Vanderbilt students pray outside Vanderbilt Board of Trust meeting
Should a Hindu student be allowed to serve as president of a Jewish student group?
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
But that is the policy that Vanderbilt University has chosen. Student religious groups who wish to retain their status as officially registered campus groups (with all of the privileges that provides) are no longer allowed to require that their leaders share the group’s core beliefs.
This dispute has been accelerating all year long, as the religious student groups (including Cru and the Christian Legal Society) have appealed the change in policy—and so far been denied.
Christian professor Carol Swain (Professor of Political Science and Law at Vanderbilt and faculty advisor to Vandy’s Christian Legal Society) sees the policy shift as “part of a movement around the country to secularize campus religion.” Dr. Swain notes, “The groups that are seen as most threatening are the ones that try to live by the Biblical principles that are a core part of who they are—those were the groups that were singled out.”
Ironically, the university’s stance has served to promote leadership among the student leaders of the threatened groups. Cru’s campus ministry staff at Vanderbilt say they are “amazed at how these university students have responded to these trying events with such grace and integrity.”
In the midst of national media attention, Vanderbilt’s Christian students—from eleven different campus religious groups—continue to keep Jesus the main issue.
They pray together (including for the administration and trustees who oppose them).
They worship together.
They also find that the policy dispute gives them opportunities to launch conversations with fellow students and professors about Jesus.
Vanderbilt’s Christian students face the question: “Is my faith important enough for me to take a risky, sometimes unpopular stand on campus?” And they find that it is!
These students are stepping up and speaking to the issue:
- In letters, articles, and press releases
- With legal counsel, with their legislators, and with Vandy alums
- In front of university officials, courageously asking bold questions
…because they know that as leaders in their campus religious organizations, what they believe matters.
Hear their voices yourself: