InterVarsity Christian Ministry in Trouble for Acting Christian

To protect against discrimination, liberals increasingly seek to discriminate. News broke over the weekend that all twenty-three schools within the California State University system have taken steps to “derecognize” InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), a para-church Christian ministry organization that’s had a longstanding presence within university life religious settings.

What is Intervarsity’s crime? Christian orthodoxy. According to IVCF,

This new CSU policy does not allow us to require that our leaders be Christian. It is essentially asking InterVarsity chapters to change the core of their identity, and to change the way they operate in order to be an officially recognized student group.

To be fair, these ministries are not banned from campus. They’re simply “derecognized,” which is a bureaucratic way of saying, “You’re Not Welcome.” At Christianity Today, a spokesman for InterVarsity noted what derecognition entails:

Loss of recognition means we lose 3 things: free access to rooms (this will cost our chapters $13k-30k/year to reserve room). We also lose access to student activities programs, including the new student fairs where we meet most students. We also lose standing when we engage faculty, students and administrators.

So, to appease The New Tolerance, steps are taken to formally ban any organizations that require its members to actually believe what the group professes to believe. These “all comer” policies allow for the ostensible reality that an atheist could run a Christian or Islamic ministry on campus. These actions obliterate the freedom of association and dispense with the idea that any group can remain faithful to its creed and still be welcomed on campus. The result is the conglomeration of sameness, safety, and indifference.

This news comes after it was learned that a Massachusetts’ school district has taken steps to end its teacher education partnership with Gordon College, an evangelical college, after Gordon College’s president, Michael Lindsay, voiced concerns over an executive order that would potentially infringe upon the hiring standards for Christian universities.

It also follows similar action taken at Bowdoin College and Vanderbilt to derecognize a Christian organization because of its beliefs, except these institutions are private and California schools are public.

Of course, the subterranean context to this scenario and those like it is that Christianity deems homosexuality immoral, a sentiment tantamount to racism in today’s academic setting.

This refrain is becoming all too common: A Christian expresses belief that homosexual actions are sinful. The offended party then files a complaint with an adjudicating authority. And since being offended is the greatest threat to young adult self-esteem in America, and in the name of non-discrimination, the logical step, of course, is to discriminate in the name of discrimination.

Spilling ink and expending energy over the overzealous acts of liberal dogma grows tiresome.

There’s no need to be outraged. Be concerned. Be indignant at the stupefying effects of liberal orthodoxy. Fight this nonsense at the local, state, and federal level. Preserve freedom. But remember, it’s all in the end very silly. Liberalism is increasingly a self-parody.

I could spend the next hour providing link after link of stories like these (and others, such as discrimination against Christian-owned business owners whose businesses cater to the wedding industry, but who object to using their services for same-sex weddings), but one comment should be added. Defending InterVarsity requires defending Hobby Lobby, cake bakers, and photographers, and other would-be offenders of today’s sexual moralism. Consistency matters. Since liberalism seeks to vaporize all dissent, this means that it seeks to quench dissent on all flanks and all fronts.

To act on a sincerely held religious and/or moral belief requires that we protect such action in whatever arena such action is pursued.

Andrew Walker is the director of policy studies for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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