A religion-free world, A Christian campus outcast and the latest Richard Dawkins controversy

Tish Warren is a “cool” evangelical Christian. She appreciates art and culture, drinks alcohol and believes that women can be in the pulpit just like men. So it came as a shock that however “trendy” she might be, her university did not want her ministering on campus. Warren was just as unacceptable to Vanderbilt University in the US as the most outrageous fundamentalist. Vanderbilt University joins a growing list of campuses that won’t allow Christians to require a defined doctrinal stance for their group (for example, the Apostles’ Creed). Read Tish’s story of being a campus outcast.

Atheist superstar Richard Dawkins has been discovering what it is like to be pilloried for an unwise Twitter comment after telling a pregnant woman bearing a Down Syndrome child “Abort it now. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have a choice.” His attempt at an apology drew derision too.

To conclude, what I was saying simply follows logically from the ordinary pro-choice stance that most of us, I presume, espouse. My phraseology may have been tactlessly vulnerable to misunderstanding, but I can’t help feeling that at least half the problem lies in a wanton eagerness to misunderstand.” Read more here.

Is the Internet killing religion? The CNN Belief Blog looks at a series of studies that suggest it may be. “Innovations have long played a part in influencing religion… and will continue to.” Read more here.

Melbourne wit and theologian, Michael Bird, has discovered a local impersonator of Richard Dawkins—yes him again. Bird says Fairfax columnist Sam De Brito “continues his Richard Dawkins impersonation” in arguing that a religion-free Middle East would be a zone of peace. “The problem of evil is not simply a religious problem; it’s a human one,” says Bird. Read more here.