Features Articles

Thomas and Batt discuss ideas for Batt’s script during filming. / Triangle photo by Anna Katherine Thomas

Anna Katherine Thomas
Photo Editor

After the Broad Street Film Festival last year, students complained and lamented that the event did not live up to past film festivals, but this year the film festival will return to a three-day event, according to Chris Clark, Bryan College’s film professor.

“We are trying to go with that three prong 2012, meaning showings Thursday night, Friday night some kind of educational component for the filmmakers, and then Saturday having the awards night, the formal Oscar-like night,” said Clark.

In 2011, Clark attempted to begin the planning process for the festival with a group of students, but he said only two or three people showed up for the meetings.

At that time, Chattanooga State Community College stepped in and said it would put on a toned down version of the film festival, according to Clark.

With a limited amount of time to put the festival together, Chattanooga State decided to make the event one night, instead of three, with online or on the spot voting. Read full story »

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

A word from the Psychology Department

Jesse Murray
Senior Reporter

How do you approach the issue as Christian counselors?

Rose: Everyone’s unique and people have struggles and difficulties and we’re all faced with temptation in different ways and – if somebody has a certain desire or certain temptation it does not necessarily make them a bad person.

Where the rubber meets the road is how they act upon that temptation or desire and, whether heterosexual or homosexual desires, …what do they do with those particular temptations or those desires. And so approaching that person with respect and dignity and treating them as a human being verses a heterosexual or a homosexual, would be my first direction to take and doing that in love and respect.

Bradshaw: I echo that, and I would add to that. You have to have compassion with conviction- you have compassion for the person and conviction for God’s word and what it says about the sin of homosexuality – and there is a sin of that – doesn’t mean the essence of that is sinful. I believe someone can have same sex attraction and not act on it and be as chaste as somebody who is heterosexual and not acting on their adulterous or fornicative impulse. Read full story »

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

The national blackout

By Wikimedia Foundation, via Wikimedia Commons

Alex Green
Assistant Online Editor

United States Representative Lamar Smith, Texas, proposed a bill last October called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in an effort to curb illegal trafficking of American intellectual property (music, movies, etc.) and counterfeit goods (fake prescription medicine). The act, however, has taken heavy fire from free-internet advocators.

The SOPA bill would basically give the United States government the power to make American internet providers like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc. block access to sites, foreign and domestic, that are known to be allowing piracy of American copyrighted property or selling fake prescription medicine.

This has come as a result of a mammoth community of non-American websites that provide free music, television and movies without the permission of the owners of said products. Because so many of these pirating sites are offshore, the United States government cannot prosecute them in an American court of law. Read full story »

Last semester's "Couch" forum, hosted by the Worldview Formation, sparked many in the student body to question if it's possible to be Christian and homosexual / Triangle photo by Maddie K. Doucet

Jesse Murray
Senior Reporter

Bryan College is keeping up with the times, and with that comes everything that entails—hardship and hard questions. In the past months, the college has addressed a host of issues ranging from ethnic diversity to the current chapel theme on sexuality and the Bible. Last semester, Worldview Formation held a forum called “The Couch.” The topic was homosexuality, and the opinions of individual speakers varied. This forum opened a Pandora’s Box of questions that has left many students looking for answers.

The issue of homosexuality in the context of a Christian community is anything but nice and neat, and it’s an issue for more people than one might realize. To put it simply is to not understand the gravity of the issue. It’s anything but simple because human beings are anything but simple. The question to be addressed in this first article, of what will be a short series, is this: how is homosexuality treated at Bryan by administrators and faculty? The purpose of this series is not to prove or disprove anything—and especially not to address deeper questions that would be better suited for a public forum. Its purpose is to be informative, and to perhaps foster helpful discussion.

From an administrative position, the handbook speaks volumes. Bryan is a Christian private institution, and as such, is under no obligation to show tolerance to homosexuality on campus. Read full story »

Tim Baldi
Senior Reporter

In mid-December, Google Inc. announced that it would donate $11.5 million to 10 reputable organizations known for fighting human trafficking throughout the world.

In an interview on Forbes, a Google representative said the donation will “free more than 12,000 people from modern-day slavery,” prevent more victims from being trafficked and encourage collaboration between organizations such as Polaris Project, International Justice Mission (IJM), ActionAid India and the other recipients of the donation.

Both Polaris Project and IJM have participated in Bryan College’s human trafficking conferences and chapels.

According to a Dec. 14 CNN report, 10-30 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking. Read full story »