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Last November the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, began to force the Christian Club, "Ratio Christi," to allow atheists to be in leadership, including leading Bible studies.
The club, which "Defends Truth and Christianity" on campuses across the nation, said "no."
The university threatened to punish.
Good news.
Now the university has apologized and restored their campus affiliation.
And reimbursed some of the club's expenses.
Be informed.
Like Vice President Pence told the students, families, and friends at Liberty University a week ago---and again at Taylor University last Saturday; "Easy Christianity in America is gone."
The attempt to control free speech and religious freedom.
Last November the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, began to force the Christian club, Ratio Christi, to be "inclusive" and allow atheists to teach Bible studies in the biblically based Christian organization.
The club filed a lawsuit against the university arguing that the college was not allowed to "prefer some viewpoints and denigrate others" by forcing them to "appoint leaders who fundamentally disagreed with their core values."
Ratio (rah-tee-o) Christi is Latin for "The Reason for Christ". The organization has chapters on campuses across the nation for the purpose of "defending and Christianity at the university." Its focus is Christian apologetics.
They teach Christian university students how to defend their faith, defend God's existence, the reliability of the Bible and the fact of Christ's resurrection in the hostile intellectual environment of secular education.
While any student of any faith is welcome to attend their meetings, the university was trying to force them to allow non-Christians, including atheists, to lead Bible study groups if they wanted to. And some did.want to.
The lawsuit identified several ways in which the University of Colorado had treated this group differently than other groups on the campus. They always treat Christians differently, if allowed.
For example, Ratio Christi pointed out that the university allows fraternities that admit only men and sororities that admit only women to continue as registered organizations, in contradiction to the university's policy against "discriminating based on sex."
Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Tyson Langhofer says,
"Despite claiming inclusiveness and diversity as its core values, the University of Colorado is failing to foster real diversity of thought and is, instead, discriminating against a Christian group based on its beliefs."
He said, "Today's university students will be tomorrow's legislators, judges, university presidents, and voters."
Activist progressives, of course, know this and are counting on it in their quest to remake our culture and our nation.
He continued,
"The University of Colorado is teaching the students the wrong message: that government can dictate who can lead certain student groups. It's vital that public universities model the First Amendment values they are supposed to be teaching to students."
This is a classic example of what's wrong in our culture, and in public education.
The outcome.
Often over the past years, students have been hesitant to take on their university for fear of consequences, and have been bullied into silence or even abandonment of certain values and compromise.
Like Pence says, "easy Christianity is gone." The early Church leaders could certainly identify with that.
The University of Colorado has now agreed to a settlement with the Christian club whom they had "de-affiliated with."
The university has agreed to pay the plaintiff's representing Ratio Christi some $20,574 in damages and will reinstate the group as an official student club. In addition, the college also promised to review its "Club & Organization Handbook" and ensure that it contained information making it clear that clubs are at liberty to only appoint leaders who share the fundamental beliefs of their group.
ADF says,
"It would be absurd for the university to require the vegan student group to appoint a meat-lover as its president. Thankfully, the university quickly fixed its policy by adding provisions that respected student's rights to free association, no longer forcing Christian students to let atheists or other non-Christians lead their Bible studies."
I can't help thinking of Joseph in Genesis. He flourished in tragedy.
He famously said when meeting his brothers who had betrayed him and sold him out (Gen, 50:20), "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive."
Joseph spoke to his brothers using a Hebrew verb that means to "weave": You "wove," he is saying, but God rewove it together for good."
Satan weaves. God reweaves.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Encouraged. Be Bold.