Dissatisfied with Gordon College,
practicing its own Christian beliefs, last week Kimberly Driscoll (Democrat Mayor
of Salem, Massachusetts) began to take out her hostility against them. The angry tone of the actions taken against
the school reveals a few things that are important for the rest of the nearly
6,400 Christian colleges in America to understand. Not a single one of them is safe!
The progressive activists … having
lost the Hobby Lobby case before the
Supreme Court … are looking for a place to focus their vengeance. Christian schools now seem to be their target
of choice.
Background: Gordon’s President
Michael Lindsay signed a letter to President Obama asking for a waiver to be
granted to Christian schools from his impending executive order … wherein the President
has pledged to compel Christian organizations that believe in biblical sexual
practice to be forced to violate that belief and hire people who violate those
practices.
Almost universally across the
spectrum of Christian colleges and universities they have codes of ‘Behavioral
Standards’ that they ask employees and students to observe for the length of
time they wish to be employed by or a student at said school. The Christian school desires to advance and
deepen the faith of the persons affiliated with their school. The school believes it is important to be
consistent in moral worldview as well as moral practice so as to set a good
example. This is why when a professor at
a state-run university conducts themselves in immoral practices, no one knows
nor cares. But if an instructor, faculty
member, or President of a Christian college conducts an immoral choice – they are
more often than not fired upon discovery.
From the Christian school’s perspective, it is not wise to ask teachers
to instruct something they themselves are not observing.
Almost universally across the
spectrum Christian colleges is also the belief that the Bible is the final
authority on sexual practice. And the
understanding of Biblically approved sexual practice is that it is reserved for
one man and one woman in holy marriage; before God; for life. This is why students get kicked out of
Christian colleges because they are discovered to be casually/sexually involved
with each other. (More than 99% of the
time on the Christian college campus it is involvement in heterosexual
behavior.)
To be clear: Gordon College had not
set up two different sets of rules – disallowing sex for students who wished to
be involved in heterosexual behavior and a different set of rules for those who
wish to be involved in homosexual behavior. To the contrary: Equal treatment under the
Gordon College behavior standards was practiced. No sexual behavior by any student – while a
student – outside of marriage. Period!
So the Mayor of Salem doesn’t care
for any of the standards of Gordon College. She doesn’t like that they hold their students
accountable to the student’s own desires (they each agree to the behavioral
code before attending.) And now she is
attempting to destroy the school.
Which reveals something important to
understand: It is not enough to merely
disagree with leftists. They will work
with every bit of force they can muster to compel you into agreement with them.
In Driscoll’s case she immediately
tore up a contract with the school. Gordon
College had been caring for the town’s Old Town Hall. They maintained it, had given tours to the
community and visitors to the area. They
had used it for Gordon events. And they
had allowed outside groups to schedule events there as well … all part of the
agreement with the town. Never once has
there been an accusation that the Christian college maintaining the Old Town
Hall had ever prevented any single group from using the facility. Likewise there is no record of the college
denying the use of the facility by people who disagree with their own
behavioral standards. But now the city
will deny the school the opportunity to fulfill its contract, because the mayor
disagrees with them.
In addition, Driscoll is among those
pushing hard to have Gordon College’s accreditation stripped from their
programs. Accreditation is one of the
key attractions for people to attend colleges and universities, and in doing
this the mayor is attempting to choke the very life out of an institution that
has been part of its community and the religious life of this nation for 125-years.
If successful in stripping Gordon’s
accreditation, look for this strategy to be copied by endless numbers of
activists against the 6,400 Christian colleges across America. It’s all part of an ugly and angry campaign to
punish Christian colleges for being (in essence) Christian in what they
believe, and what they practice.
I’ve said it before and will say it
again: The
intolerance of the left and the ignorance of the faithless will only succeed if
the faith-filled show complete indifference.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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