UnChristian Christianity

At Vanderbilt University in Tennessee last year, a review of the charters of all official student organisations was carried out. This was done for two reasons. One was that there had been complaints made about several of the Christian student organisations refusing to allow members who weren't anti-gay to run for office in those organisations. Note that this isn't just students who are gay or who support gay rights, but even devout Christian students who simply said, “Hey, why don't we do our thing and let the gays do their own thing.” The other reason was a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding discrimination in college student organisations (SPOILER ALERT: the Supreme Court turned out to be against discrimination).

Out of over four hundred officially-recognised student organisations at Vanderbilt, five of them were found to not meet the university's charter regarding inclusiveness and nondiscrimination. This charter has been around for as long as the university has, so these student organisations have actually been breaking the rules all along; this isn't just some new arbitrary ruling being made that these organisations are being forced to comply with. Of these five organisations, four were Christian-themed. Meanwhile, a further twenty-seven Christian student organisations were found to be just fine and proper. So, four out of thirty-one Christian groups on campus were found to be in violation.

The five student organisations found to be in violation of the school's charter (and, y'know, that little thing called Federal Law and the Constitution) have to make a choice. On the one hand, they can allow any tuition payer to run for office in that organisation. They don't have to vote for him or her, they don't have to campaign for him or her, they don't have to listen to that person's speeches. . .they just have to let that person add their name to the ballot. That is the only change that they have to make in their organisations. The other option is to lose their official school-sponsored status. This will mean that they no longer get funding from the school. They can still meet on campus, recruit on campus, spread newsletters on campus, and all of that, they just won't get a share of the tuition money to buy cool stuff with. The university's reasoning is that since every student who is paying tuition is thus paying for the support of these five student organisations, then every student on campus should be allowed to be part of these organisations.

In short, these four Christian organisations (and one non-religious organisation) are being held to the same standards as every other organisation (including twenty-seven other Christian organisations), and are being told that if they don't agree to those standards then they are perfectly free to continue on as they are but won't be given free stuff from public funds anymore.

This is, of course, utterly intolerable.

Christian groups around the nation went into a frenzy. Hysteria-filled rants and petitions flew back and forth, decrying this horrifying persecution of Christians and describing how poor innocent Christian students were going to be kicked out of the university for the sole crime of being Christian. Fox News even got into the act and reported on the dreadful religious persecution being committed by those dreadful hateful fascist commie liberal anti-American officials in charge of Vanderbilt University (who probably roast bald eagles over a pile of burning Bibles and American flags, no doubt). Members of the four organisations in question wail about how this could mean that they'll have to actually interact in a tolerant and understanding manner with non-Christians or Christians who hold slightly different values (apparently Matthew 9:10-13 and Mark 2:15-17 and Luke 5:32 were considered to be “optional reading” in their copies of the Bible, and they opted out of it).

Meanwhile, about ten miles away, another group of religious people are facing problems of their own. For the last thirty years, local Muslims have been having to make do with worshiping in a tiny 2,000-square-foot space that they've been renting out of an office complex. Many of these people are long-term members of the local community, born and raised there. A couple of years ago, they finally decided that having half of their congregation (which consists of over 250 families) being left sitting around praying in the parking lot every Friday because of lack of indoor space wasn't good enough. They very carefully and correctly bought some land, and carefully and correctly filed an application for a permit to build a small modest structure (6,700 square feet) there. They followed all appropriate protocols, filled out all the required paperwork, went through all the deliberations and consultations and inspections.

The local Christian community went nuts and terrorised them. The building under construction was at various times spray-painted with anti-Muslim graffiti, smashed and broken, and even fire-bombed. Muslim leaders received anonymous threats of murder. Christian groups staged rallies and picketed. Conservative political candidates heckled and ridiculed the Muslims and fought to deny them the right to build their mosque. Islam was denounced as not being a religion, or as being a nationality (and thus Muslims ought to “return to their own country”), or being a form of terrorism. Every hurdle that could be thrown into the way of this mosque was thrown. Some of these protesters pretended that they were concerned about the effects of having a public building constructed in that particular neighbourhood (and yet when a Baptist church during this time applied to build on the plot of land right next door to the mosque, nobody raised a single protest and the church was built and occupied within a few short months). Most of them, however, are quite open in stating that only Christians ought to be allowed to publicly display their faith.

Through all of this, the Muslim community persevered, and it looked as though they were going to be able to finish the place, get the final inspection completed, and then hold their first services there for the start of Ramadan this year. They were looking forward to the prospect. And then, in an act of pure spitefulness, one of the local judges blocked their final inspection by arbitrarily making up some additional rules that apply to this particular building and ONLY to this particular building based on the religion of its owners. This ruling was, of course, utterly unconstitutional, and when the Muslim community appealed to a higher court the ruling was immediately overturned. But the ruling still managed to tie everything up in red tape, meaning that the Muslims probably won't get a chance to hold the Ramadan services that they were looking forward to. Which was the sole point of the judge's ruling, of course.

Vandalism, threats, hatred, lies, spitefulness, literal terrorism, abuse of office. . .all of this is considered just fine and proper by many of the local Christian groups, because it is directed against non-Christians. These are some of same Christian groups who were wailing about the horrible religious persecution of the Christian students at nearby Vanderbilt University, declaring how it was so very wrong and unjust to target anybody based on their religion.

Apparently, religious tolerance is only supposed to be practiced towards Christians.

Which brings to light one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) problem with Christianity today. Not exactly a problem with individuals who are Christians, or with the Christian faith, or with Christian community. A problem with Christianity and its place in the world, in the lives of OTHER individuals and faiths and communities.

Christianity started off as just yet another little offshoot sect of Judaism. There was nothing particularly novel or unique about it; many other sects had similar messages and messiahs and figures dying and then being reborn. Christianity got lucky, though. Powerful figures in the Roman Empire saw it as a useful tool with which to gain even more power. And as they used Christianity to rise to power, Christianity in turn rose in power as well. Christianity went from, “Hey, have you heard about the latest wacky sect?” to, “Hey, if you're not Christian then we'll have to throw you in jail.” When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Christianity was therefore in a position to become one of the main unifying forces of western Europe, and thus its power grew even more. This was neither a totally good nor a totally bad thing; while it did give the Popes more power than most of them deserved or could handle properly, it did also help to keep channels of trade and communication and learning open, to impose some law and order, and to keep a check on the power of secular rulers (who in turn acted as something of a check on the Pope).

All of which has led to Christianity having a particularly privileged position in Western European and North American society. Being Christian was considered to be synonymous with being proper, being law-abiding, being decent, being civilised. Being non-Christian was considered to be everything else. It was nearly impossible to achieve any real position in society without at least making a good show of being a good Christian.

When it came time to put together the basis for a new country in North America in the 1780's, this was recognised as being something of a problem. The grand dream was to found a new nation that was based upon natural laws, laws that are intrinsic to each and every human being in the world regardless of race or creed. Setting up a government where you can be denied basic rights simply because you believe that God is named Bob and lives somewhere in Portugal would tend to clash with those dreams and ideals.

So the people setting up this new government, though mostly Christians themselves, agreed to set up a government that was not Christian in any respect. Despite what various conservative politicians and pundits would have you think, no, America was NOT founded on Christian principles. Founded by Christians, yes (mostly). Founded by people who themselves followed Christian principles in their own lives, certainly (mostly). But not only is there no passage in the Bible establishing a bicameral legislature or declaring the age that a president must be or establishing the limits of a supreme court, there also isn't a single line in the Constitution or in national law declaring that salvation is only through Jesus or that we should all turn to the Bible for guidance. And it was not an accident that in a world where every other European or European-derived government was based on all sorts of religious blessing and religious empowerment and religious privilege, the United States government made conspicuous lack of any religious foundation. This isn't to say that religion is supposed to be forbidden to any member of government; the President is perfectly free to pray if he wants to, and if a Senator feels the need to consult the great ferret demon Ooog before casting his votes, then that is within his rights (though he'll probably find himself out of office when the next election roles around. . .unless Ooog's advice turns out to be very very good). All that it means is that Christianity lost its officially-sanctioned place of privilege in America, leaving only personal choice, social choice and inertia to keep it being important.

And it did indeed remain important. Though no longer mandated by government, Christianity was still a major cultural factor. But now, for the first time, non-Christians could at least have a legal handle on why they ought not be pushed down. As America flourished, other societies began to also question why Christianity should have such a special place up on a pedestal. Increasing contact and mingling with cultures not dominated by Christianity, along with some instances of rather breath-taking arrogance on the part of Christian religious or secular leaders, further eroded the formerly unassailed notion that Christianity was somehow apart from everything else, above everything else.

More and more, various groups have protested having Christianity imposed upon their own lives. People have shown that you can be quite successful and happy without being Christian. Gradually, the Christian domination of virtually all aspects of society has been trimmed away. It's not really a concerted effort, and it's not an overall movement to banish Christianity (though there are indeed plenty who call for just that). It's more of a lowering of Christianity from its high place of privilege and bringing it down to where it has to knock around with all of the other faiths and ideals and notions that our society has collected.

Viewed from within the perspective of the Christian community, of course, this has looked very alarming and threatening to many. In principle, it is rather like Einstein's comments on relativity. From the outside, it looks like removing special status from Christianity and making it equal to everything else. From the inside, however, it could very well look much different: like religious persecution and the attempted destruction of Christianity. This isn't helped by the loud diatribes from various groups and individuals who want it to be just that. Overall, though, it isn't that. It's just that large parts of society in general are tired of living in the shadow of something that really has no true justification for looming over them in the first place. Christianity is just one out of countless other religions, and one out of an even more countless number of other doctrines and ideologies. While certainly considered to be true and right to its believers, it hasn't provided any more proof of its rightness than has any other one of those ideologies. The only reasons why it dominates as much as it still does is are a chance of history 1700 years ago and the force of habit today.

As is the case when any habit is being disrupted, this often leads to extreme crankiness from those who have the habit. Christian groups who feel threatened by all of this change sometimes end up circling the wagons, hardening their positions and cutting back on tolerance and refusing even the slightest compromise. They lash out at every perceived attack, even if doing so makes them appear out of touch and spiteful and hypocritical Sadly, while this may solidify the position of Christianity within that particular community (at least for a little while), it ends up backfiring in that it serves as all the more reason for everybody else to limit that community's influence. . .why would you want to give influence to a gang who firebomb people who never even did a thing to them, who demand privileges that they'll happily deny to anybody who doesn't agree with them, and who often act in the most obnoxious and hateful and (ironically enough) non-Christian way possible? And these ultra-Christian groups end up causing a similar reaction in some of the more anti-Christian groups, leading to even more fiery anti-religious rhetoric that causes the ultra-Christians to dig in even deeper.

There's probably no way to avoid that. It's basic human nature, and is expressed in different ways in every human society at different times. It's still regrettable, though. It would be so much more preferable if Christianity could quietly and gracefully settle down to its natural level in society, not inflated and made hateful and burdensome by artificial preferment, but lived by those who choose such a lifestyle and not meddling in the lives of those who choose not. As it is, it's probably going to be a long and bumpy ride until things settle down a bit.

At which point, of course, we'll probably find some new mess to replace it with. We seem to be good at that.