TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It's 11 a.m. on a Saturday, and whiskey is flowing at the big houses on fraternity row at the University of Alabama. Guys in ties and baseball caps are laughing and dancing with sorority girls in bright dresses as a band blares away just around the corner.

Smack in the middle of that row is the Lambda Sigma Phi house, but things are a lot quieter inside. Parents are helping put out the lunch spread before a Crimson Tide football game and a few members lounge in the den watching TV.

A Bible passage decorates the door to the main room. "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord," it begins.

Lambda Sigma Phi is part of a wave of Christian fraternities and sororities that have gained a foothold on U.S. college campuses, sometimes despite the wishes of school administrators. Members get pumped up about prayer, Bible study and service projects, passions they say campus officials should embrace as fresh amid a Greek culture typically seen as centered on hazing and keg parties.

Founded in 2001, Lambda Sigma Phi hopes to show other groups at the university what they believe Jesus is all about.

"We're almost in a bubble because we're surrounded by all this. That's why we're here on Jefferson Avenue, to minister to these guys," said chapter president Daniel Weaver. "We want to be a light on this campus."

Many social fraternities and sororities have Christian tenets, and Christian-lifestyle fraternities have existed for generations. Several began about 80 years ago during the Roaring Twenties.

Greek-letter organizations that promote Christian practices have become more common in recent years, with young evangelicals seeking to live out their faith. At least 210 such groups exist on campuses nationwide. They are most common in the Deep South, but also strong in parts of the Midwest.

Rules against drinking are common in these groups, along with Bible studies and service projects that resemble church-based mission work.

Alpha Delta Chi, a Christian sorority with 14 active chapters nationwide, is straightforward about its membership requirements: Churchgoing Christians only. No smoking or illegal drugs. No premarital sex. And please, no drinking to the point that it would reflect badly on Christianity.

"All the girls are in Bible studies. We also do sisterhood retreats and outreach," said Kiran Thadhani, president of the Alpha Delta Chi chapter that opened five years ago at Georgia Tech. "Many girls work at soup kitchens, go on summer mission trips and work right here on homelessness and poverty issues in Atlanta."

Many campuses welcome the combination of old-time religion with Greek-letter social groups, but others haven't.

At the University of Florida, Beta Upsilon Chi filed a federal discrimination suit last year after administrators refused to officially recognize the fraternity because it required members to be Christians. The school considered the requirement discriminatory, and the fraternity claimed it was wrongly deprived of meeting space and the ability to recruit on campus.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the school to recognize the group as a fraternity while the lawsuit winds its way through the legal system.

An attorney for the Christian Legal Society, Timothy F. Tracey, said Christian Greek-letter groups have been opening on the nation's campuses more frequently since the mid-1990s, and that court fights have been rare.

"I can think of four or five cases that have come up with fraternities like this," said Tracey, who represents the group at the University of Florida.

At Auburn University, members of Alpha Kappa Lambda decided in 2000 to switch the focus of their fraternity from athletics to Christianity. Drew Bonner, a junior from Birmingham, Ala., visited and liked what he saw.

"I didn't really look into fraternities at first because of the reputation," said Bonner. "I met a bunch of these guys through the semester and started looking into it. I really liked it. I'm active in a church here, too, but it's not the same as this."

AKL, part of a secular fraternity with more than 30 chapters, rents a house and throws parties, but without alcohol and members keep the fun pretty tame. "Animal House" it's not.

Bonner's group, like many Christian fraternities and sororities, is small by big-campus standards. Alpha Kappa Lambda's membership hovers between 30 and 35 — less than half the size of many Auburn fraternities — even though its semester dues of $750 are much cheaper than many.

At Alabama, Lambda Sigma Phi lost about 40 members last year in a split over whether to become more like a traditional fraternity. "We really stood up against it because we wanted to remain Christian," said Weaver, the president.

The group only has about 30 members now, which is fine with Weaver and his frat brothers.

Clete Hux, a Presbyterian minister who has two sons in Lambda Sigma Phi, said he's got peace of mind that eludes many parents who send their children off to college.

"You know there's not going to be any wild parties going on. They have accountability groups and Bible studies," he said. "It's kind of furthering what you as parents instill in your children."