By Will Hall, Message Editor
NEW JERSEY—Cynthia Newman, dean of the College of Business at Rider University, resigned her position to protest the school’s seeming denouncement of Christian values in banning Chick-fil-A from the campus.
In a 2017 survey students voted to allow one of the popular fast-food restaurants to open on campus. But administrators nixed the idea, saying Chick-fil-A opposed “the LGBTQ+ community,” FoxNews.com reported.
The founder of the restaurant chain and his family are Christians and it is as well known for closing on Sundays as it is for its chicken sandwiches. The corporate website states the business exists “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with.”
Newman told Campus Reform she is a “very committed Christian” and that her views mirror Chick-fil-A’s. Consequently, when Rider denounced Chick-fil-A, she said she “felt like I had been punched in the stomach.
“I really felt it very personally,” she said.
The university released talking points to staff to control what they said to anyone who criticized the decision to ban Chick-fil-A, and Newman said that was unacceptable.
“I am not willing to compromise my faith and Christian values and I will not be viewed as being in any way complicit when an affront is made to those values,” she said.
Meanwhile the university contends that “choosing an on-campus restaurant franchise was in no way a judgment on religious values.” Instead, according to CNN, Kristine Brown, a Rider spokeswoman, said that Chick-fil-A was banned in order “to foster a sense of respect and belonging of all members of the campus community.”
‘There are no atheists in foxholes’ may be more true than not
MASSACHUSETTS—Harvard researchers studied the relationship between religion and war around the world within the specific context of how religion creates social groups and discovered that the trauma of war caused many individuals to become more religious.
The research involved interviews of 1,700 persons from war-torn areas in three countries and the results showed that among those most exposed to combat there were significant rises in religious affiliation, as many as 41 percentage points in one nation.
The researchers also found that these individuals were likelier to worship regularly and to say that religion plays an important role in their lives.
Moreover, the social scientists said the effects are enduring, showing no decline, in one instance, even 13 years after the conflict.
“Because it has this psychological effect, when you shock a population … new institutions that were impossible previously are more likely to emerge,” Joseph Henrich told the Harvard Gazette. “So these war shocks may redirect history in different directions by reshaping institutions and influencing how people think.”
Henrich is the chair of the Department of Human and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the lead investigator in the study.
Teen sues abortion clinic for killing his unborn child
ALABAMA–In what is described as a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, a teenage father is suing an abortion clinic, the abortionist and the pharmaceutical company in a wrongful death case brought on behalf of his unborn child.
Ryan Magers, who is 19 years old, told the ABC affiliate WAAY-TV 31 that he is pursuing the legal matter “for the men who actually want to have their baby. I believe every child from conception is a baby and deserves to live.”
The case arises just four months after Alabama voters overwhelmingly passed a personhood amendment to acknowledge the rights of each unborn child.
The month prior to that, the Alabama Supreme Court decided an eight-week-old unborn child was “a life worthy of respect and protection … no less the value of lives of other persons” in a case where a man was convicted of the intentional killing of his wife and their unborn child.
Meanwhile, Mager’s attorney Brent Helms issued a statement reported March 6 condemning the violence against “Baby Roe” as “profiteering” by the abortion clinic.
“While no court will be able to bring Baby Roe back to life, we will seek the fullest extent of justice on behalf of Baby Roe and Baby Roe’s father,” Helms said, according to LifeNews.com. “The time is ripe for consistency in Alabama’s jurisprudence: either we fully acknowledge the personhood of the unborn or we cherry pick which innocents we protect and which ones we trash for profit.”
