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The bottom line, Land says, is that accommodation is a far wiser policy than avoidance or hostility. In this way, the United States deftly sidesteps both the "theocratic authoritarianism" of the Islamic state that requires all women to wear headcoverings and the "supreme secularism" of France that forces a student to decide whether to be true to her faith or go to public school.

When Jerry Falwell died, a number of astute commentators offered the opinion that Liberty University would be his great legacy. It turns out Falwell may have believed the same thing. Thanks to shrewd investments in personal life insurance policies, the university's chancellor provided $29 million dollars to Liberty in consequence of his death. Liberty University is now debt free. The next step, according to Falwell's son, Jerry Falwell Jr., is building an endowment. (HT: Inside Higher Ed)

As I write this item (Aug. 13, 2007) Christopher Hitchens's book God Is Not Great and Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion are ranked numbers six and eight on the Amazon.com Religion and Spirituality list. The popularity of these books raises the question of what it means. Is atheism growing into a more forceful movement that will drive new wellsprings of secularization and privatization of religious belief? I suspect a different scenario drives the phenomenon. The books are reactions to the declining stock of the secularization thesis and the deprivatization of religion in public life of which scholars such as Rodney Stark and Jose Casanova have eloquently written. If anything, I think the books by Hitchens, Dawkins, and others indicate that religion is now being taken seriously enough in the public square to warrant a counter-offensive.

Colorado Christian Fires Professor for Insufficient Loyalty to Free Markets (Rocky Mountain News, Denver)

Hillsdale College Long Rejected Federal Funds, Now Rejects State Funds, Too (The Chronicle of Higher Education, subscription required)

American Faculty Don't Much Care for Evangelicals (World)

Facebook Making Life Difficult for College Housing Administrators (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Hunter Baker is special assistant to the president and director of strategic planning at Houston Baptist University. Got a tip regarding academic research or higher education? E-mail him at hunterbaker@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

This is the second entry in our new biweekly department, Evangelical Minds, which covers developments in research and higher education. The first entry was, "Christian Higher Education Goes to Russia."

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August (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51