By Ed Stetzer, The Exchange
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) has been, in modern campus terminology, “derecognized” by California State University schools. Basically, they will no longer be a recognized campus organization on any of the 23 schools in that system. IVCF has been derecognized because they require their leaders to have Christian beliefs.
It’s not just InterVarsity that will be impacted. Following the same logic, any group that insists on requiring its leaders to follow an agreed upon set of guiding beliefs is no longer kosher (irony intended) at California’s state universities. This will impact many other faith-based organizations with actual, well, faith-based beliefs. Presumably, even People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would have to allow Oscar Meyer to lead their campus chapters.
Only in a modern American university would this make any sense.
Now, it’s not persecution. Christians are not banned. People can share their faith. But, now, what we once called “equal access” has taken another hit—people of faith do not have equal access to the university community, like the environmentalist club, the LGBT organization, or the chess club.
The university system has decided that speech with beliefs that undergird it—and shape how it is organized—has to be derecognized.
Related article: Will InterVarsity losing Cal State standoff be tipping point for campus ministries nationwide?
2 Comments. Leave new
“However, it appears, increasingly, that Evangelical (and Catholic and Mormon) beliefs are the new “racism” to be excluded from the free exchange of ideas at institutions of higher learning”
People send their kids to these schools with their values in tact, and by the time they get out, they’ve lost so much of their faith, it’s groups like this that tried to give them some sanctuary from the bs thats taught at these schools. Again,we need to get on our own side here.
Yes, the Onion has an interesting take on the new free exchange of idea, http://www.theonion.com/article/college-encourages-lively-exchange-of-idea-38496.