InterVarsity on Today's Front Page of the New York Times

Battles Over Religious Expression Continue To Get IV Kicked Off Campus

The campus ministry I work for, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, was featured by the New York Times today at the center of the clash between colleges and christian groups over the freedom of association. All over the country InterVarsity is getting kicked off of campuses and refused official recognition because they refuse to allow non-Christians into leadership positions.  



Yet, Athletic teams discriminate based on gender and able-body status, Greek houses choose members and leaders based on gender, why shouldn't a *religious* group have discretion over leaders based on their *religion?*  We believe in (and long for) an inclusive university that values all people and treats them with respect without forcing intellectual conformity.  I'm proud to work for an organization willing to stand for what is right and not compromise their convictions by bowing to cultural standards in the face of official opposition.

Here is a brief look at the article from the New York Times.

Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy

By MICHAEL PAULSONJUNE 9, 2014

BRUNSWICK, Me. — For 40 years, evangelicals at Bowdoin College have gathered periodically to study the Bible together, to pray and to worship. They are a tiny minority on the liberal arts college campus, but they have been a part of the school’s community, gathering in the chapel, the dining center, the dorms.

After this summer, the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship will no longer be recognized by the college. Already, the college has disabled the electronic key cards of the group’s longtime volunteer advisers.

In a collision between religious freedom and antidiscrimination policies, the student group, and its advisers, have refused to agree to the college’s demand that any student, regardless of his or her religious beliefs, should be able to run for election as a leader of any group, including the Christian association.

Similar conflicts are playing out on a handful of campuses around the country, driven by the universities’ desire to rid their campuses of bias, particularly against gay men and lesbians, but also, in the eyes of evangelicals, fueled by a discomfort in academia with conservative forms of Christianity. The universities have been emboldened to regulate religious groups by a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that found it was constitutional for a public law school in California to deny recognition to a Christian student group that excluded gays.

 ...Continue reading on www.NewYorkTimes.com

Seth