Plans to train future leaders to 'rebuild America for Christ and for liberty' are causing alarm, Jon Marcus reports
Two universities that have the goal of injecting Christian values into American education are making some US academics nervous.
Patrick Henry College, near Washington, plans to produce future leaders grounded in the motto "For Christ and for liberty". Its students are not allowed to smoke, drink, swear, gossip or even date without permission from their parents. Students and faculty must subscribe to a statement of faith that says the Bible is infallible, that Christ was born to a virgin and that he rose bodily from the dead, and that Satan exists.
Michael Farris, Patrick Henry's president, said: "There is a leadership vacuum in America, but with the opening of Patrick Henry College we are beginning to train many who will fill that vacuum, to rebuild America for Christ and for liberty."
Ave Maria University, a conservative Catholic school, is being run from temporary quarters while a $220 million (£106 million) campus is being built in Florida. The cash came from Tom Monaghan, founder of the Domino's Pizza chain, who says US Catholic universities are not religious enough.
These universities are well connected to Republicans and Republican causes.
There were so many students at Patrick Henry who held internships with Republican politicians or conservative advocacy groups that they were excused from classes in the days leading up to the 2004 presidential election to work on campaigns.
Many graduates of the evangelical schools plan to become lawyers, using legal cases to influence issues such as abortion, which they would like to see criminalised, and gay rights, which they say contradict Christian beliefs.
Academic critics said they were willing to hold intellectual debates with these colleges, but said they found this a slippery prospect, given the differences in belief about how academic institutions ought to operate.
Graham Walker, who is soon to succeed Mr Farris as Patrick Henry's president, said in a speech on the campus that most other colleges "have veered away from truth because of theirinfatuation with human reason".
Jason Scorse, a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, responded: "It's an inherent contradiction to start an academic institution that says 'we know all truth and everything in the Bible is true'." He questioned Patrick Henry's approach and said it and similar schools were trying to turn America into a theocracy. "The religious Right has risen to power because nobody has really called them what they are. They lurk in this world of euphemism and fuzzy thinking."
He said he would "fight to the end to defend their right to practise their religion. But let's make it a debate. I'm confident that the Enlightenment principles and the Constitution of the US will win."