Religiously Inspired Hate Is Still Hate

As regular readers of this blog well know, one of my pet peeves is the undeserved deference that religion is afforded both by the media and by America's political establishment.  Take something that would never otherwise be respected or catered to and wrap the smoke screen of religious belief around it and suddenly it becomes acceptable and critics are labeled as "anti-religion."  Throughout history all kinds of atrocities and rape and pillaging have been justified because of conflicting religious beliefs.  Hate and, in some cases, genocide don't suddenly become something different merely because the perpetrators point to the Bible or Koran for justification.  It is long past time that the "get out of jail free" given to hate filled religious extremists end and their words and actions be judged for what they are regardless of the claimed justification on "deeply held religious belief."  A piece in Huffington Post looks at a controversy in Canada  over the accreditation fight over Trinity Western University ("TWU") proposed law school.  TWU is a Christian extremist institution that openly discriminates against the LGBT community.  Properly, the Canadian accreditation bodies have to date refused to approve TWU application because of its discriminatory policies.  Now, three courts will determine whether such refusal was appropriate.  Here are article excerpts:

The complete picture of what occurred in Orlando last week, of what motivated the worst mass shooting in United States' history, is complicated and may never fully emerge.

But what we do know is that the shooter targeted an LGBTQ club, and that most of the people he murdered and injured belonged to the Queer community. We also know that this was not a coincidence. Gay, lesbian, and transgendered folks in the United States, and elsewhere, are among the most vilified -- the most hated -- minorities in the world.

In Canada, courts in three provinces are poised to issue decisions related to Trinity Western University's ongoing efforts to establish an accredited law school in British Columbia. TWU, as many are aware, requires its students, staff, and faculty to sign a contract promising not to engage in "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman." The University cites biblical passages vilifying and condemning homosexuality to support its policy of discrimination against gays and lesbians. The passages refer to homosexuality as "vile" and "shameful."

Law Societies in Ontario, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia decided that TWU's law degree could not be accredited because the University excludes gays and lesbians. TWU appealed those decisions and courts in each of these provinces are now faced with striking the right balance between TWU's freedom of religion and the equality rights of sexual minorities. Getting this balance right is critically important.

The issue is not whether TWU should be able to teach law. The issue is whether public bodies, like law societies, should accredit TWU's law degree given its discriminatory policy. These three law societies were rightly concerned about the detrimental impact on the equality interests of sexual minorities that would occur if they accredited an institution that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Why was it right for them to deny accreditation? Because, unfortunately, our society remains filled with hatred for sexual minorities. This is not, as Justice Jamie Campbell of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court grossly mischaracterized the issue, a matter of "hurt feelings." Queer people are beaten, raped, and murdered because of our sexual orientation and gender identities.

From the perspective of those of us who remain the subject of this disgust and detestation, it matters not whether this hatred is born of religious belief. The effects of religiously inspired homophobia are every bit as real as homophobia motivated by fear of difference or intolerance of others. Practices of exclusion based on views that perpetuate this type of hatred, whether intentionally or inadvertently, are no less damaging when supported by scripture.

Public institutions, such as law societies, are obligated not to put their stamp of approval on an organization that excludes one of the most vilified minorities in Canada and around the world. They are legally obligated not to contribute to the hatred of sexual minorities.

This does not mean that TWU should be prevented from practicing its beliefs or from teaching law from its evangelical Christian perspective. But as with all rights, there are limits to freedom of religion. For example, it must be balanced with equality. Requiring public bodies to accredit an institution that discriminates against a despised minority, a group subject to the most violent hate crimes in Canada, would allow freedom of religion to trump equality.

The mass murder of gays and lesbians that occurred last week in Orlando provides a horrific example of what can occur when a country allows one of its constitutional rights to run amok.  Let's hope that the British Columbia Court of Appeal, Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, and the Ontario Court of Appeal recognize that a just and humane balance between freedom of religion and equality protections for sexual minorities draws a line between what a religious organization can do privately and what our public bodies will accept. Let's hope these courts recognize that offering state sanction to an organization that discriminates against gays and lesbians because of a religious belief that homosexuality is "vile" and "shameful" would contribute to the kind of hatred that makes LGBTQ communities the target of such virulent homophobia.

Here in Virginia we see two law schools that routinely use follow practices  like those advanced by TWU.  Regent University and Liberty University both  have law schools that support hate and bigotry as part of their agenda.  Sadly, both received accreditation from the American Bar Association.  Shame on the ABA. 

Liberty University President: Arm Yourself to "End Those Muslims"

I have long said that Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is a blight on the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Religious extremism is the norm at the "university," its former law dean is suspected to aid in a kidnapping, and longings for a theocracy are seemingly common.  Now, Jerry Falwell, Jr. - who would be a middle aged nobody except for his hate-filled extremist father -  appears to be trying to spark a religious war between Christianity and Islam by calling on Christians to arm themselves to "end those Muslims."  It's a mentality right out of the Medieval Europe and the Crusades, but then again, Medieval religious beliefs reign at Liberty.  How this "university" retains accreditation is a mystery to me since everything it stands for opposes the pursuit of knowledge.  Falwelll later tried to walk back his statement to refer only to "Islamic terrorists," but I suspect the early broad statement about killing Muslims is what he really meant.  He'd probably like to include gays on the list of those to be killed as well. The Washington Post looks at this latest lunacy.  Here are excerpts:

The president of Liberty University, a popular pilgrimage site for presidential candidates, urged students during the school’s convocation Friday to get their permits to carry concealed weapons.

In his remarks, President Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late religious right leader Jerry Falwell Sr., pressed students at the Christian school in Lynchburg, Va., to carry weapons on campus following Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.

“I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in,” he says, the rest of his sentence drowned out by loud applause while he said, “and killed them.”

Falwell said that when he referred to “those Muslims,” he was referring to Islamic terrorists, specifically those behind the attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino. “That’s the only thing I would clarify,” Falwell said. “If I had to say what I said again, I’d say exactly the same thing.”

A spokesman for Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) sent the following statement on Saturday:

“My administration is committed to making Virginia an open and welcoming Commonwealth, while also ensuring the safety of all of our citizens. Mr. Falwell’s rash and repugnant comments detract from both of those crucial goals,” McAuliffe said. “Those of us in leadership positions, whether in government or education, must take care to remember the tremendous harm that can result from reckless words.”

Liberty University’s convocation service, held three times a week in a 12,000-seat sports arena, is mandatory for the schools’ students who live on campus and is also watched by thousands of its 95,000 online students.

Falwell said his comments have generated the most positive comments he has ever received for remarks made during convocation. “The support here on campus is almost universal,” he said.

Liberty University and the agenda it pushes are down right frightening and in my view, anyone who is a student at Liberty might need to be added to the watch list of right wing extremists.

Bart Ehrman - The Abnormality of a Conservative Christian Upbringing/Education

I have read and enjoyed a number of biblical historian Bart Ehrman's books which place legitimate history and archaeological evidence over the blind acceptance of the Bible as the "revealed word of God."  It goes without saying that Ehrman is not too popular in Christofascists circles where logic, reason, and true historical inquiry are frowned upon if not outright condemned.  One thing that makes Ehrman interesting is that before he went on to graduate school, he attended Moody Bible Institute which, like so many "Christian" colleges pushed students to embrace ignorance and avoid living in objective reality at all costs.  Ehrman has a post on his blog that looks at the stunted world of Moody Bible College and what is being done even today at such institutions that have no right to be called institutions of learning.  Here are some post highlights:

I do need to spend this final post on the original thread to explain in very brief order what I am resentful about when it comes to my education as a 17-21 year old at Moody.   There are three things, all of which I could expand at length, but since I want to move on to other things, I will make just a few comments on each.

The first has to do with social life.   Moody was a highly regimented environment.  There were all sorts of rules involving social behavior.   Some of these rules were draconian.  here was no chance of having a normal young adulthood there, and I’ve long resented the fact that I missed out on lots of things that are normal, healthy, and important for full social and emotional integration into society.

There could be no drinking (even a beer: drinking age in the country at the time was 18), no drugs, no smoking.  These parts were obvious.  We were also not allowed to dance, to go to movies, or to play cards.  (Seriously: cards are of the devil.)  We were not allowed to have sexual relations of any kind.  Those were reserved for marriage. . . . . By no sexual relations, I not only mean no sexual intercourse.  I mean no sexual contact of any kind, including touching and kissing. 

Second thing: my education.  Or lack of it.  I’ve already mentioned that I was and still am grateful for the massive inundation that I received in the Bible.  I do not say “biblical studies” because there was in fact very, very little scholarship involved.  There was mastery of the Bible.  And of what very conservative evangelical scholars said about the theology of the Bible.   But in terms of academics, there was not much more. These were the years where I should have been, and where I so desperately now wish that I had been, studying in the great disciplines of the humanities and social sciences and hard sciences. . . .

I *should* have been studying the basics of chemistry, biology, and physics.  I had none of that.   I am hugely ignorant as a result.   In addition, I obviously never had courses in cultural anthropology, sociology, or psychology.

I was young and ignorant and was directed there by an older man whom I trusted, when – as I now know — I shouldn’t have trusted him further than I could throw him.   I was passionate for learning about the Bible, and so that’s what I threw myself into.  But how desperately now do I wish I had spent these formative years of my life reading great literature, learning modern languages, studying in depth the Greek and Latin classics, being trained in history, and on and on and on.

The third reason for my resentment is related, and is in a sense the flip side of the coin.   . . . . I am highly resentful of the approach to education taken at Moody.  It was three years of indoctrination.  It was not three years of learning how to think, how to analyze, and to assess, how to evaluate, how to come to one’s own views, how to reason to a conclusion.  It was three years of learning the right answers.   Right answers from within a very narrow and stifling ideological/theological perspective. These right answers were the key to eternal life and earthly happiness.  We simply had to learn the answers and … we would have the answers.   How stupid.  How ignorant.  How mind-numbing.   How mind-killing.   It is not simply that we were not taught how to think or encouraged to think.  We were actively *discouraged* from coming up with our own views, establishing our own perspectives, deriving our own conclusions.  Doing such things was seen as dangerous. 

I did not start learning how to think until I left Moody, and then it took me much longer to learn how to think than normal intelligent human beings take, since I had to drop so much baggage that I had been burdened with.   And this was emotionally difficult, because Moody not only loaded me up with baggage, but the people loading the baggage insisted that the only way to have a happy life and blessed afterlife was to carry that baggage all the way to the end of the road. I don’t feel I started to become fully human until I realized that they were completely wrong, and that their approach to education was, in fact, sinister. 

What Ehrman describes is what is precisely what happens at "christian" schools and colleges and universities - think Regent University of Liberty University among others - every day.   It's not an education but rather indoctrination and brainwashing.  Why such schools and institutions are given accreditation is mind boggling.  Meanwhile children and youth who are forced to attend such institutions are being subjected to a form of child and psychological abuse.  Such places need to lose accreditation sooner as opposed to later.

The Fundamentalists War On Thinking Christians

Just as the evangelicals in the Republican Party base are increasingly insistent that GOP candidates meet religious extremist imposed ideological purity standards, so too are thinking Christians being driven out of fundamentalist affiliated colleges.   Any signs of accepting modern knowledge and science or any recognition of objective reality is nothing short of heresy.  Through "statements of Faith" and increasingly by outright firing, professors that do not fully embrace ignorance are on the witch hunt hit list.  The latest target is Professor Tom Oord of Northwest Nazarene University (NNU).  An obvious issue needs to be reviewing the accreditation of such institutions and whether or not scholarship funds should be available for backward, discriminatory institutions (in my view, the answer is no).  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the growing witch hunts at such colleges and, in my view, misnamed universities.  Here are highlights:

Evangelicals have just voted another intellectual off their island.  On the eve of April Fools’ Day, while on vacation in Hawaii with his wife, Professor Tom Oord got an email from the president of Northwest Nazarene University (NNU) notifying him that he was being terminated. NNU is one of eight schools sponsored by the evangelical denomination Church of the Nazarene.

Oord was a tenured full professor—the highest rank in academia—who had been on the NNU faculty for 13 years, after several years as my colleague at Eastern Nazarene College (ENC).  Oord was the university’s leading scholar, with 20 books on his CV; by most measures he was also the denomination’s leading scholar and one of a tiny number of Nazarene theologians whose reputations reached beyond evangelicalism. Oord had won multiple teaching awards and was wildly popular with students and respected by his colleagues. He had brought over a million dollars of grant money to the University—a remarkable accomplishment for a professor at a small unsung liberal arts college.

Oord, however, was controversial.  He strongly supported evolution and had long been a target of creationists in the denomination. He embraced “open theism,” the view that God does not know the future but responds in love—rather than coercive control—to events as they occur, rather than foreordaining everything. Fundamentalist critics called him a heretic and had been vying for his termination for years.

Getting rid of tenured faculty requires administrative creativity. In Oord’s case a small downturn in graduate enrollment cracked open a legal door that allowed the president to declare a financial problem. Curiously this financial problem required the termination of only one faculty member. Even more curious, this financial problem came in a year of record overall enrollment when NNU was celebrating its great financial health in press releases.

Alexander and Oord, however, have been at odds for years. As recently as last year Alexander informed Oord that he would not be returning because a theological review board was investigating him and was about, in so many words, to declare him a heretic.

The controversy at NNU is, tragically, just one of many related incidents that has plagued the Church of the Nazarene. In 2007 biologist Richard Colling was forced out of another Nazarene University for his book arguing that evolution was true and should be understood as God’s way of creating. In 2010 I left Eastern Nazarene College (ENC) after years of being attacked by fundamentalists as a heretic for my views on science.

An entire college could be staffed with the victims of fundamentalist witch-hunts in the Church of the Nazarene. And, if we add the victims of witch-hunts in other evangelical traditions, we could staff a major research university.

The controversy at NNU is one battle in the long war that is being waged—and slowly won— against thinking evangelical Christians. Battles at the various institutions are eerily similar and unfold along the following lines: Progressive, educated scholars push their traditions to make peace with new ideas, to be open to reconsidering historical positions on human origins, the nature of God, the morality of homosexuality, the meaning of Bible stories, the status of other religions.

American evangelicalism’s failure to make peace with the progressive scholars within its ranks—or even keep the conversation going—has alienated it from a broad range of scholarship. In The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age, historian Randall Stephens and I lament that most evangelicals now get their science from young earth creationist Ken Ham, their history from the discredited revisionist David Barton, their social science from the homophobic James Dobson.  

Noll coined the term “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” to describe the intellectual crisis of his religious tradition—a crisis created by that tradition’s inability to break free of the fundamentalism out of which it arose.

One has to wonder why anyone hires a graduate of such institutions.  They certainly are not well educated.  Of course, the same holds true of Liberty University here in Virginia.  I would never hire a Liberty graduate since they obviously have been educated in a world of fairy tales and delusion.

Anti-Gay "Christian" Unniversity May Lose Accreditation

In what the Christofascists and professional Christian crowd will likely describe as more "persecution" of Christians, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges has given anti-gay Gordon College a year to review - and apparently change - its anti-gay policies.  The accreditation board has indicated that Gordon College's policy on homosexuality may be in violation of accreditation standards.  Would that similar accreditation boards would take action against Regent University in Virginia Beach and the always foul Liberty University in Lynchburg.  Obviously, if these "Christian" colleges begin to lose accreditation, students may find themselves hindered in getting scholarships and their graduates could find it difficult to get into graduate schools or find employment.  Personally, I'd love to see that trend.  The Boston Business Journal looks at the situation.  Here are highlights:

The regional body that accredits colleges and universities has given Gordon College a year to report back about a campus policy on homosexuality, one that may be in violation of accreditation standards.

The higher education commission of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges met last week and "considered whether Gordon College's traditional inclusion of 'homosexual practice' as a forbidden activity" runs afoul of the commission's standards for accreditation, according to a joint statement from NEASC and Gordon College.

The commission asked Gordon College to submit a report next September. The report should describe the process by which the college has approached its review of the policy “to ensure that the College’s policies and procedures are non-discriminatory,” the statement said.

NEASC placed Gordon College on its September agenda after news broke in July that Lindsay had signed a letter with other religious leaders supporting an exemption from an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation.

That led to scrutiny about the now infamous Gordon College policy, which it calls the life and conduct statement, that prohibits a range of activities such as sex outside of marriage, drinking and smoking on campus or at college functions – and homosexual practices.

The members of the working group include trustees, faculty, administrators, staff and students, Sweeney said. At least one of the students is gay, Sweeney said, and some of the faculty members on the working group have been vocally opposed to Gordon College’s life and conduct policy. Asked if the working group will consider eliminating the policy entirely, Sweeney said he believes this will be among the options the working group considers. “There will be a very balanced perspective,” he said.

As I have argued before, far right Christians and their discriminatory - and often racists - beliefs need to become unwelcome in decent society and their schools and colleges that indoctrinate students in hate and bigotry truly should not be counted among accredited institutions that pursue education and knowledge since their basic tenants reject knowledge and intellect and embrace ignorance and bigotry. 

When Will the ABA Yank Liberty Law School's Accreditation?

Virginia is curse by having the distinction of two "universities" that are run by crackpot nutcases and hate merchants: Regent University in Virginia Beach and Liberty University in Lynchburg.  While the increasingly insane Pat Robertson continues to embarrass the region with his batshit crazy/hate filled comments, he seemingly leaves the operation of Regent's law school alone.  The same cannot be said for Liberty's law school where Mat Staver continues to make remarks and push policies that ought to make the American Bar Association revisit the law school's accreditation - the loss of which would make it impossible for Liberty graduates to tax the bar exam in most states (something that would great benefit the legal profession).  Staver's latest dose of hate marketing is noted by the Washington Post.  Staver is ranting that the GOP's failure to loudly oppose gay marriage is akin to silence in Germany in the 1930's as the Nazi regime rose to power.  If the statement isn't insane enough by itself, the real irony is that Staver wants a Christian theocracy where those who do not subscribe to his hate and fear based religion would suffer like those who opposed the Nazis. Here are highlights from the Post piece:

Mathew Staver, the dean of the ABA-accredited Liberty University School of Law in Virginia, is upset that Republicans aren’t saying and doing more to stop same-sex marriage. In an interview on a Christian radio program, he offered this observation:

I think from the political right, the Republicans and so forth, those that are Republican elected officials state and federal, those who remain silent will ultimately be held accountable just as much as Democrats who advocate to the contrary. This is not an issue in which you can remain silent any more than you can remain silent during Nazi Germany. That was a moral issue, it was not defined by geography, there was a moral imperative there of the dignity of the human being, you can’t remain silent there and expect no consequences. Nor can you remain silent or advocate to the contrary with regards to the undermining of marriage as a union of a man and a woman.

The Supreme Court is currently considering whether to stay the Fourth Circuit’s decision to strike down Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage.