at secular institutions, according to a report in Religion Today, (March 11).
Enrollment in evangelical schools increased by 24 percent from 1990 to 1996, says the Coalition for Christian Colleges and Universities. At public and private colleges and universities, the enrollments grew by 4 and 5 percent, respectively, during this same period. Part of the reason for this growth is that “demographics are working in the schools’ favor . . . Students are pouring in from church-run schools and home schools to mix faith and learning, and to avoid the lifestyles found at many secular institutions.” These schools’ greater academic respectability and quality, as well as more sophisticated marketing, are also responsible for the swelling enrollments.
02: A recent ranking of the freedom within nations throughout the world finds that those with a Christian majority registered the most liberty.
In their annual survey of freedom around the world., Freedom House, a human rights monitoring organization, find that of the 88 countries rated “Free”, 79 have a Christian majority. The remaining countries include Buddhist (Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan, Thailand), Hindu (India, Mauritius, Nepal) and Jewish (Israel), according to a report in Liberty magazine (April).
Among Islamic countries, only one, Mali, is rated Free, 14 are Partly Free and 28 are Not Free. Among Islamic countries, those in the Arab world were the most restrictive. Yet things can change rapidly: it is noted that 25 years ago, most Catholic countries (such as Argentina, Poland and the Philippines) were dictatorships.
(Liberty, 1018 Water St., #201, Port Townsend, WA 98368)
03: A high rate of Seventh Day Adventist pastors have left the ministry, and their motivations in departing have as much to do with bureaucracy as belief, according to a new book on the subject.
The evangelical online newsletter Apologia Report (March 22) cites the book “Leaving The Adventist Ministry” (Prager), by sociologist and ex-Adventist pastor Peter Ballis, as showing that in some regions, such as Australia and New Zealand, the rate of clergy attrition has been as high as 40 percent of the ministerial work force.
Ballis finds that the Adventist leadership’s “popular image of the ex-pastor as a young, disgruntled convert who has been studying in non-Adventist institutions, and drinking from polluted secular fountains, and who thus become corrupted and confused by secular thought, fails against the complex portrait that has emerged.”
Instead, he finds that among the most common reasons given by the departing Adventist pastors is a breakdown in social relations largely attributed to the Adventist bureaucracy and politics. Ironically, Ballis sees a similarity between Adventist structures and that of the church’s historic nemesis, Roman Catholicism. Both organizations have “singular control over decision making, are slow to make essential changes, and allow personnel who are critical of the system to exit rather than deal with their criticisms.”
(Apologia Report: www.apologia.org)
04: Researchers recently found that the Reformed tradition is more fragmented or diverse than might be expected.
The Church Herald (April), the magazine of the Reformed Church in America, reports that when researchers Jean-Jacques Bauswein and Lukas Vischer began compiling a handbook of Reformed denominations three years ago, they expected that the final list would include between 450 and 500 churches. In fact, their final product, the 740-page book entitled The Reformed Family Worldwide, found 746 separate Reformed bodies in 149 countries.
Korea topped the list with 99 Reformed denominations. The two editors expressed surprise at the “scope, diversity, disunity and potentials of the Reformed family worldwide.”
(Church Herald, 4500 60th St., SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49512)