There’s a debate happening at Vanderbilt University between the administration and a large portion of the student populace. Vanderbilt has suspended several Christian organizations, including InterVarsity’s Graduate Christian Fellowship, for requiring their student leaders to be Christians. Learn more from InterVarsity here.
In a “town hall” last night during which the administration reportedly dismissed student concerns, the university compared this current issue to the Civil Rights movement. In their eyes, campus organizations that are officially recognized by the university should, in keeping with the university’s non-discrimination policy, not be able to “discriminate” in their leadership selection by requiring student leaders to be Christians; Vanderbilt sees themselves as Civil Rights crusaders.
Notice that this is not about who the groups allow to attend their meetings, but rather who lead them. When the potential for this situation to arise has been discussed in the past, the comparison has been made to the university requiring the Campus Democrats to allow all comers–even Republicans–to become leaders within this organization. Imagine, if a group of Republicans joined a Democratic club and successfully voted one of their own a leader of the organization.
This is not to suggest that Christian groups have enemies on campus that plan to infiltrate our ranks. Rather, it’s to point out the extreme to which the university is attempting to take a well-intentioned non-discrimination policy.
For now, the best we can do is pray and stay up to date on the news surrounding the issue. If you want to learn more, take a look at InterVarsity’s Campus Access page.
Oy Vey! Is common sense dead?
I feel like Ron Swanson here. The university should not interfere with this kind of stuff. If the Intervarsity leadership was uniting people to commit hate crimes, or even just vandalize the school in some way, I could see them stepping in. But this is an unwarranted display of people trying to get involved with business they don’t need to be involved in.
I totally agree with your Democratic/Republican analogy. Now, I understand that any campus club that receives any funding from the school has certain rights and certain limits they must adhere to; I was involved with FCA leadership at the University of Florida. But there is no reason for Vanderbilt to get involved with leadership of any club. Would they say this to the Jewish student clubs? Could I go and demand to be promoted to leadership even if I lack the chutzpah? That would be stupid. Nisht gut!
In all honesty, most students aren’t going to want to creep up into the ranks of Christian organizations unless they are themselves believers. I mean heck, I get annoyed by Christians and I am one. It would suck to be on a leadership team that is praying all the time to something I don’t believe in.
But the danger I see here is that it is one step more towards letting the biggest babies see the biggest results. Let’s say some person who is totally unqualified and ungodly wants to move up into the ranks of a club (or on a grander scheme- a Christian non-profit organization), and the leadership rightfully shuts him down. Now they don’t excommunicate him from the church or group, but they do not allow him to be in leadership. Well then this guy goes and cries about it and says he was discriminated against. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and then the organization is sued and screwed.
I hope this ends and Intervarsity doesn’t have anymore problems with it, but most likely things are going to get worse and worse. But as Christians, we should not be surprised by this. The powers of darkness are always going to be against the Kingdom of God. And as more is taken away, instead of being outraged and pitching fits on the news, I say we devote that time to prayer and coming up with new ways to do what we’re called to do. Of course the Body of Christ will have opposition. But opposition is usually a good sign that we’re getting somewhere.
(I think I just wrote more than your entire blog. Sorry. This just annoyed me and got me thinking. Which I suppose is what your intent was, so… well done, Matthew.)