A position interested me at this school and I was about to complete the job application until I saw the long section on religion... http://www.wheaton.edu/HR/appinst.html I guess evolution vs. creation debates aren't encouraged there.
Still...there's no need to be that picky. I also applied to Christianity Today and their application only had one question about religion.
There's every reason to be that picky, if you're attempting to build a college community based on a shared core of values. Notwithstanding the fact that (in this case) some of those values have descended directly from Mars, a school whose mission is to train people to spread a very specific gospel is in an excellent position to ask that the people doing the training actually believe what they're teaching.
I read a newspaper article some time ago that there were applications did include religous questions. Target was one company which supposedly equated a strong belief in Jesus with the fact that the potential employee was less likely to steal.
Is this for real ?? this aplication form is a great piece of abstract art . What next, would you have to be able to trace your Christian roots back to 1750 ?. Will you go on 'adventure holidays' to the Middle East in order to 'save' lots of people (as well as Jerusalem) ?.
Wheaton is actually considered by some to be a more liberal Christian college. But, just as Harvard wants all who work there to be flaming liberals, schools like Wheaton want those who share their beliefs.
Do you mean they don't want Muslims, Atheists etc. because they're 'different'. Obviously neither would go to such a place in practice, but it seems a bit unnerving for me that they can say 'sorry you're not one of us, so you can't come in'. It's a slippery slope, as history has constantly shown. A person's religion is more fundamental that their political views (unless they're the most devoted Marxist/Conservative etc.). Religious schools are rubbish in my view, as they are just trying to indoctrinate pupils into thinking in a very rigid way, especially it seems in parts of the USA.
We have colleges like that based on color in the US yet them seem to get by just fine and without any controversy. Although a certain university in Lousiana is now facing some troubles, but that's because of irregularities in their accounting. Nobody is forced to go to a religious school. Some of our best colleges are Jesuit schools.
I think that, even though they can see you in person, some applicators discrimante you because your name... some names you can tell that there from a certain religon..like: O'neil - Irish - Catholic Makmoud - Arab - Muslim Singh - Indian - Sikh Prokovich - Russian - Orthadox Goldstien - Polish - Jewish sooo on....
Not always the case, which is why generalisations are so dangerous. One classic example of where your thinking falls down is with Captain Terence O'Neill, a Protestant who was a former Unionist Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Because of the inter-marriages that have occurred over the last 300 years in the six counties, many Protestants have names with Irish roots (cf. O'Neill as mentioned above, Ken Maginnis) and many Catholics names with English or Scottish roots (examples of this are the politicians John Hume and Alex Attwood). I do take your point about names like Singh and Kaur, which are Sikh religious conferrals dependent on gender. However, we have to be clear where the differences lie...