Tag Archives: Bigotry

News

How universities discriminate against evangelical Christians

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From the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

We are preparing for trial in a very important religion discrimination case in Kentucky that’s likely to attract a lot of attention.

We represent Professor Martin Gaskell, an internationally-respected astronomer who was turned down for the post of Observatory Director at the University of Kentucky in 2007 after concerns were voiced that some of his writings contained in a personal website discussing the relationship between science and religion showed him to be “potentially evangelical.”

Professor Gaskell has filed suit against the University claiming that, by considering his religion in the hiring process, Kentucky violated Title VII, the Civil Rights Act of 1964…

The University of Kentucky tried to avoid a trial, but Judge Karl Forester ruled that there was enough evidence to go to trial, such as:

  • The record contains “substantial evidence that Gaskell was a leading candidate for the position until the issue of his religion” became part of the search committee’s deliberations.
  • The head of the search committee wrote in an email to the Chair of the Physics & Astronomy Department that “no objective observer could possibly believe that we excluded Martin [Gaskell] on any basis other than religious . . .”
  • The Department Chair admitted “that the debate generated by Gaskell’s website and his religious beliefs was an ‘element’ in the decision not to hire Gaskell.”
  • One member of the search committee admitted that Gaskell’s “views of religious things” were “a factor” in his decision not to support Gaskell’s candidacy.
  • Another member of the committee, having discovered Gaskell’s website, warned fellow committee members that Gaskell was “potentially evangelical.”
  • The search committee head, anticipating a decision against Gaskell by his fellow committee members, wrote that “Other reasons will be given for the choice . . . but the real reason we will not offer him the job is because of his religious beliefs in matters that are unrelated to astronomy or to any of the other duties specified for this position.”

This is why I blog under an alias. And I recommend it to any evangelical Christian who aspires to have an influence in academia.

 

Commentary

MUST-READ: What can atheists do to counter religious parents?

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Here’s a neat post up an Uncommon Descent. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

What I found most fascinating about Longman’s analysis is that he is able to explain why he thinks religion will eventually triumph over secularism in purely Darwinian terms. Having a baby is, for most couples in the modern world, a choice, which reflects their personal values. “And so,” writes Longman, “by Darwinian process, those who adhere to traditions that preserve and celebrate the ancient injunction to ‘go forth and multiply’ wind up putting more of their genes and ideas into the future than those who don’t.”

I imagine that well-read atheists are already aware of these social trends, and I’m sure they are quite worried about them. On the one hand, atheists naturally want the percentage of people espousing their secular world-view to increase; on the other hand, most of them believe that the world already has too many people for the Earth to support – which is a natural consequence of an atheistic world-view, as I pointed out in a recent post. Now put yourselves in the atheists’ shoes: how do you think they would attempt to fight these trends? The only way they can achieve the dual objectives of keeping the world’s population down and boosting the percentage of atheists worldwide is to target the fertility of highly religious people. I can think of a few fairly obvious ways in which they might attempt to do that, and because these measures are, in my opinion, politically feasible, I don’t share Longman’s certainty that religion will inevitably triumph over secularism. Some of these measures are either currently being implemented or are already well in place in many countries; other measures are a decade or two down the track. Well, here’s my list. Recognize any of these in your country of residence?

What follows is a LONG list of items that the secular humanists can use to make sure that religious parents are not able to pass on their beliefs to their own children.

Here are a few from the list:

  • Outlaw home schooling.
  • Extend the number of hours that children are required to spend at school
  • Introduce compulsory “values” classes into public schools
  • Introduce compulsory classes on “religious tolerance” into public schools
  • Enact laws guaranteeing free access to birth control (including abortion) at school as a fundamental human right for all students over the age of 12
  • Encourage the passage of laws which make the possession of a college degree essential for getting almost any kind of job.
  • Deny government funding to religious schools that teach any kind of “bigotry.”
  • Enact legislative measures disallowing childless couples from adopting a child if they intend to bring that child up in a faith which encourages any kind of “bigotry” or “intolerance”
  • At a later stage, enact laws extending the same “protection” to all children, regardless of whether they are adopted or not.
  • At a still later stage, enact laws allowing social workers to take children away by force from their parents (natural or adopted), if there is sufficient evidence that they are being raised in a household that encourages any form of “bigotry.”
  • Citing concerns about children’s welfare following a string of highly publicized cases of child neglect reported in the press, introduce laws requiring all expecting mothers to submit to a home inspection by a suitably qualified social worker, with a follow-up interview

He explains each the bullet points I listed, and there are more bullet points in the original list that I didn’t list. Some of those have already been spotted in Sweden, Germany, Ontario, Quebec, and California.

Wow. The guys on the other side really are enraged by the thought that Christian parents might pass their moral and spiritual views on to their children. They would rather that Christian guys like me just confine our contributions to the next generation to supplying sperm and tax money so that they can push their moral and spiritual views on our children instead. And so what if their views result in our children having abortions, getting STDs, paying child support, or dying of AIDS? They know they are right, and we Christian men are just a naive wage-slaves who need to shut up and work to fund their indoctrination of our children.

I am not sure that these issues are on the radar of the church at all, because churches are very much focused on providing a non-confrontational, non-judgmental “show” to entertain their members and provide emotional comfort. Not only is the church mostly devoid of apologetics, but it is especially devoid of politics and economics. Everything controversial that might offend anyone like exclusive claims, arguments, evidence, politics, economics, abortion, marriage, etc. has been removed from most churches. Saying that pre-marital sex and drunkenness are wrong, and that global warming is a false religion might make some people feel bad. And if people feel bad, then the money might stop flowing into the plates. (I am not even mentioning the churches that are basically extensions of the secular left, and who do not even believe in orthodox Christianity)

The remarkable thing about this is that there are lots of Bible-believing Christians who persist in voting for left-wing parties governed by the secular left, in order to punish “the rich” or to get “universal health care” or to fight “global warming”. I find it amazing that churches are so incredibly naive that they do not care what the secularists are planning for their marriages, families and children – they don’t even realize that the worldview of the secular left is – gasp – ANTI-CHRISTIAN. We just don’t discuss these issues seriously in church. We want church to be about feelings and entertainment. We are so incredibly non-confrontational and non-strategic in our thinking. We just want to have a good time now and not think about the fact that the marriage and family boat is sinking on an iceberg called secular humanism. Theology and apologetics would be a good start, but if it is not worked into a worldview and a life plan and a vision of society and government, what good is it?

Just to be clear, I am not advocating surrender. I am saying that when I am in church, I am surrounded by people who have no idea what is really at stake. I keep getting urged by these people to sing songs, chit-chat about feelings, marry, and to have children. It’s not going to work. There is a huge gulf between the church and I – they want to have fun and feelings and dance and sing and to keep going as if the secular left is just going to step aside and leave us alone. But I want to effectively defend the ability of authentic Christians to live out authentic Christian lives. So long as the church keeps thinking that “better worship” is the solution to the mass exodus of young Christians from church and social problems like the massive increases in out-of-wedlock births then I really have nothing in common with them.

News

The secular left takes aim at Canadian Christian universities

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Maclean’s magazine had an article up about a group of Canadian university professors who are trying to shut down Christian universities for having a statement of faith that excludes non-Christians.

Here’s an excerpt from the article.

By most accounts, Trinity Western University, located in the Vancouver suburb Langley, is a respected member of the Canadian university community. It’s long enjoyed the rubber stamp of approval that is being a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, an organization that fills the vacuum created by Canada’s lack of formal university accreditation. In 2004, the provincial government exempted the school from “detailed reviews of its degree programs,” making Trinity Western the fourth member of an elite club of west coast universities alongside the University of British Columbia, the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University. In fact, having been opened in 1962, the school is one year older than UVic. Trinity Western is also home to three research chairs and boasts over $1 million in annual research funding, impressive for a relatively small institution.

Despite Trinity Western University’s (TWU) near universal acceptance as a full-fledged university, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT)—a union of sorts, representing faculty associations across the county, that has fought sometimes controversial fights over academic freedom since 1951—placed TWU on its blacklist of universities that violate academic freedom in October, effectively calling into question the school’s dedication to the very heart of what it is to be a university. According to a CAUT report, because TWU—which describes itself as “a faith-based institution, one inspired by Christ’s life and guided by his teachings”—submits its faculty to what CAUT calls a “faith test,” it is violating academic freedom.

The controversial faith test consists of a “Statement of Faith” that professors are required to sign annually and that outlines the “philosophical framework to which all faculty, staff and administration are committed without reservation.” It includes a list of convictions to which professors must assert to subscribe, including belief in the bible, in one infinitely perfect god, that Jesus Christ was a real man, and in “the bodily resurrection of the dead; of the believer to everlasting blessedness and joy with the Lord, of the unbeliever to judgment and everlasting conscious punishment.”

Another problem with Trintity is their insistence that there is such a thing as objective truth:

The academic calendar at TWU goes so far as to reject a definition of academic freedom that denies an established perspective: “Trinity Western University rejects as incompatible with human nature and relevational theism a definition of academic freedom which arbitrarily and exclusively requires pluralism without commitment, denies the existence of any fixed points of reference, maximizes the quest for truth to the extent of assuming it is never knowable, and implies an absolute freedom from moral and religious responsibility to its community.” In other words, the university rejects relativism, which many academics would say is incompatible with the primary role of a university.

Isn’t it ironic that it is the secular left universities that make debate impossible through a variety of heavy-handed mechanisms like speech codes, denial of tenure, etc. One only has to watch the movie “Expelled” or “Indoctrinate U”, or read anything by Harold Morowtiz, to find out that it is the secular left that enforces a secular leftist orthodoxy on campus. And this is to say nothing of the secular leftist Human Rights Commissions that enforce political correctness on the society as a whole.

And here are some comments from Canadian Blogger Unambiguously Ambidextrous. (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

Trinity Western University received an A+ from the Globe and Mail’s Canadian University Report for two years running, making it the only Canadian University to receive this distinction. It also received the highest ratings for student satisfaction, student-faculty interaction, teaching, class size, ease of course registration, campus atmosphere, and academic reputation. Is it at all possible that students learning in a homogeneously religious University might excel in ways that are academically superior to relativist and pluralist Universities? Perish the thought!

The postmodern secular leftist university has abandoned the search for truth, at least in non-technical fields, in favor of indoctrinating students with  a host of “isms” that are never tested or debated. It’s no surprise at all that Christian universities would produce the best students in non-technical fields – we’re the only ones who care about what’s really true!