rationalskepticism.org

Shrunk wrote:An interesting article from what seems to be a TWU student newspaper:

Central to TWU’s Christian identity is its self-understanding as a persecuted community. (TWU President Bob) Kuhn calls us to be strong as a community because we are persecuted. To repeat the old adage: Christians are in the world, but are not of it. When the world resists the light and salt of the Christian faith, the Christian community must unite to protect its rights. The TWU community is never as confident of itself as when the media is persecuting it, for nothing else so powerfully affirms TWU in its separateness from the world. As Kuhn tells us, our “TWU community has a mission statement. That mission statement constitutes our purpose; why we exist; what sets us apart” [italics mine]. Had all the law societies initially approved of TWU’s bid for a law school, TWU would have suffered a crisis of identity—for TWU’s mission must run counter to the secular world, not run with it. Without the secular world’s “persecution,” opening a law school would hardly be a “Christian” undertaking.

TWU’s call to unity under the cause of the law school is so loud that is easy to forget that TWU is a university before it is a community. When we think about TWU as a community, it is almost necessary to forget that TWU is a university altogether, for these identities are irreconcilable. A Christian community, we know, is defined by and unified around its shared Christian values. However, TWU invites Christians and non-Christians alike, and in some media markets itself specifically to that latter group. TWU frequently publishes advertisements in secular media which emphasize its small class-sizes and the diversity of programs, while conveniently glossing over its religious affiliation. If TWU actively markets itself to non-Christians who then attend TWU, how can we consider TWU to be a “Christian” community? Do non-Christians qualify for only partial membership? If they do belong to TWU, then what unifies TWU as a community?

TWU defends its Christian values against persecution on the basis that these values are foundational to its “Christian community.” But if the student body is not unified as Christians behind those values, then for whom does TWU defend them? I believe that TWU has fabricated the idea of a “Christian community” in order to justify its defense of values that originate not with its students, but rather with the conservative administration that runs TWU. TWU’s community is merely a mythical front fabricated in order to justify the defense of Christian values against imagined persecution.

http://www.marshillonline.com/featured- ... community/