Christian Union V Student Union: Who’s right?
I’ve been reading with some interests the recent coverage by the media of the souring relations in some Universities between the Students’ Union (SU) and the Christian Union (CU). It all boils down to whether CU members can be asked to sign a declaration of their belief in God before they can join. In the SUs eyes, this breaks equal opportunity policies, which states that membership has to be open to all.
There are suggestions that this is a new development, but such debates have been ongoing for along time. There are are a few Universities where the CU is not allowed to be part of the SU (try Bath if you’re interested).
As a matter of interest, here is an email I received back in April 2002 (it’s an article but I’m not sure where from) when I was doing some research in the subject. Especially see the reply at the bottom:
ANDREW CAREY takes a behind-the-scenes look at topical issues
New threat that could close Christian Unions
Christian Unions are under threat at British universities as a result of a wrongheaded initiative which lumps evangelicals together with Islamic organisations like the Al-Muhijiroun, which condone anti-Semitism and terrorism.
Ironically enough the liberal Student Christian Movement, which has looked with envy on the success of the University and Colleges Christian Fellowship for 50 years in the face of its own accelerated decline, is one of those organisations attempting to deliver the last rites to evangelicalism on British campuses.
`Faiths Together on Campus’ is planning to bring together Catholic, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh societies at universities together with chaplaincies to create religious tolerance and respect. A draft paper now available on the Internet, on the website of the University Church of Oxford, St Mary’s, lumps Christian Unions (CUs) and the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) together with cults which use brainwashing techniques.
Furthermore, the paper, written by `a senior Muslim chaplain’, claims that CMF and CUs are flouting the 1998 Human Rights Act by insisting that student leaders assent to a doctrinal statement.
The paper calls this a “discriminatory doctrinal test excluding Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, liberal Protestants and many other Christians, who as a matter of faith and conscience, are unable to sign it.” Such a test, it is argued, enables extreme factions to keep a “stranglehold” over certain student religious societies, and to stifle varied opinions.
And not only that, `Faiths Together on Campus’, which hopes to set up groups in British universities next year to monitor religious tolerance on campuses, has produced a Code of Practice for religious organisations that they want universities and Student Unions to adopt. This Code of Practice argues that no religious organisations should discriminate in their rules for either membership or leadership, on grounds of religious belief - a daft idea that could see a Muslim heading up the Catholic Society or a Conservative leading the Socialist Worker’s Party.
It is amazing that a paper drafted by a Muslim should- be so clearly directed against Christian evangelism, with a few passing mentions of Islamic or Jewish extremists. The agenda is clear, as it always is, with such initiatives, the only kind of religion which is not to be tolerated is evangelical Christian belief. Under the guise of tolerance, we have a clear attack on religious freedom.
I’d be tempted to dismiss this lunacy as typical of a certain type of student outlook. Such students are free of the home for the first time, and in a welter of new ideas and experiences they seek security in the discarded ideas of a previous generation, thinking that they are the first to think rebelliously. In their immature universe they cannot hold more than one idea in their heads at the same time, holding that if one is true the other is not to be tolerated.
If such young students, with a sense of their own self-importance, had headed the Spanish Inquisition we would have had many more martyrs. I should know: I was one of these ludicrous students, myself.
But the paper is apparently written by a University of Oxford Muslim chaplain, and is on the website of a leading Anglican Church in Oxford. The Catholic Student Council, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, the National Union of Students, the Student Christian Movement and the Union of Jewish Students have all given their support to this initiative.
I have been unable so far to find anything else about it. Its origins are shady but its future appears to be rather sinister and threatening to religious freedom - precisely the objective it is supposed to ensure.
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And the response:Christians and universities
We are writing to develop the points made in the article by Andrew Carey (April 12) with regard to attempts to restrict evangelical Christian teaching on university campuses.
Let us be quite clear. All religions have the inherent legal right to propagate their faith. Proselytising has heightened protection under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Kokkinakis v . Greece (1993)) and university institutions may not deny access to evangelical groups to their `information networks’ and facilities (Soldaten v Austria (1995)).
Freedom of religion to evangelise is a type of freedom of speech which is given specific protection in the United Kingdom in relation to educational establishments under section 43 of the Education (No.2) Act 1986. This means that higher educational establishments simply cannot prevent the dissemination of the Gospel. Christians must therefore be robust in exercising this important freedom.
The Government does have the discretion to proscribe organisations that conflict with a general neutral provision of the criminal law; whilst this might apply to a small number of Islamic groups,, it. is inconceivable that it will apply to mainstream Christian groups.
With regard to the assertion that it is discriminatory and, thus, contrary to the Human Rights Act, for Christian societies to exclude individuals who do not conform to a statement of faith, nothing could be further from the truth.
Freedom of association implies the negative right of freedom not to associate with individuals one does not wish to (Webster v UK (1984)). There is simply no right to belong to an organisation that does not want you as a member. The Conservative Party can exclude a Labour activist and vice versa.
The disturbing trend is the discrimination against Christians and this must be resisted at all levels; politically, socially and legally.
Paul Diamond, Barrister
Andrea Williams, Lawyers Christian Fellowship,
Peter Saunders, Christian Medical Fellowship,
Rose Dowsett, UCCF,
Don Horrocks, Evangelical Alliance.