"R Ur Eyes on Jesus? Ur Nabes have their pupils aimed at him, so says the bright yellow-and-black sign in their yard. Merr-ee Xmas. You know who."

I scribbled the words on a torn piece of notepaper and stuck them in the shoe box I'd placed in a brown paper Whole Foods grocery bag and hung on my friend's wreath-bedecked door. I am the finicky friend. She's the friend who graciously relishes my Euro-comfort cast offs.

My friend and I'll manage to meet up over the holidays. I don't know when just yet. She's in paper grading hell, she texted me this morning. She's a professor at a local university and I'm a the friend who's anxious to get the inside-faculty scoop when we soon meet up over steaming cups of tea.

The inside scoop, according to the local and national press, is that the faculty stood behind their colleague, when Belmont University's winning soccer coach was reputedly asked to leave. All hell broke loose–before exams even commenced–when Lisa Howe told her team early this month that her same-sex partner was pregnant….

Uh. Oh.

You see, Belmont University has followed suit of Furman, Baylor and Wake Forest universities, shedding the moniker (and stigma) of "Baptist." Impressively, the liberal arts college was increasingly positioning itself in the national limelight. Most notably, the University hosted the 2008 presidential debates at its Nashville (and main) campus here.

I was raised in the conservative Baptist culture and worked in communications for the Southern Baptist Convention early in my career. I don't know that I've ever admitted here that employment in the largest Protestant denomination is a part of my employment legacy. Despite my rejection of the religion of my youth and the eventual passing through and out of the continuum of Christianity in my mid-to-late 40s, I am grateful for my upbringing, particularly for the perspective it gives me on issues such as this.

I totally get the conflict that's going on with the traditional Baptist and Christian ideology here locally.  Side note: Belmont is rooted in the not always progressively reputed South. And, in an up-and-coming Southern city that's also the Buckle of the Bible Belt. (Before any others hailing from Southern cities attempt to lay Buckle claim, note the number of denominationally based educational institutions here, from parochial public school backlashing lower grades to higher learning; from the number of denominational headquarters to the number of religious publishing houses. Hands down, we've got the belt fastened.)

I totally get it nationally….Our local delimma is but a microcosym of what's broiling nationally. From the disparity of views on Don't Ask Don't Tell to fundamentalist Christian opposition to Obama's faith views. From the notion that our president is Muslim to the claim that he is not a Christian because of the inclusitivity of his faith views.

In the last two decades of my Christian experience, I identified with the belief of Universalism–that there are many paths to God. (And I still believe this.) When I finally left Christianity, I came home to my center of truth–my own real-life eight-year-old girl (me) who asked her pastor why a loving God would cast people who had never even heard of him to hell. I never got over that disconnect–loving God vs. wrathful God. (Here's a Florida church on a mission to share a message counter to the God of hell-fire-and-brimstone.)

Inclusitivity of other faiths and lifestyles does not match the fundamentalist view that there is only one way and one truth. And thus, Christians who do not claim this are not Christian according to this exclusive view. In an earnest adherence to a fundamentalist belief system that is not always supported by an educated, scholarly views of the scriptures–going back to the original writings in Greek and Hebrew–tolerance of sexual orientation is a serious sticking point.

Belmont is at a crossroads. Old values or embracing a greater view? Which is it? The school created this dilemma, again, by positioning itself as progressive and "diverse."

Tennessean columnist Gail Kerr couldn't have said it any better:

"Make no mistake about it: This is a turning point for Belmont. Is it really the progressive university [President] Fisher has strived to create? […] Here is a woman who has been ousted by a Christian university because she is choosing to become a mother in a nontraditional way and refuses to lie about it or hide who she is. During the Christmas season. Imagine that."

My views stem from my personal faith pilgrimage and are not intended to be communicated in a way that suggests superiority over or condemnation of those who hold to traditional Christianity….When eyes are truly on the prophet Jesus and his footsteps, and, in trying to, in some portion, fill his shoes, life message and mission, then that is a beautiful intention, in my opinion. And, maybe in the case of Belmont and how it treated lesbian staffer Howe, the question is: "What Would Jesus Do?"