Free Republic

America's third largest Christian denomination – the United Methodist Church – is splitting as conservative pastors aim to create a new denomination that will adhere to traditional biblical teachings. Methodist church leaders have formed a new denomination – called the Global Methodist Church (GMC) – and filed for formal separation from the UMC over the latter's growing acceptance of modern teachings on sexuality and gender. "In the United States, particularly, some bishops, clergy, and churches are operating in open defiance to the teachings of the United Methodist Church," said Keith Boyette, president of the conservative Wesleyan Covenant Association and spokesperson...

Wesleyan also has a terrible rating for free speech. Go figure. The College Fix reports: University rated one of the worst for free speech to open $220,000-a-year social justice center Wesleyan University — rated one of the worst in the nation for free speech by a nonprofit watchdog group — is slated to roll out a new center dedicated to advancing social justice, an effort estimated to cost more than $200,000 annually to promote various “gender, queer, students of color” causes. Claiming the center was prompted by “racist, misogynistic and transphobic issues and events” at the private Connecticut campus, which...

Following student outcry for protection of undocumented students, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth declared this week that Wesleyan is a sanctuary campus that will not voluntarily assist the federal government in any efforts to deport students or faculty because of their immigration status. Wesleyan appears to be the only school to publicly call itself a sanctuary campus, though other college administrators have expressed strong support for undocumented and immigrant students and are moving toward creating safe havens for those students, Roth made the announcement after meeting last week with students, faculty and staff and conferring with the school's trustees. Roth...

This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt “ "victimized" by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears that this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love! In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable. I'm not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic! Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims! Anyone who dares challenge...

When a student at Wesleyan wrote an op-ed in the student paper last month questioning whether the Black Lives Matter movement has had unintended consequences, protests erupted and the president spoke out, essentially, on the student’s right to free speech. “Freedom of speech, in its popular understanding, does not protect Black Lives Matter advocates who are trying to survive in a racist world, but instead protects the belief systems of dominant people—despite the extent of their heightened ignorance,” read “an Open Letter to the Wesleyan Community from Students of Color” dated September 25. “The debate has become whether members of...

Wesleyan University is now offering housing for LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM students. That is not a typo or an intentional over-statement of what they are pushing for. Instead, "LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM" is the exact acronym that Wesleyan's Office of Residence Life actually used to talk about how open their housing is, aptly named "Open House." "Open House," they explained, "is a safe space for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderf*ck, Polyamourous, Bondage/Disciple, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism (LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM) communities and for people of sexually or gender dissident communities." Now, according to Wesleyan, being gay or transsexual is the equivalent to being into sadism and...

MIDDLETOWN >> They were studying to be doctors and scientists, but police say four Wesleyan University students arrested this week also are known on campus as drug dealers. The four are charged in connection with the distribution of a bad batch of the party drug known as Molly. Authorities said 11 people, including 10 Wesleyan students, some of whom had attended a rave music show Saturday night, went to hospitals for medical attention last weekend. ... Witnesses said several of the victims were hanging out with Kramer during the rave Saturday night at the Eclectic Society, a co-ed social fraternity....

Campus housing specifically for 15 alternative sexualities, including sadomasochists, is acceptable, but fraternities that just allow men are not, at Wesleyan University. Wesleyan University housing has an option for students who want to live with others identifying with one of 15 categories — LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM. The university's inclusiveness excludes, however, male-only fraternities. Delta Kappa Epsilon sued Wesleyan University after the liberal arts college ordered all of its fraternities to admit women, charging sexual discrimination and false and deceptive practices. Wesleyan, a Connecticut college, was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named after 18th century evangelical theologian John Wesley, but is...

Petition demands ‘public retraction’ of prof’s view that people have ‘right to choose’ abortion Following pressure on his Christian college from a pro-life group, a professor has apparently recanted the muddled views on abortion he articulated in a campus forum. That’s not good enough for Created Equal, which started a petition campaign against Indiana Wesleyan University demanding that the school “not tolerate pro-abortion professors.” As The College Fix previously reported, IWU professor Greg Fiebig called himself “equally pro-choice and pro-life” in the “Life vs. Choice” forum in November, which provoked Created Equal’s social-media campaign against him. Fiebig said he had...

Background: On Nov 5th, 2014, Dr. Gregory Fiebig, a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University (a Christian university), presented his pro-abortion views at the "Life vs Choice" public forum. His statements included, "I’m very strongly supportive of pro-choice, and I have a very theological reason for that." Days later, Dr. Fiebig gave a more detailed defense of legal abortion in a letter to IWU's student newspaper, The Sojourn. In a letter to the IWU community, President Dr. David Wright offered no evidence to change the perception that Dr. Fiebig supports legal abortion. This is why we are calling for Dr. Fiebig...

For 36 years, Jim Garlow didn’t know his first adopted child was the result of a rape. But after his wife Carol lost a six-year battle with cancer last year, their daughter, Janie, went in search of her birth mother. In succeeding, Janie also discovered the horrific circumstances of her own conception. The story spurs Jim Garlow, a pastor in California, to fight a state mandate that his church’s employee health plan pay for elective abortions. When Janie’s birth mother was a freshman in high school, two senior boys asked her to go to the movies. Instead, they took her...

Connecticut’s Wesleyan University told campus fraternities Monday that they must support co-educational membership by 2017 or lose their official recognition at the school. “With equity and inclusion in mind, we have decided that residential fraternities must become fully co-educational over the next three years,” administrators told students in a campus-wide email. “If the organizations are to continue to be recognized as offering housing and social spaces for Wesleyan students, women as well as men must be full members and well-represented in the body and leadership of the organization.”

The Salvation Army on Tuesday settled a decade-old lawsuit that charged it with engaging in religious discrimination by requiring its government-funded social service employees to reveal their beliefs and to agree to act in accordance with the Christian gospel. As part of the settlement, approved by a federal judge in Manhattan, the Salvation Army will distribute to its New York employees who work in programs that receive government financing a document stating that they need not adhere to the group’s religious principles while doing their jobs, nor may they be asked about their religious beliefs. The Salvation Army, which is...

Elegy for Wesleyan Mytheos Holt, June 2, 2010 Commentary: At the National Tea Party Convention, Andrew Breitbart made an interesting series of remarks about where the persistent liberal victimhood memes come from: “Bad, racist, homophobic—all those buzzwords that they learned in their freshman orientation class at Wesleyan—are used as weapons to try to destroy you and intimidate you to not speak up.” Well, funny story. I actually went to Wesleyan, and even though it was three years ago, my freshman orientation will probably remain seared into my cranium for the rest of my life. Not to mention, this year I...

Maine Remembered, Sense Forgot Malcolm A. Kline, November 16, 2009 When most voters don’t win at the ballot box, they usually get over it the next day but make mental notes for the next election. Left-wing voters, particularly the academic variety that now may make up most of the breed, seem to need therapy, at least in print. “Waking up Wednesday morning this week I had to face the disappointment and the noise,” Wesleyan University president Michael Roth wrote on The Huffington Post web site on November 6, 2009, three days after the recent spate of elections. “The disappointment was...

IÂ’ve spent most of my life conflicted over baptism, not about whether or not one should be baptized, but about the proper age for baptism.My parents dedicated me when I was an infant. Back then, Dad pastored a Wesleyan church and the denomination believed that baptism was for those who had reached the age of accountability and could personally choose to be baptized. They believed that dedication is something parents do for their child and that baptism is something the individual chooses for himself. The denomination based its theology on the fact that the New Testament seemed to indicate that...

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. – Wesleyan University students were told to stay in their dorms and the city's only synagogue closed Thursday as police warned that the man wanted in the shooting death of a woman at a bookstore may be bent on killing other students and Jews. Apparently applying the lessons of Virginia Tech, police and administrators locked down the 3,000-student campus and stepped up patrols as authorities hunted for the killer. Johanna Justin-Jinich, a 21-year-old student, was shot several times Wednesday inside a bookstore cafe just off campus by a gunman wearing a wig. Two years ago, she complained to...

Obama Speaks At Wesleyan In Kennedy's PlaceBy MARK PAZNIOKAS And CHARLES PROCTOR | Courant Staff Writers May 26, 2008 SEN. BARACK OBAMA addresses the Class of 2008 at the Wesleyan commencement on Sunday morning. University President Michael Roth is seated at left. Obama stood in as a favor to Sen. Edward Kennedy, who was to be the speaker until diagnosed last week with a brain tumor. (MICHAEL KODAS / May 25, 2008) MIDDLETOWN — - Barack Obama stepped in Sunday for the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy with a call to service at Wesleyan University that was a tribute to a...

BOSTON (AP) — Sen. Edward Kennedy is pulling out of the commencement address at Wesleyan University after being diagnosed with brain cancer, and Barack Obama will stand in for him. A spokeswoman for Kennedy said he had planned to speak at the Sunday ceremony in Middletown, Conn., where his stepdaughter will be among the graduates. The commencement exercises also coincide with 25th reunion festivities for his son Edward Kennedy Jr. Kennedy was diagnosed this week with a malignant brain tumor, which was discovered after he had a seizure last Saturday. He was released Wednesday from Massachusetts General Hospital and has...

Republican presidential candidate, Fred Thompson made his second stop through the magnolia state in less than a month Friday. He picked up an endorsement for a conservative Methodist group, the Wesleyan Center for Strategic Studies. Fred Thompson says he's the same person whether he's in the deep south or out west. His "tell it like it is" demeanor showed itself at the most recent GOP debate. But it's that same resolve the Wesleyan Center founders say is the reason they chose to endorse him. "He is just not Fred '08, he is Fred everyday," said Reverend Phillip Knight, Wesleyan Center...