Students and Christians at war

A mole who was a student at Cambridge when Rowan Williams was a lecturer and tutor there tells me that, as someone with a reputation for kind and intelligent liberalism, he was given a difficult time by the evangelical Student Christian Union. If that is the case, how ironic that now that the Archbishop of Canterbury appears to have switched sides in the gay debate, it is the SCUs on the receiving end of a hard time from the gay and lesbian student lobby. Senior bishops have now intervened to call for an end to the "unlawful" discrimination against Student Christian Unions, writing in a letter to The Times. Update from 7 December: Rowan Williams intervenes in this debate for first time in article in THES.

As the debate over his Catholic Herald interview illustrated, Dr Williams just always seems to end up on the receiving end of what ever is the populist religious persecution of the day. Once attacked for being too liberal, now he's attacked for being too conservative on the gay and, most extraordinary, the women issue. So where has it got him, all this persecution over the years?

To the top job, that's where. And that's what these misguided young students fail to understand, as his student critics failed to understand in Cambridge more than 20 years ago. As I tried to point out in a comment piece in the paper, Christianity and Christians thrive when persecuted. As does Islam. That's what happens when you make martyrdom a cause for sanctification. So Dr Williams' supporters, among whom I count myself, should be grateful to the Catholic Herald and its paper acolytes. These latter have actually won him more love, respect and support, and made him almost a martyr for Anglicanism.

Today, he is criticised and attacked for his attempts to give leadership to an impossibly divided body. In future years, no doubt, we will look back on the Archbishop as the saint who saved the Church of England from schism and self-destruction. Today, he is attacked for not being enthusiastic enough about the women ordained in his own church as he prepared to meet the Pope. One future day, who knows, he might even be canonised as the reincarnated "new man" who reunited Anglicanism with Rome.  I am being serious. He even looks like a saint.

But for now, I imagine the SCUs around Britain can count on his support as they mount legal actions in Europe demanding their right freedom of religious expression under Human Rights legislation. He is on record as arguing for the necessity for religion to be deployed in the public space. We can expect to hear more from him on this in Rome on Thursday.

The student story first came out on Tuesday, when the Anglican and Catholic bishops of England and Wales were lobbied at their groundbreaking meeting in Leeds to help. There was a taster of what was to come from the Birmingham university campus earlier this year. I have a feeling this story is just beginning. This is not just an anti-Christian phenomenon, or even anti-Islam. Jewish Societies are also being targeted, victims themselves of the upsurge in anti-Israel sentiment on campus. I'll update this post as things progress, if progress is the right word. How extraordinary, though, that universities, once bywords for radicalism and for freedom of expression, should be turning into centres of militant oppression in the secular cause. Maybe the answer is to make students go to more lectures and tutorials than is currently demanded of the arts ones at least. Or maybe our country's taxpayers, 72 per cent of which define themselves as Christian, should start asking whether the taxes and fees they are paying to keep their own and other people's children at these educative resources of "ban" ideology really are being well spent. I can't help thinking that some students might learn more by going out to work. Or even, dare I say it, into the Army.

Nico Hines, new editor of Student Times Online, has done a really good blog on this with lots of links taking in all aspects of the story.

Comments

[David Hodgson]

In my experience Student Christian unions deserve to be banned from receiving general student funds - they are themselves frequently enemies of open debate and free expression of ideas. Even other Christians of a more liberal persuasion are suspect in their eyes. I'm very disappointed the C of E bishops are sticking up for them - most CUs wouldn't cross a road - an empty country road with no traffic on it - to meet a C of E bishop!

[Christopher]

THE Edinburgh University Students' Association has decided that the 'Pure' course (can you get more pharisaical?) run by the Christian Union is essentially homophobic so cannot take place on campus. The president of the Edinburgh University Students' Association, Tim Goodwin explained that critics of the decision failed to point out that the course is not an opportunity for open debate;in fact it has been made clear that there will be no scope within Pure for alternate views to be voiced. The course is designed to teach - even indoctrinate - certainly not to discuss - so there will be no right of freedom of speech within its confines.

It is absurd to criticise the Students' Union for preventing freedom of speech? They have organised and run well-attended debates on the subject promoting free speech and reasoned argument. What the CU's course does is censor free speech and actively discourage freedom of expression.

Tim explained to Scotland on Sunday if the Christian Union is open to free speech - and the rejections of all offered compromises would suggest otherwise -then it should be welcoming discussion, debate and doubt. As it is, the CU will not. Tim says "Until that is the case, it is hypocritical to accuse us of denying freedom of speech while the Christian Union refuses to live up to the same standards.

We have not 'outlawed' teachings on homosexuality either. Nor have we banned the Christian Union - it is a full society as welcome on campus as ever before.

As a Christian myself, however, I do not believe in any way that homosexuality and Christianity are incompatible. What I do object to is individuals cherrypicking sections of the Bible to promote and reflect their own morals and political objectives, while conveniently ignoring other aspects, particularly in the Old Testament, which are harder to justify in a modern context.

What's really at stake here, however, is that homophobia has become the last acceptable discrimination. Recent politicking has left homosexuality out of the hate crimes bill and popular opinion seems to be in favour of allowing a group a metaphorical megaphone through which homosexuality can be denounced. If a similar course, but with racist implications, was being proposed, I imagine people would be queuing up round the block to denounce it, and quite rightly so.

By taking the action we have taken we are working to ensure that all our students are free to express themselves openly. I am proud of that and I intend to keep fighting for it".

Alistair McBay, the blogger on these boards had a letter published in Scotalnd on Sunday in which he says "A Catholic Church spokesman says the ban on the Christian Union at Edinburgh University from teaching a gay-cure abstinence course on campus is 'blind and unthinking political correctness'.

It naturally escapes his notice that the Christian desire to run such courses is an example of blind and unthinking 'religious correctness'.

Perhaps the university should relent and allow the course, the quid pro quo being that the gay community can run their own courses targeted at Christians, to cure them of their ignorant prejudices and primitive superstitions. I wonder what Christians would think of that?" Good point, Alistair.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/letters.cfm?id=1752002006

[Yusuf Smith]

I wrote a blog post on my own site about this and tried to trackback it, but it has not registered, so this is the gist of my take on this issue:

While I disagree with the behaviour some Christian Unions have been accused of indulging in (including at my old college, the university at Aberystwyth), there are good reasons why religious societies may have rules which conflict with the policies laid down by student unions. SUs are very often dominated by very left-wing people (militant feminists and Marxists of various stripes, for example) and their "equal opportunities" rules often oppose the common stances of major religions. Furthermore, policies can be passed in union general meetings by a very small group of people; at Aberystwyth, the quorum for policy motions was 70 (100 for a constitutional amendment), and the student population was around 6,000.

Furthermore, religious societies need to have membership and voting rights restrictions to prevent "entryism", resulting in the dumping of the committee, the radical change or curtailment of the society's activities, the removal of material from the society's library because the new management does not like it, or the complete abolition of the society. This means the society has to discriminate, and if the union is unwilling to accommodate this due to its EO rules, the colleges themselves should have boards of religious societies to administer such groups themselves. After all, union money is actually sourced from the public purse and from tuition fees; it is not donated by the few dozen union hacks who pass union policy.

[John Cooper]

I am most bemused by alot of peoples' reaction to this general story.

The role of a Student Union is to empower and protect those called its members. This is done through a variety of mechanisms including an equal oppertunities statement and various criteria for running socieites.

These systems ensure that all societies benefit the whole of the university student life and not just small sects that are inward looking and benefit no one.

The CUs are suffering from "the lady doth protest too much syndrome" really and have got this one magnificently wrong.

All CUs need to realise that Christianity, like all religions, is not a protected species but (like all societies) only the truly dedicated will want to get involved.

Ultimatly it is like the Tory MP complaining when caught with their trousers down during the 92-97 Government. They have to admit they are wrong in their current democratic (ha!) practises and instead look at a new way of doing things.

Regards
John, ex Societies Sabbatical Officer (and , yes, a Christian)

[Rob Cotterill]

On an interesting point of recognition, when I was a student there (1994-1995), Birmingham University Christian Union refused to recognise the four Christian chaplaincy societies: Anglican, Catholic, Methodist or URC.

Truly: what goes agound, comes around.

[alistair mcbay]

"Or maybe our country's taxpayers, 72 per cent of which define themselves as Christian."

Tut tut, Ruth, you know that even the ONS admits this is nonsense and now a discreditied statistic.

But to the main point. I think you are forgetting that these are students, who are naturally given to having daft ideas and supporting daft causes in between bouts of being alternately drunk, stoned and just occasionally attending the odd lecture.

Jeunesse se passe, as the French say.

However, if it is the case that the SCUs are on the receiving end of a hard time from the gay and lesbian student lobby, it does look suspiciously like an overdue spot of payback. Why is it that Christians want to dish it out according to their beliefs, but when those they oppress have the damned cheek not to stand for it and fight back, Christians play the victim card pretty quickly?

Perhaps if Christians didn't demand the right to demean and demonise gay people, gay people wouldn't exercise their right to fight back, and we could all live happily ever after?

[Mike Homfray]

CU's have a choice.They affilaiate and obey the rules.Or they stay outside SU's. They cannot have it both ways.

In any case, they will remain a much-loathed curiosity in or out....

[Jock]

James Hamilton-Brown wrote:

"Being opposed to the practice of homosexuality is not the same as homophobia. The former is the traditional position of most churches, whilst homophobia should certainly be unacceptable to all followers of Jesus."

It seems to me that there is increasing evidence that this is nothing short of revisionism. Most churches traditionally had very little to say about most of the affections and practices that are currently wrapped up in the 19th century label "homosexuality". Rather like Sharia really, only same gender feelings have been if anything even more repressed by post-reformation, protestant nuclear family Christianity than by most of Islam.

Some of us have managed to understand this, usually with reference to experiences and feelings that evangelicals don't seem to acknowledge even as valid. Even engaging CU speakers on the subject of sexuality is an exercise in one sided futility. "Living by the precepts of the bible" - whose bible precisely? They do not have a monopoly on understanding and interpretation of the sacred texts and they do not apply it consistently or with reference to the evidence that's before their eyes; of loving people trying hard to live a good life, but happening to find comfort in a different sort of companionship than they do.

They are no more open to learning about their faith from others than they are admitting people they have already decided they disapprove of.

As someone said - if they want to hire university facilities and so on, let them. If they want to subscribe to a body that has a duty to protect its members from harrassment, then they should stop harrassing people.

Like I said before - they are not radical; they are reactionary. Nobody's asking them to give up their faith; but one would have thought in a liberal arts institution they ought at least to examine their own philosophies in the light of the far wider range of human experiences they are likely to be meeting at university than in their little world of home and Sunday School. If they come out with the same opinions, fine, but they will at least have tested and examined them.

[Fiona]

On campus at my uni, there was a major difference between the CU and other religious societies (including the Catholic society). Whereas the CU insisted that members promise that they were not only active Christians, but also to missionize on campus, all other religious societies welcomed everybody who was interested in learning more about their faith, believer or not. For this reason, the CU could not affiliate to the SU, as it was not open to all. Particularly because the CU actively opposed several of the welfare initiatives on campus, and in particular actions supporting equal rights for all students of all sexualities.

[Tim Cooper]

Lesley:I think it's such a shame that religious commitments are made, having been defined by the choices of parents. There were many other factors responsible for the religious attitudes and behaviour of families during recent generations. Some derived from an authoritarian and rigid post-war society. For others guilt was preached within an institutionalized community, sometimes accompanied by a culture of brutality. Living in a judgmental and unbending society carried with it the fear of failure, or letting down the side. A male-dominated, sexually-repressed environment added to the troubled and sombre culture of acceptance. For much of the twentieth century communities trusted implictly those with rank or standing. Fewer people were educated and many experienced poverty on a scale unimaginable today. Many believe that religious fervour should be removed from a child's formative years, and replaced by a wide overview of numerous world faiths together with their historical effect on society.

Whilst I accept that not all of the above does necessarily underpin historically how all people arrived at their perception of faith, there are many factors that have affected how church communities have progressed, or not, in recent times. But it is not good enough to rail against those that question the relevance of religion today by segregating Christianity and parcelling it up into an autonomous bundle, implying that those outside of it cannot possibly understand. What Christians believe is relatively simple to define and just because some people seek to live their lives without a supernatural dimension, it does not mean that they all regard those who do believe with derision. But when political or societal pronouncements are seen to be inclusive, or policy is introduced via the Christian church, or when general religious-based assumptions are made that affect everybody across the board, there are bound to be dissenters among those of differing, or no, faith.

[Irish Tamil]

Hi Ruth,
Read your article on times this sunday...seems like practicing christians have found themselves on the same page in the middle section of the paper as the fundamentalists of another faith who blow themselves and airliners to paradise...I do not believe this to be an accident, and do belive evangelical christians with their calls to righteousness and following Christ can cause the same amount of indignation and consternation as the suicide bombers to those who would prefer to be left alone with their vices in the darkness.The only difference being that this animosity is now being expressed openly on university campuses.

[Lesley Wells]

There is so much hearsay about what Christians are supposed to believe and what they are peceived to be. For those who really don't know - and that' s most - try talking to young people who are determined to live their lives by the precepts of the Bible despite the derision of their peers. Try talking to those who have lived a life of Christian faith for many decades, through the good times and the bad. Try talking to those who made the Christian commitment because of the witness of their parents and others who gave selflessley in terms of time, commitment and love throughout their growing years. They will tell you, quietly and modestley, what it really means to be a Christian. They are the ones who really know. Listen and learn.

[Tim Cooper]

The Archbishop of Canterbury certainly cannot win it seems, either among members of his faith or without and he appears to be a casualty of a poor hierarchical system of shouldering responsibility; albeit to deify human beings is, of course humorous and a harmless Christian pastime. As it stands, when the dithery 'power' invested in St Rowan actually re-emerges, fully re-cycled, it can only be seen to interpret, dilute and disseminate a conglomeration of prejudices in the most benign and beneficial way; the sole, possibly hopeless purpose being to heal and re-unite. The ship, unless intact, will take on more water and must be preserved as the first priority.

It follows that no groundbreaking utterances are likely, and certainly not at the papal court if he knows what's good for him. Perhaps re-iterating the need to deploy religion in the public space is suitably militaristic in the current climate. It remains, nevertheless, a game played by Anglicans, since the public space does continue to function in a vortex of multiculturalism, despite its problems being exacerbated by religious extremism. Moreover it seems unlikely that this position will change by marshalling the troops. To seek to increase the influence of religious doctrines in society, or to integrate further politically is also to ride roughshod over the genuine views of increasingly large numbers of people, for whom superstitious beliefs and the occult generally has no meaning.

[joe]

Student Unions (ie the group representing all students in a university) are on a losing wicket here.

Yes, Christian Unions discriminate in leadership. But then, so does the squash club. Nobody would think it acceptable if someone was elected to a committee running the squash club on a platform of turning it into a snooker team. Yes, there is a place for a student snooker team, but that place is a snooker club, not the squash club. Nobody suggests that every club supports the policies or opinions of every other in a Student Union. Nobody suggests that squash clubs discriminating against non-squash players is unacceptable.

So the question is really what kind of discrimination is acceptable and what is unacceptable. As most students couldn't give a monkeys about student politics, it is only the most active that make these decisions - usually based on nonsense - and many of these are socialists or communists. Christians are an easy target as the members tend to be particularly unrepresented in student politics.

Mind you, I cannot bare the pathetic whining of Christian Unions who shout 'oooh discrimination' at any opportunity. If they don't like the rules and cannot conform to democratic standards* like everyone else then maybe they should stop pretending, leave the SU and become a church. A very immature and disfunctional church led by a bunch of self-righteous power-crazies, on the whole, but a church nonetheless.

*y'know little things like not telling people who to vote for

[James Hamilton-Brown]

As someone who came to faith in Christ as a result of the witness of a Christian Union I hear with dismay of the difficulties they are experiencing in several university colleges.

Dr Williams is right to stand up for CUs to have the right to freedom of speech. Being opposed to the practice of homosexuality is not the same as homophobia. The former is the traditional position of most churches, whilst homophobia should certainly be unacceptable to all followers of Jesus.

I wonder whether Student Unions object to Moslem & Jewish Societies in their midst - both of which I presume exist for the members of their particular faith.

I cannot speak for all CUs but I can say that the one I attended did not welcome only Christian speakers and many years ago I was involved myself in a debate between an atheist member of staff and Christians. It did not end up as a slanging match, & I think we listened with respect to each others' points of view.

Of course some CUs are intolerant and narrow minded. (So are some Students' Unions!) We do not expect children to behave like adults, and we should not be surprised if those young in the faith do not always behave as mature Christians. Nevertheless I shall be eternally grateful for the UCCF movement through which so many have come to faith or have had their faith renewed and refreshed.

Thank you +Rowan for standing up for those with whom you may theologically disagree.

Jimmy HB

[Bartholomew]

This business at Exeter is a bit weird. When I was an undergrad (elsewhere), there were official student-union affiliated societies and unofficial student groups. The official societies enjoyed some frills like free posters and free room-bookings, but had to be to be open to all students. The Christian Union chose to remain unofficial, which meant it could set its own membership criteria, but had to organise room bookings and so on privately. That seems to have worked just fine and to everyone's satisfaction.

[Chuck Unsworth]

Ruth: 'I can't help thinking that some students might learn more by going out to work. Or even, dare I say it, into the Army.'

Well, a few questions arise from that:

a) Are jobs so easy to come by?

b) Are such students really what is actually required by the (our!) Army? Or,

c) Maybe these students should consider the Salvation Army as an appropriate choice of career?

[Alan Marsh]

Ruth, can you not give the poor man a rest? He would be the first to tell you that he is just one man trying desperately hard to be a servant to a church with countless viewpoints and demands, all wanting his support and approval. People have such unrealistic expectations of the Archbishop, including the media. Can we please have a good news story some time soon about this kindest and gentlest of men?

[Jock Coats]

"that universities, once bywords for radicalism and for freedom of expression"

Once being the operative word. For a short period. Think how long those "radical institutions" kept women out, kept Catholics and any other Christian who wouldn't attend a Church of England service out.

As a Christian and gay man, personally I think the radicalism is still there. It's saying - you can't get away with using our facilities to spread a message that hurts others of our student body. And year in year out, semester in semester out, the CUs of this country seem to hold with monotonous regularity events that basically tell gay men and women that they're off on a hot-line to hell (I have been to them, and there's no give and take about their message, even what passes as "discussion" is pretty well futile).

SUs can't stop societies not affiliated to them from using other university facilities, but they do have an obligation to ensure that people are not harrassed and bullied on the premises they do look after. Now, if their ideas were open to public debate and persuasion, that might be a different issue.

Let's face it. The CUs are not radical. They are ultra-conservative by and large trotting out tired old messages of hate. Calling it "tough love" or "muscular Christianity" does not wash with those of us who have been through it and managed to retain a faith inspite of attitudes like theirs. If they're really that worried, why the heck are they going to the great secularist monument of the European Court; they should rather shake the dust off their shoes and mark their erstwhile and deaf hosts out for the vengeance of Sodom.