MOSCOW SCHOOL AMONG THE TOP 40 BIBLE
COLLEGES

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more on Wilson’s Religious Empire

 

Moscow’s New St. Andrews College (NSA) was recently listed among the top 50
conservative Christian schools by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. This
institute is supported by the conservative National Review and the
Heritage Foundation, and its evaluation of schools relies on faculty and student
self reports.

 

NSA
President Roy Atwood is now ranking his school with three colleges on this list:
Hope College, Calvin College, and Aquinas College, but there is no comparison
between these schools and his. Hope, Calvin, and
Aquinas are accredited by the 1,303-member North Central Association of Colleges
and Schools, which requires all permanent faculty have PhDs, while NSA is
accredited by the 41- member Transnational Association for Christian Colleges
and Schools, which allows their colleges to get by with only one third PhDs.

 

I have met faculty from Hope,
Calvin, and Aquinas at scholarly conferences and I have heard their excellent
professional papers.  Since 2003 I’ve extended personal invitations to NSA
faculty to attend our annual regional theological meeting, but Atwood has
declined saying they have "better things to do."

 

Calvin College boasts that it is
the first evangelical school to have an Asian Studies program.  Hope College has
three professors who specialize in Asian philosophy and religion.  Don’t hold
your breath for news that NSA will offer any courses on non-Christian thought.
Aquinas College even has a feminist philosopher on its faculty, but NSA founder
and senior fellow Douglas Wilson believes that only propertied males should have
the vote.

 

A sign of a good college is
whether or not other institutions would hire its faculty.  After teaching 30
years at Calvin College, Nicholas Wolterstorff was hired away by Yale Divinity
School. 

 

          Here are some items where Hope, Calvin, and Aquinas
fortunately do not compare:

 

�       
Two of NSA�s senior
fellows, presumably equivalent to full professors, do not have PhDs. Generally,
a PhD is required at the lowest rank of assistant professor.

�       
Wilson’s brother,
son, and son-in-law are on the NSA faculty.

�       
NSA
has demonstrated disrespect for its big academic neighbor�requesting, for
example, that two UI history professors be disciplined for criticizing Wilson’s
views on slavery

�       
Most of NSA
faculty�s published books are from Canon Press, Wilson�s own creation.

�       
In 1998 Wilson
wrote an article entitled �Why Evangelical Colleges Are Not� (Chronicles,
September issue). The hostility displayed against reputable evangelical colleges
in this article not only shows blatant disrespect for these fine schools, but it
manifests shameful disregard for the entire academic enterprise. 

�       
From Canon Press
Wilson and a co-author issued a booklet (now withdrawan) entitled "Southern
Slavery As It Was," which described the Antebellum South as the most successful
multiracial society in history (p. 24).  It was later discovered that at least
20 percent of the text was lifted from Engerman and
Fogel’s Time on the Cross.

 

NSA’s true
peers are not Hope, Calvin, and Aquinas; rather, they are Word of Life Bible
Institute, Shasta Bible Institute, the infamous Institute for Creation Research,
Messenger College, and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.