The national field director for the
Northeast InterVarsity Christian
Fellowship, Greg Jao, told The
Christian Post (CP) that college
institutions such as California State University (Cal State), the largest university
system in the U.S., are prepared to withdraw recognition from certain
evangelical clubs this summer. “There’s
just enough of them that it’s not just Vanderbilt, for example, that have taken
this to an illogical extreme, it’s an increasing number of schools that
actually believe that the best way to avoid discrimination is to prevent
religious groups from becoming authentically religious. There is enough of them that it is actually a
trend,” Jao explains. “The United States
is in the middle of reassessing what it thinks the role of religion should be
in our society. Health and Human Services
questions – denial of service questions, marriage equality, etc. – are all
different questions about religion and its role in society, but they are all
being asked right now and the U.S. is coming to a very different answer than it
used to come up with.”
InterVarsity and Jao are no strangers to defending Christian clubs on
campuses. As The New York Times recently reported, universities have been “emboldened”
to regulate religious groups after a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that
determined it was constitutional for a public law school in California to deny
recognition to a Christian student group that apparently excluded gays.
“You can no longer ignore the fact
that multiple universities are doing this and it’s a sustained trend rather
than one administrator acting oddly,” Jao told CP. He differentiates the
seemingly bias college policies about leadership in Christian clubs from other
issues in the country centered on religious beliefs that are making current
headlines by pointing out that InterVarsity
is “not saying we want to impose Christian beliefs or practices. This is an internal organizational matter for
religious groups.” He added, “InterVarsity welcomes all students to
our meetings, programs, and events, and we think by and large the
non-discrimination policies are actually good things for the universities, just
taken to an illogical extreme. I don’t
think there is a large conspiracy working against religious groups, but I do
think it shows the bankruptcy of the current tolerance conversation.”
When asked about what action steps InterVarsity is taking in light of the
most recent flurry of colleges trying to enforce non-discrimination policies on
the leadership of Christian groups, Jao said, “We do not believe the
universities are our enemy. The
universities’ failure on this ground reminds us of what a needy mission field
it is. If anything, this redoubles our
commitment to be a witnessing or leading presence on campus. I’m not going to decry the blindness of people
who live in the dark. More of what I am
resolved to do is to bring the light of the Gospel there. I don’t think this is a hostile action. I think of it as natural decisions made by
people who don’t believe there’s a God, and don’t believe there’s a spiritual
world.”
He insists that InterVarsity fully intends to continue engaging the university
community by asking administrators to live up to the university system’s own
values. “If Cal State wants to be a
diverse, tolerance-inclusive school, which we support, and we think it should
be, we hope it will reconsider its role so that it’s actually welcoming and
inclusive of religious students as well,” Jao said. In addition to this type of engagement, he
says that if Christian groups do not have recognition on campuses then “we are
going to have to think as creatively as possible on how to serve students at
Cal State.”
“We are not wedded to one format as
to how we are going to reach college students and in fact, when the
circumstances change and you leave the arena, the Spirit pushes you to be more
creative,” Jao said. “We intend to have
a strong university presence at each of the schools that we are at.”
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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