A couple of weeks ago, an article appeared in Christianity Today which re-ignited the interest in the Vanderbilt University policy change in 2011 which removed official student group standing from Christian campus organizations such as the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF)*.  The piece was written by a student leader, Tish Harrison Warren, who described how she is apparently “the wrong kind of Christian”.  This is how Ms. Harrison described the Vanderbilt situation:

In effect, the new policy privileged certain belief groups and forbade all others. Religious organizations were welcome as long as they were malleable: as long as their leaders didn’t need to profess anything in particular; as long as they could be governed by sheer democracy and adjust to popular mores or trends; as long as they didn’t prioritize theological stability. Creedal statements were allowed, but as an accessory, a historic document, or a suggested guideline. They could not have binding authority to shape or govern the teaching and practices of a campus religious community.

“An accessory, a historic document, or a suggested guideline”.  Much like what many social liberals think about the Bible itself.

This past week the California State University system, which consists of 23 different schools across the state of CA, announced a policy identical to Vanderbilt’s.  Student organizations leadership must be open to any beliefs.  So a Christian organization cannot require its leaders to be…Christian.  Ed Stetzer points out a problem with these policies:

The bigger, and ongoing, issue is the continual sanitization of unacceptable religious voices from universities. It’s ironic—those who champion nondiscrimination, in the name of nondiscrimination, are creating rules that push out those who “discriminate” based on biblical belief statements.

A few years ago, I asked in the pages of USAToday, are evangelicals no longer welcome in the public arena? If that arena is a California state university, and those evangelicals want an official school organization, that answer is obvious.

This has already happened in other places, perhaps most notably at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. But, Vanderbilt is a private university. Now, state schools have decided that, due to their odd policies restricting belief based organization from requiring belief, students who have evangelical beliefs—and think the leaders of their belief-based campus organization should also have beliefs—are no longer welcome as a student organization.

Certainly the restrictions of the freedom of association and religious liberty are problems.  However, I see a bigger problem is with what we as Christians expect.  We should not be surprised at what is happening here.  The world is not going to agree with us and our beliefs.  It was predicted many years ago:

 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin,but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

Yes.  Jesus Christ himself told us that this would happen.  (Note: It wasn’t really a “prediction”, since Jesus is an omniscient God…) If we were “of the world” we’d be loved and the non-Christians would not attempt to force us to allow those who ARE of the world to be a part of the leadership of Christian organizations.  But the world hates us.  Why?  Because we insist on adhering to the one key objective source of truth in the Universe – the Bible.  You know, one of those “historic documents”.  And it doesn’t happen to mesh with the postmodern moral relativism that has developed over the past few decades.  It has to do with truth.

The world hates us because we insist on following and proclaiming the truth.  These days, everything is about sex.  The debate is all about sex and the teachings of the Bible.  This has placed Christians in the cross-hairs of the world.  We can no longer voice our opinions on sexuality because the pornified world has made sex the one inviolable “right” – the right to have sex whenever, wherever and however one wants.  No modesty, no shame, no inhibition.  Everything goes.  And the Bible clearly teaches against sexual sins.  Thus we are at an impasse.  This debate over this one topic has placed us in a position where a Christian cannot express themselves in the public square … or anywhere but inside the walls of a church.  Christian business owners,  student groups, and individuals are forced to accept sexual deviance.  And it won’t stop there.  Eventually there will be efforts to silence teachings against sexual sin even within the walls of the church.

Again, Stetzer writes in the “public square” piece:

Are people of faith no longer welcome as they continue to hold the beliefs they have held since their foundation? Must they jettison their sacred texts and adopt new views to be accepted as part of society? If they do not, will they be marginalized and demonized even as they serve the poor, care for the orphan, or speak against injustice?

Or, instead, can we recognize that a substantial minority in our culture hold views they see as rooted in their scriptures and part of their faith, even though those views may not always be popularly accepted? Yes, the First Amendment protects these views. But we also have to decide if the people who hold such views can be protected by the so-called tolerant culture as they seek not just to hold those beliefs in secret, but also dare to utter them in public–even on a sermon tape fifteen years ago.

I believe the answer is yes, we will be “marginalized and demonized”.  Our beliefs cannot change if they are founded on the truth of Scripture.  We will continue to be hated by the world.  As Francis Schaeffer once stated:

Truth always carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong.

We cannot accommodate.  Chick Fil A and Hobby Lobby have stood up for their beliefs, no matter what the outcome.  Christian groups at universities must likewise stand up for their beliefs, whether they remain recognized student groups or not. The world will hate them for standing up for the truth of Scripture, but they – and we – must not hate in return.  We must state our beliefs and preach the Gospel in the face of the hatred of the world, but in doing so, speak the truth in love.

We’ve known this would happen for over 2000 years.  It took a break in our country when the nation’s founders incorporated the idea of religious liberty in the Constitution, but now the social liberal culture has chipped that away and in doing so encroached upon the very moral fabric on which the nation was founded, and has returned us to the perversions of the Roman Empire.  History repeats itself.

But Jesus did warn us.

(UPDATE: Be on the lookout for more hate from the world this morning. I just noticed that Chick-Fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy has passed away. That’s sure to trigger an avalanche of online hate.)

(UPDATE 2: The ever-dependable, ever-predictable Left strikes again.)

* – corrected organization name