AWARD RECIPIENT

I got news this past week that I'd won an award from the Evangelical Publishers' Association. It was 3rd place, but, hey, better than not placing at all-----and I had some heavy competition. The category was "Standing Column," meaning a regular column in a magazine.

Here is the list of winners:

First Place : Advance, “View Point” by Bill Shepson

Second Place : Sojourners, “Hearts & Minds” by Jim Wallis

Third Place : Plain Truth, “Tender Mercies” by Ruth Tucker

Fourth Place : Reformed Worship, “Come and See” by Dean Heetderks

Fifth Place : Ignite Your Faith, “The Wild Ways of Jesus” by Mark Galli

Judge: Thomas W. Schaefer, book author, columnist, and former editor with The Wichita Eagle , Wichita, Kansas

CALVIN COLLEGE PROFESSORS QUIT

This was the headlines of yesterday's GRAND RAPIDS PRESS. The issue relates to Denise Ison, an African-American professor who was earlier this year told she must stop going to an all-black Baptist church and attend a Reformed or Christian Reformed Church or leave the college. Two women in her department (Education) resigned in prostest.

Calvin has every right to have rules making all their professors go to churches of their liking. But the school shouldn't at the same time be raving about the importance of diversity. If racial diversity were actually important at Calvin College, the school would be opening opportunities for African-Americans to be on the faculty without forcing them into all-white or multi-cultural churches. It's hard enough for a person of color to be working all week with virtually all-white (mostly Dutch) people, and then to force them into similar circumstances in their faith community is a serious failure to understand minority issues.

Here is the PRESS article.