Christian Colleges Are Choosing The Path Of Moral Compromise Over LGBTQ Issues BY ROB SCHWARZWALDER Via Prophecy News Watch
Every year, thousands of young people attend colleges and universities that profess a strong commitment to the Bible and the historic teachings of the Christian faith. Yet today many schools that profess Evangelical Protestant beliefs are straddling an ever-widening chasm between the convictions they claim and the policies they practice.
For example, Calvin University, affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), says it believes “homosexual orientation is not a sin, and we strive to love our gay, lesbian, and bisexual students as ourselves, as God expects of us. We also affirm that physical sexual intimacy has its proper place in the context of heterosexual marriage.”
The school then lists a number of policies designed to protect students who identify as LGBT and, at the same time, affirm them in their orientation. The statement concludes by stating that in Calvin’s classrooms, “all relevant viewpoints are taken into account. Being at the crossroads of ideas is vital if we are to offer our students an education that is Christian, Reformed, and constructively engaged with the complexities of the world we live in.”
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This issue was addressed in June when the CRC voted to confirm its allegiance to the 2,000 year-old Christian teaching that such sexual immoralities as “adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography, and homosexual sex” were impermissible for followers of Jesus. At the time, many Calvin professors expressed dismay at this reiteration of biblical orthodoxy.
So now, in a vote last week by Calvin’s board of trustees, the school’s faculty have been given permission to “dissent from a clause in (the CRC) confession of faith that regards sex outside of heterosexual marriage as sinful, enabling them to continue to work at the Christian school while also respecting their convictions.” Bruce Los, the chairman of Calvin’s board, said “diverse viewpoints among its faculty” benefit the university even as the school stays “committed to upholding the confessional standards of the CRC.”
This last statement is a study in intellectual incoherence and, frankly, cowardice. The dissenting professors, upon coming to Calvin, had to “sign a document saying they align with the historical creeds and confessions of the Christian Reformed Church.” These academics have, in their arrogance, willfully defied those beliefs and demanded an accommodation. This lack of integrity is as maddening as it is painful. And there is no way the “confessional standards” of the CRC can be upheld while being denied by many who teach at its flagship institution.
