Exeter University Christian Union
The issue of Christian Unions clashing with Student Unions first came to prominence at the beginning of last year, with the Birmingham Univeristy's Guild of Students freezing the accounts of the Christian Union. Not every evangelical Christian I know saw this as something to kick up a fuss about, and to a point, I agree - if Christians are pushed off campus, it is not necessarily the end of the world, although it is rather an inconvenience - but at the end of the day, the local churches are still there, and tehy can and should be used.
However, this is not to say that Christians should allow themselves to be pushed from their campuses without a fight, and this is exactly what the Exeter University Christian Union are doing, by launching legal action against the Students' Guild. It is quite wrong that in a nation that professes to be Christian in nature, that organisations such as this which seek out to teach and live by Christian teaching should be thrown out from their Guilds for following Biblical principles.
It is quite improper that the Christian Union should be removed for not allowing non-Christians to be members and committee members. Would anyone consider it wrong to ban members of one political party from being on the committee of another? Of course not! Would it be right and proper to enforce Islamic societies to have non-Christians on their committees? No, of course not! Although it does seem that the Students' Guild in Exeter are claiming that they do allow this, strangely - but if they want to do that, let them do it. Christians will not sell out their faith in such a way.
Christians in Britain need to stand up for the faith they hold. There can be no "compromise" on beliefs merely on the basis that others don't like what they hear. The Gospel is unchanging - it is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Bible is not something that is subject to "update", just fulfillment. It's not the Bible that's the problem - it's our fallen world.
Edit: A quote from a listener on BBC Radio 2 on the Jeremy Vine show: "They'll be saying kennels should accept cats next". Brilliant :)
Another one: "It's like a vegetarian complaining that they cannot join the carnivores' society because they are eating meat". Alas, poor, hard-done-by souls they would be!
There is currently 1 comment on this article.
Paulhttp://gingeranddynamite.blogspot.com
You'd do well to actually research this issue a little more. The ECU are simply sulking because they've been asked to comply with Guild rules if they want to use Guild facilities. Pretty reasonable!
2007-01-09 12:34:09