Donors showed low confidence in the college’s defense of free expression during Quillen’s tenure as president — only 20 percent of respondents said the administration protects free speech on campus. Furthermore, the survey found that 94 percent of all donors and 99 percent of dissatisfied donors agreed that Davidson’s next president should make free speech and civil discourse a “high priority.”

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently conducted a survey that revealed a majority of major donors to Davidson College are dissatisfied with the growing ideological imbalance and intolerance of free speech the college has taken in the last decade.
“Many have cut back their philanthropic support to the college in response, which is a serious threat to the institution,” according to the council’s report on the small, private North Carolina-based college.
Recently, a cohort of Davidson alumni was one of five higher education groups that co-founded the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, focused on supporting free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity at their respective colleges and universities. The group is called Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse.
Rep. Greg Murphy, R-North Carolina, an alumnus and donor to Davidson College, has been one of the most outspoken voices against college administration over the last decade. Murphy, who served on the Davidson College board of trustees and functioned as the alumni president, helped found Davidsonians for Freedom.
The group advocates for the college to foster intellectual freedom and supports an unfettered search for the truth, he said.
“When I was at Davidson College, there was a good balance of different opinions and thoughts, but unfortunately, over the last decade, the college has migrated towards an intolerance of differing opinions and a monolithic thought process,” Murphy told The College Fix.
“I’ve heard directly from professors at the college who did not want to express their opinion over fears of not being places on committees or receiving tenure, and I’ve heard directly from students who cannot talk freely in the classroom because of grading practices by their professors.”
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni survey was released in early November. It came out shortly after the college began the process of replacing the current president, Carol Quillen, who will step down after the 2021-22 school year.
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Church planting is all about dying to self. It means leaving something comfortable and which we love [don’t plant a church, or join a plant, because you are unhappy with where you are] to start something new. It means labouring with a smaller team, a smaller budget, a smaller leadership, and having to establish all the things that already existed in the established church. Planting is all about dying to self not just for the planted church but for the planting church, it ought to experience the same dying to self. And yet so many churches who are planning to plant seem to want to do so without dying to self. 

I’ve tried to bite my fingertips to stop me from writing this but I can do it no longer. I’ve tried to restrain the overwhelming tide, tried to stem the pent up frustration, sought to pray it all through with a view to not posting this, but it just has to be said. We, the UK church, have a problem. I don’t mean the church nationally (it does but that’s beyond my purview) but the evangelical church in the UK.
Our strategies are in danger of killing the gospel. Our kingdom building is in danger of obscuring his kingdom because we haven’t built on gospel rich, early church, dynamics. We don’t give away we hoard. We don’t give to where we see need, we give to where we think need is based on our blinkered models and strategy. And the lost in the UK are suffering for it. What a tragedy it will be if it is not Jesus kingdom we build but our own, limited not by his riches and desire to bless his praying dependent people who ask for things beyond our imagination, but by our stunted sight based strategy.
Jesus kingdom has a shape to it, a shape he exemplifies. It’s a kingdom that’s exemplified in his life. It’s marked by a overwhelming concern for the glory of the Father at cost to self because of a conviction that his will is best and his glory matters more than anything else for the whole cosmos. It is marked therefore by a dying to self, a descent into death, that others might be raised to life in him as they are snatched from the very jaws of hell and reconciled to God as his Spirit-filled sons and daughters. It’s a kingdom exemplified by the risen Jesus sending out his disciples to do what he did in dying to self in order to go to the world dependent on the Father and filled with the Spirit. It’s further exemplified by his using the persecution of a rapidly growing church in Jerusalem so that they die to themselves and are flung out into areas of Judea and Samaria; who are needy and thirsty for the life giving water of Jesus Christ in the gospel.
As I look at the church in the UK I don’t see masses of dying to self, as I look at myself I see a reluctance to do so too, or at least a desire to set a limit on how far Christ can ask me to go down into his death with him. So as I write this I’m wrestling with it too. Let me give you some examples of where I see this problem at play.
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I favor what is numbered Overture 23. It fits the flow of chapter 16 thematically, linguistically and logically.  A particular strength of Overture 23 is that it addresses the current error (calling oneself a gay/SSA/homosexual Christian); yet it also addresses any type of error where church officers may identify with other specific sins that could be called an “identity marker.”

There’s an “elephant in the room” in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) today. It’s all about the issue of identity—are some a “gay Christian,” a “homosexual Christian,” a “same sex attracted Christian,” etc.?
This issue will be prominently before the 49th PCA General Assembly.  Commissioners (made up of ministers and elders) will converge on Birmingham, Alabama to make extremely important decisions on issues of significant theological, pastoral, and ecclesiastical importance.
Most people have heard of the “elephant in the room” as a reference to a topic or issue that no one really wants to name but that EVERYONE knows is present.  Everyone steps around “the elephant” ensuring that “the elephant” is given plenty of space.  This behavior is actually very effective in guaranteeing “the elephant” will never be addressed.  Leave the elephant in the room long enough and the room will not be habitable.  Some might suggest just shoveling out the elephant manure to make the room as livable as possible.  We all know that is a losing proposition.
So, what can be done?  Someone must make everyone look at the elephant, someone must walk up and slap the beast on the rump and say, “Folks! This is an elephant, and we can either live with it or we must begin thinking about how to deal with it.  And when the elephant is out of the room, we need to ensure that elephants don’t wander back in again.”
What’s the question before the PCA? In light of some current issues in our culture, how is the church to address the qualifications for present or future officers who choose to identify themselves by some besetting sins or temptations or inclinations. Also, how should the church those who teach acceptable views regarding that may be sinful inclinations and actions for others to hold or practice?
There four overtures before the 49th General Assembly seeking to amend chapter 16 of the Book of Church Order (BCO).  I’m in favor of adding an amendment to the BCO that will fit the emphasis and flow in BCO 16. These proposed amendments are intended to support what the BCO already says but include wording that addresses current issues. And further, I favor an overture that will not be so narrow that it fails to anticipate address issues that will likely arise in the future.
I favor what is numbered Overture 23. It fits the flow of chapter 16 thematically, linguistically and logically.  A particular strength of Overture 23 is that it addresses the current error (calling oneself a gay/SSA/homosexual Christian); yet it also addresses any type of error where church officers may identify with other specific sins that could be called an “identity marker.”
Uniquely, Overture 23 (and Overture 20) addresses what officers in the PCA are permitted to teach others regarding any type of false identity.  Officers are NOT permitted to hold to or “teach that it is acceptable for Christians to identify or describe themselves” with sinful thoughts,  inclinations and/or actions
We MUST deal with the elephant.  Any overture that does not deal with identifying as a “gay Christian” (as helpful as it may otherwise be) is not addressing what has caused so much turmoil and disunity in the PCA over the last 4 years. Overture 23 promotes excellent wording to guide the church now and in the future.
[Identity and identify are NOT difficult to understand nor are these words frightening! We all know what it means to identify.  However, if it distresses people, use “self-profess.”]
Here is the proposed wording of the present Overture 23 that would become BCO 16-4 if approved:
Those whom God calls to bear office in His Church shall demonstrate maturity of faith and growing conformity to Jesus Christ. While these office bearers will see spiritual perfection only in glory, they will continue in this life to confess and to mortify remaining sins. Thus, those who identify or describe themselves according to their specific sins, or who teach that it is acceptable for Christians to identify or describe themselves in such a manner, shall not be approved for service by any court of Christ’s Church.
Bryant Hansen is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Senior Pastor of First PCA in Prattville, Ala.
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