Tensions are rising at the hundreds of U.S. Christian colleges and universities. The Christian teachings they ascribe to are different from wider societal values over gender identity and sexual orientation, because they assert that God created humans in unchangeable male and female identities, and sex should only happen within the marriage of a man and a woman.
Among Protestant institutions, a few are pushing the envelope, and most are hoping to stay out of the messiness, said John Hawthorne, a retired Christian college sociology professor and administrator.
“Denominations won’t budge, so colleges will need to lead the way,” Hawthorne added. Otherwise, they might not survive, because students are used to values far different from churches’ teachings, as highlighted by last week’s Senate passage of legislation to protect same-sex marriage.
“Today’s college freshman was born in 2004, the year Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage,” Hawthorne said, suggesting there might not be enough conservative students in the future for some of the universities to survive.
The consequences extend beyond the experiences of current students, many of whom enroll not because of faith but academics, athletics or scholarships. Some will likely become church leaders in an already divided community where gender confusion is flowing into the church—first through female elders and pastors, and then through the its feminist offspring, LGBTQ+.
New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ Catholics, keeps a list of over 130 Catholic colleges it considers LGBTQ-friendly because they provide public affirmation, including courses and clubs, said its director, Francis DeBernardo.
“Catholic colleges and universities were … and still are the most LGBTQ-friendly places in the church in the United States,” DeBernardo added.
That has enraged a few parents, like a father complaining “that we have students with male body parts in a female dorm,” he recalled. “I just said, ‘Sir, I don’t check body parts.’”
In May, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched a separate investigation for alleged violations of the rights of LGBTQ students at six Christian universities — including Liberty University.
The independent evangelical university is one of several that have greatly expanded their rules prohibiting students from identifying as LGBTQ or advocating for such identities.
Liberty forbids LGBTQ affinity clubs, same-sex displays of affection, and use of pronouns, restrooms and changing facilities not corresponding to a person’s birth sex. As of this year, its student handbook, called “The Liberty Way,” bans statements and behaviors associated with what it calls “LGBT states of mind.”
Chloe Guillot, a 22-year-old graduate student at SPU who is one of 16 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the school, said it was a matter of social justice.
“I’m wrestling with my own identity and I know how much Christianity has brought harm to communities, whether its people of color, women, or LGBTQ people,” Guillot said. “I have a responsibility to step into those spaces and be willing to fight back. As someone who is a Christian we need to hold ourselves accountable.”
Christian schools are being attacked by the LGBTQ mobs as a way to attack the denomination, friends.
“Denominations won’t budge, so colleges will need to lead the way,” said John Hawthorne, a retired Christian college sociology professor and administrator.
A word of warning to Seventh-day Adventist schools and colleges. You are the vulnerable vanguard in this battle; Satan desires to sift you like wheat in order to destroy the Bride of Christ (Revelation 12:17).
It’s time for you to boldly affirm God’s biblical sexual standards. Say it clear, and say it often. “Here we stand. We will do no other.” That turns the tension on the enemies of God.
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”And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17).