SAGLRROILYBYGTH are well aware that evangelical colleges tend to insist on stricter rules for student behavior than do secular or liberal schools. Faculty members, too, are held to high expectations for orthodox thinking and behavior. Those tensions are a big part of my new history of evangelical and fundamentalist higher ed.

The goings-on at Cedarville University in Ohio, though, seem to be more extreme than the norm. By insisting on a new definition of “purity” in its curriculum, based on Philippians 4:8, the administration at Cedarville has some evangelical intellectuals scratching their heads in confusion.

Keeping an eye on Cedarville…

The folks at Righting America at the Creation Museum have been watching Cedarville closely. Recently, they asked your humble editor to offer some historical perspective. Are Cedarville’s new purity rules an odd exception to the usual functioning of evangelical schools?

Today, they kindly published my two cents. (Well, technically one cent. They’ll publish the second half soon.) Check out my argument over at Righting America at the Creation Museum.

Are Cedarville’s purity police something dramatically new? Or just par for the course at evangelical institutions? What do you think? Please head over to RACM to add your insights and comments.