Opposition to Evangelical Clubs in American Colleges and Universities

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There has been a battle waging in the American colleges and universities between the secularists and the evangelical Christians from the earliest days of the nation with the deists, agnostics, and atheists with their Enlightenment base in conflict against the evangelical Christians with their Biblical base.  Much of this is now very much evidenced in subtle attacks, such as not recognizing evangelical clubs as being part of the approved clubs of the educational establishment. Over the past two decades the fighting for the acceptance of evangelical clubs in all kinds of ways has very often a battle in the post-secondary academic settings.

In a work by Joseph C. Fox in the Scholar Commons, June 9, 2019 he observed that D.A. Hollinger, had written an article published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2002 that concluded:  “Now that academia is emancipated from Protestant hegemony, the evils of which require no belaboring here…I believe we should rejoice in this…Universities should not surrender back to Christianity the ground they have won for a more independent, cosmopolitan life of the mind. There are plenty of things wrong with higher education in the United States today, but a deficiency in Christianity is not one of them (p. 48-49)…Therefore, for Hollinger the question as to whether Christian marginalization in higher education has occurred has already been settled.”  For him Christianity is out in academia, and pure secular-based thinking is in for which he is very happy.

Many of the colleges and universities have refused to allow evangelical clubs  to be formally accepted as extra curricula organizations, which can mean the loss of financial help, the loss on campus meetings places, the loss of advertisement, and even an attitude of alienation set up toward them. They have done this under their nondiscrimination policies. They are supposedly against discrimination, but very much committed to discrimination against evangelical Christians. What is happening to Evangelical Christian organizations is a deliberate attempt to undermine their presence and influence on college campuses.

The Christian Legal Society v. Martina case back in 2010 was  driven by conflicts that have been playing out on a handful of campuses around the country, driven by the universities’ desire to rid from their campuses what they consider to be bias, particularly against gay men and lesbians and against conservative thinking.  In the eyes of evangelicals this has been fueled by a discomfort in academia with conservative forms of Christianity.

The universities have been emboldened to regulate religious groups by the Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that determined that public universities could—but were not obligated to require all student groups to admit members and leaders without regard to their beliefs, and that excluded gays.  This court decision has as well lapped over into private and even Christian colleges. Now, in fact, most all evangelical clubs do not exclude gays as members, since they need the gospel and are people who need to be ministered unto.   However, the evangelical clubs from the Biblical understanding do reject not just gay or lesbian sex but premarital and extra-marital sex as well other behavior, which they consider negative from the teaching of the scriptures.   The do not want their leadership to be involved in such behavior!

Elena Reynolds back seven years ago in March 23, 2012 in The College Conservative wrote:

          Christianity is under unprecedented assault on college campuses  throughout the country.

          While universities would have you believe they are beacons of diversity and tolerance,                   

          when it comes to anything “Christian,” there seems to be a double standard. For example,

          over the last several years, fifteen Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship chapters have been

          forced off college campuses because their chapters failed to meet non-discrimination

          policies.

In 2010, four Christian student-run groups at Vanderbilt University were placed on provisional status, including the Christian Legal Society and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, after requiring their members to adhere to the religious tenets of the group.  The school began reviewing the policies of all 380 registered student groups after a gay student filed a complaint against a Christian fraternity when asked to  leave due to his openly  gay status. Vanderbilt adopted a politically correct method to  deal with the problem by forcing Christian groups to follow the university’s non-discrimination policies if they wished to receive funding, even if those policies conflicted with the beliefs of the group.

There is a case in point, which is now going on, as now on the battle field at Wayne State University, as it has joined the wave of colleges trying to dictate which students can serve as leaders of campus clubs and ministries.  Wayne State University has joined the wave of colleges trying to dictate which students can serve as leaders of campus clubs and ministries including ones that represent certain religious beliefs and moral standards evangelical can’t accept.

Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship, an international student ministry that has had a chapter at Wayne State for 75 years, sued the Detroit school last year for denying its routine application process, because they would not open up their leadership roles to everyone on campus—even those who oppose a group’s stated mission or beliefs.

The school abruptly revoked Inter Varsity’s recognition as a student group in 2017 when then–chapter President Christina Garza applied for renewal. University officials told Garza that the chapter’s constitution violated the school’s nondiscrimination policy by requiring its leaders to be Christians. In one of its court filings, Wayne State railed against Inter Varsity’s in what they called a “decision to make second-class citizens of students who refuse to accept their religious pledge.”

Inter Varsity contended that the university really had relegated it to second-class status. Wayne State has not applied the policy to other student groups that limit who can hold leadership roles. Fraternities and sororities limit their membership by sex, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Students Association limits its membership to Muslims, and even the Quidditch Club, based on a fictional game from Harry Potter, can select leaders who affirm its stated mission.

The Becket Fund, which represented  Inter varsity  in the Wayne State case also sued the University of Iowa after it kicked Business Leaders for Christ off campus for allegedly violating the school’s nondiscrimination policy. A court ordered the university to allow the group to remain on campus, but the university dug in, not only appealing the case but purging the campus of nearly 40 religious groups, including Inter Varsity. The groups were temporarily reinstated, as Becket has sued again, but the litigation is not over. The battle is still going on, however, regardless of the temporary ruling.

Wayne State student and Inter Varsity member Deaunai Montgomery said,  “As a Christian, we need our leaders to sincerely believe that what they teach us about Jesus is true,” she told Fox News after a court hearing. “To be clear, we want everyone to feel welcome to attend our group, but why should our Bible studies, prayer, and worship be led by someone who doesn’t believe those things?”

Back in June 9, 2014  Michael Paulson of the New York Times wrote an article entitled–Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy— writing that:

For forty 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. 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.

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.

At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on twenty-three campuses, the chancellor has prepared this summer to withdraw official recognition of evangelical groups that are refusing to pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders.  They have asked the students to cut the words “personal commitment to Jesus Christ” from their list of qualifications for leadership.

However, at most universities where they have begun requiring religious groups to sign nondiscrimination policies–Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and mainline Protestant groups, have agreed to conform, saying they will conform to the politically correct requirement, so as to not discriminate, and they do not anticipate that the new policies will cause problems. This is not the case, however, with clubs such as Inter-Varsity and other evangelical groups, and they are seeking to hold their ground in this battle!

I recall way back many years ago, when I went to UNC at Chapel Hill to study philosophy that Mrs. Billy Graham, Ruth, advised me to become a part of the Inter-Varsity chapter there, and I am very thankful I did.

In a broad sense, an evangelical is defined as a person who believes that a personal God exists, and that He revealed Himself to humanity in the following ways: 1) through the natural universe (what theologians call general revelation), 2) through the incarnation (life), death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and 3) through the Bible (special revelation), which is believed to be the infallible and inerrant word of God.

More specifically, evangelicals believe that all human beings are separated from a holy God by their personal sins. Sin is defined as any act that contradicts God’s personal character or commands. Sin can occur in thought, word or deed. Because God is just, He will justly and wrathfully judge every human being for their personal sins. However, though God detests sin and is righteously justified in judging it, God does not desire to wrathfully judge sinners.

Evangelicals believe that the triune God acted in humanity’s behalf by sending His only Son to die on a cross for all sinners, for all time, and that the only way that a person can have a restored relationship with this God is by believing and trusting in the Son of God (the one who died in their place as payment for their sins). Evangelicals believe that God demonstrated His love for all of humanity by providing a way back into a restored relationship with Himself. God did this by the miracle of the incarnation where in the revelation of the Son of God he limited himself to become a human being, taking on human flesh, willingly going to a cross to die for sins, and then rising from the dead. In fact, n  believe that true love was forever defined by this great act of selflessness on the part of God toward all human beings.

The essence of the gospel (or good news) is that God Himself paid the penalty for human sin and offers the following gifts to all who would believe: 1) forgiveness of sins, 2) full restoration, 3) adoption as His children, and 4) eternal life in heaven with Him.

When a person believes this gospel, it is at this point in time that this new person of faith is said to be “born again.” Acting upon those beliefs in gratitude for what God has done for him or her, an evangelical attempts to align all areas of his or her life with the personal character and commands of God, as revealed by the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The Christian life becomes not a way to get to heaven but a way to glorify God eternally.

Evangelicals do not strive for personal righteousness in order to earn salvation. By faith (in God’s personal character), they strive for personal righteousness as an expression of gratitude to God for His love, grace and mercy in providing salvation for them.      

Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of an evangelical is their high view of the Bible. Evangelicals consider the Bible to be inspired by God (literally God-breathed) and therefore, authoritative above all other epistemology. They believe that God (the Holy Spirit) used human authors and superintended the very words of Scripture. Simply, an evangelical is a person that has a decidedly Biblical worldview.

The world-view of Evangelical Christians is very much in contrast with the more liberal, unrealistic world-views.   It is not welcome on many, if not most of our progressive college campuses.

The philosopher, David Hume put forth an epistemology that contains two main points with both points involving human reason: 1) abstract reasoning concerning quantity (math) and 2) experimental reasoning concerning facts (science).  For Hume anything outside of these two epistemological-boundary-markers should be committed “to the flames”. All religious texts (“volume[s]–of divinity”) would exist outside of Hume’s parameters and would therefore be considered “nothing but sophistry and illusion”, observed Joseph C. Fox in his work,  “Evangelical Students in American Higher Education,” (Fox, p.30).

Although the history of modern science demonstrates the Enlightenment dichotomy to be an unfounded one (the fathers of modern science (Newton, Linnaeus, Boyle, Kepler, Euler, Cuvier, Faraday, Morse, Babbage, Joule, Pasteur, Mendel, etc.) were men of both faith and reason), the Enlightenment created a dichotomy or schism between faith and reason that persists to this day and is very much basic in our universities and colleges. Since the beginning of the Enlightenment period (late seventeenth century), there has been a protracted struggle between faith and reason on America’s campuses.

Christians are accused of believing in the superstition of  the supernatural.  Yet, the Christian faith does not reject reason, but it looks at reason and all empirical knowledge as to be understood in the context of faith.  You can’t reach true faith by reason, but from faith to reason there is the connection. Faith in Christ amplifies and enriches reason.

Look at John 1:1-5 that says:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”  The Word is the summation of truth!  The empirical truth is only a partial truth,and is the process of the inquiry for truth, where in Christ the Truth became incarnated.

Reason when it unites with faith, enables us to be able to miss the condition suggested by II Timothy 3:1-5 & 7 that says: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away…Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. The influence of the evangelical Christian faith in the post-secondary domain in our universities and colleges is provided by the evangelical witness on our campuses, so that we might not not sink into anarchy and destruction!

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