kata ta biblia

I noticed that someone reached my blog by searching for “daily show messiah college.” I was away this weekend, so I hadn’t watched the latest from Stewart’s Daily Show online. When I looked it up, I found that it was in relation to Monica Goodling, who is unfortunately bringing Messiah’s name into the news for all the wrong reasons (not to mention how awfully misconstrued the bad press has been). Stewart’s line:

Here she is swearing in on the Bible, which is kind of redundant for a graduate of both Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School and place called [pause] ‘Messiah College’ [audience laughter], which everyone in the God business knows is a [pause] ’savior school.’ [Shakes his head and mouths 'No, just kidding' or something to that effect]

I think that last line was meant to be a play on the old bit of calling some university a “party school.” It’s sad that the mere name of the school conjures up laughter. Once I wore my Messiah College sweatshirt on a dress-down Friday at my job in Seattle. Someone asked me: “Is that a real school?” Yes. That is a real school. And a good one at that. To be honest, I’m not sure the school’s name is the best. There was a rumor that it might be changed awhile back and a whole ton of students, alums, and doners raised a fuss. In the end, though, if Messiah had changed it’s name, it would’ve just added a couple more words to Stewart’s line: “a place that used to be called ‘Messiah College.’”

As an aside, I mention that this last comment I received was in Seattle because Messiah has a firm reputation in its geographical region of Central PA. Outside of PA, it’s known amongst those who know about Christian colleges, but not the general public so much. That’s why we have to set the record straight here.

For those wondering about this Monica Goodling and Messiah College business, please see my earlier post about Messiah College’s bad press lately or, if you’re interested, you can see how Messiah has responded to the issue of homosexuality with a genuine openness to dialogue. Here is the Daily Show clip, which originally aired 5/24/07, from the source itself:

I do have to admit that I thought the “rosebud” line was hilarious, but I am still disappointed that Stewart would go for the easy laugh line in my alma mater’s name, while tossing its solid credentials to the side.

Update (same day): Someone told me another interpretation of the “savior school” thing. They thought it was a replacement for “safety school,” as in it’s a “safe bet” that you’d get accepted. That might make more sense of his shake-of-the-head brush off afterwards. Whatever it meant, it was a bad joke anyhow. A lot of the time the show is funny (to me anyway), but sometimes they just have bad jokes.