Tish Harrison Warren: The Wrong Kind of Christian

More PC run amok and shame on Vanderbilt. You may not give a fig about Christians being harassed off campuses. But sooner or later you will find yourself on the wrong side of PC and then you will give two figs. It is also highly ironic that places of “higher learning” where intellectual freedom and the open exchange and debate of ideas was once prized have become intellectual gulags for those who are on the wrong side of  town. Listen if you have ears. From Christianity Today online.

In writing, the new policy refers only to constitutionally protected classes (race, religion, sexual identity, and so on), but Vanderbilt publicly adopted an “all comers policy,” which meant that no student could be excluded from a leadership post on ideological grounds. College Republicans must allow Democrats to seek office; the environmental group had to welcome climate-change skeptics; and a leader of a religious group could not be dismissed if she renounced faith midyear. (The administration granted an exception to sororities and fraternities.)

Like most campus groups, InterVarsity welcomes anyone as a member. But it asks key student leaders—the executive council and small group leaders—to affirm its doctrinal statement, which outlines broad Christian orthodoxy and does not mention sexual conduct specifically. But the university saw belief statements themselves as suspect. Any belief—particularly those about the authority of Scripture or the church—could potentially constrain sexual activity or identity. So what began as a concern about sexuality and pluralism quickly became a conversation about whether robustly religious communities would be allowed on campus.

Read the whole sordid thing (and keep reminding yourself that Jesus is Lord as you do).