“In fact, Bowdoin was using this policy to wrestle the BCF into place, to force it to deny its commitments to orthodox Christianity’s teachings on conjugal sexuality.” That seems obvious. So, what should the students do? Recall that Jesus told his followers to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” The college has absolutely no right to tell Christians to act against their faith. But it does control its own facilities.
My alma mater, Bowdoin College, made the front page of The New York Times this month, but not in a good way.
Nonetheless, institutional arrogance and disregard for human rights are always important topics to explore.
On June 9, under the headline “Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy,” the Times reported, “For 40 years, evangelicals at Bowdoin College have gathered periodically to study the Bible together, to pray and to worship. They are a tiny minority on the liberal arts college campus, but they have been a part of the school’s community, gathering in the chapel, the dining center, the dorms.”
However, that has changed: “After this summer, the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship will no longer be recognized by the college. Already, the college has disabled the electronic key cards of the group’s longtime volunteer advisers.”
The college says it hasn’t expelled the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship, but the evangelical group’s members have refused to submit a charter that contains a provision the college has begun demanding for official recognition.
If you ask why this is happening, you haven’t been paying attention. There are some things the super-tolerant just can’t tolerate.
Remaining true to Christianity as it has been understood and practiced for 2,000 years is now a condemnable act – if you are a modern liberal and have Christians under your thumb.
I can’t say it any better than the Times did: “In a collision between religious freedom and anti-discrimination policies, the student group, and its advisers, have refused to agree to the college’s demand that any student, regardless of his or her religious beliefs, should be able to run for election as a leader of any group, including the Christian association.”
Got that? Bowdoin has decided, in the name of “equal rights,” to run roughshod over the rights of a student group founded in the name of a particular religion with particular beliefs about morality and sexual ethics.
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