Evolutionists and atheist activists who recently complained about a Ball State University assistant professor teaching creationism may be missing a broader view of education, according to popular Christian apologist Lee Strobel, who says that colleges should be a place where students can explore both Darwinism and creationism fully and freely.

"I believe we should give teachers, scientists, and students the right to pursue the evidence wherever it takes them – even if it takes them to the politically incorrect conclusion that there's an Intelligent Designer," Strobel told The Christian Post via email. "In other words, let's test the evidence in the marketplace of ideas.

"As two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling said, 'Science is the search for the truth.' At least, it should be. Personally, I even believe we should teach more on Darwinism," he added. "That's right – more. That's because today students are given only a cursory and one-sided explanation of evolution. On this surface level, the theory's grandest claims seem to hold together pretty well. Yet if students are encouraged to dig deeper – in fact, to examine all of the evidence, pro and con – they begin to recognize its fatal flaws." more >>

At a recent interfaith prayer breakfast in Jacksonville, Fla., Bishop T.D. Jakes, lead pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, encouraged religious and city leaders to acknowledge their "daunting job" of helping at-risk youth by uniting on a private, public, and spiritual front to improve graduation rates and decrease crime and unemployment rates in the city.

Jakes served as the keynote speaker at Mayor Alvin Brown's annual Interfaith Breakfast on Monday. along with speakers from Faith Temple Assembly of God, Evangel Temple, Alachua-Central African Methodist Episcopal Church, Celebration Church, and Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.

"We need to fight the good fight of faith," Jakes told those in attendance, as reported by The Florida-Times Union. more >>

With the cost of higher education skyrocketing, student loan debt growing, and youth unemployment persistently high, a former United States Secretary of Education asks "Is College Worth It?"

In Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education, William J. Bennett and David Wilezol examine the costs and benefits of American higher education. The book explains the tough jobs market, a potentially repressive academic culture, and the benefits of alternative options.

Wilezol, an associate producer of the Bill Bennett's Morning in America show, discussed the economic benefits of a college degree. He intends the bookto be for "parents who think about not only the ROI [Return On Investment] for their kids in terms of jobs, but also what is being taught in the classroom in terms of what they want their kids exposed to," he told The Christian Post. more >>

Popular black scholar and political commentator Dr. Boyce Watkins ripped into President Barack Obama on Monday for lacking what he believes is the moral authority to tell graduates at the prestigious historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., that racism is no longer an excuse for failure in America.

In his withering critique of Obama's address to graduates of Martin Luther King Jr.'s alma mater on Monday, Watkins charged that the president's speech was an excuse for his own inaction in confronting racism in any meaningful way.

"When Obama comes to Morehouse and says, 'Stop using racism as an excuse and start taking more responsibility,' we LOVE it. We also nod our heads in agreement because for the educated elite, Obama isn't talking about us. He's talking about 'them.' You know, those n*ggaz who keep getting sent to prison, who can't get jobs, and who are killing each other in the street. They deserve their plight because they don't work as hard as the rest of us, at least that's the logic," wrote Boyce in his critique posted on the website Black Blue Dog. more >>

Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield joined Monday the criticism started by a National Association of Scholars (NAS) report on liberal indoctrination occuring at Bowdoin College, a liberal arts school in Brunswick, Maine, by condemning the lax standards of liberal education.

"Earlier in my life," he wrote, "liberals took pride in the high standards they set for the colleges that had recently come to dominate and had made the headquarters of their liberalism."

"Now, they have made an unholy sacrifice of the devotion to excellence they once prized as a mark of distinction over fuddy-duddy, tradition-bound conservatism, and it is conservatives who stand for high standards in education." more >>

Editor's Note: This is the third part of a four-part series based on the new book, "Aliens in the Promised Land: Why Minority Leadership Is Overlooked in White Christian Churches and Institutions." The Christian Post series looks at racism and multi-ethnicity in the church from the perspective of African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American Christian leaders. Part One, an interview with the editor of the book, Anthony Bradley, can be read by clicking here. Part Two, an interview with Asian-American Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong, can be read here.

Serving as director of the Center for the Study of Hispanic Church and Community and associate professor of Hispanic studies and pastoral leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, Dr. Juan Martinez knows first-hand how vital it is for seminaries to come alongside Latino Christians who are oftentimes already active in ministry without having ever stepped inside a seminary.

"Most Latino Protestants are Pentecostals, which means that most of the students in the Hispanic Center are already in ministry and do not need a degree from Fuller to pastor. They study at Fuller as part of their continuing education, not to be ordained. Many of these students are on the fringe of U.S. Protestantism and do not regularly have to interact with the power structures of majority-culture churches," Martinez writes in Aliens in the Promised Land. more >>