Christian Unions - the plot thickens

There's an interesting article at Ekklesia that claims that Exeter's Evangelical Christian Union sued the students' guild after the ban was lifted. (Ekklesia: Evangelicals sued despite removal of university 'ban') Some points that stand out include:

ECU council member, Ben Martin, brought the suit on January 5 and announced it to the media. He has now admitted however to the Times newspaper, that the religious group had been informed by the Guild that the temporary ban had lapsed and that all privileges had been reinstated.

In a press release he was previously quoted as saying that if the Guild reversed its decision and reinstated the CU as a full society, then he and others would meet with the Guild and look afresh at how its Equal Opportunities policies related to religious societies.

He has now told the Times that he feels the ban would be imposed again, despite the Guild's assurances that no decision had been taken. "Based on the experience of the past nine months, the ECU has no confidence or trust in the integrity of the Guild," he said. "We received no formal written confirmation of anything, all we had was a mobile phone conversation."

In October the ECU was temporarily banned while the Guild carried out an audit into their membership rules. The audit was completed and the suspension expired on December 12, the day before the university Christmas holiday. The ECU claims it was not told that this had occurred until January 4.

Jemma Percy, President of the Student Guild, insists that the ECU knew the ban was temporary and that the Guild was willing to discuss the situation with the ECU before taking any action. "We were happy to negotiate, and continue carrying on a constructive dialogue," she said. "We made an offer to skip all the back-and-forth letter writing steps and call in someone external that all of us agreed on to review the case. We only became aware of this suit through the media."

Also of note is that Ekklesia has published a report "United We Stand? A report on current conflicts between Christian Unions and Students' Unions" (be warned it's a pdf) looking at the current rows and exposing many myths in the media coverage.

The report raised questions about the role of Evangelical lobby and campaign groups external to the Evangelical Christian Union, and their agendas. It suggested that their involvement could be escalating the conflict rather than contributing to its resolution.

So is the escalation at Exeter really the genuine wish of the members of the Evangelical Christian Union or is it being spurred on by outside bodies, such as the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship?

A Christian Union looking for persecution

Since my previous posts (On Christian Unions and Students' Unions and Bishops jump on a bandwagon) the row between some Students' Unions and Christian Unions has reached ridiculous proportions with the announcement that Exeter's Evangelical Christian Union is going to court to force the Students' Guild to allow it to have public sourced money despite not being open to all. (BBC News: Christian students in legal fight) If the ECU thinks that it's being persecuted because it isn't able to both discriminate and access Guild funds (there's nothing stopping it existing outside the Guild) then it is trivialising the meaning of religious persecution.

BBC News has statements by representatives of both the Students' Guild and the Evangelical Christian Union and the latter is somewhat curious:

Ben Martin, Exeter University Evangelical Christian Union:
We ask members to sign a simple statement that says they declare Jesus Christ to be their Lord, Saviour and God. And to lead the society we ask people to agree to a 10-point doctrinal basis which states the core political beliefs of the Christian faith.

If it really is just "the core political beliefs of the Christian faith" why does this statement include a clause asserting Biblical literalism, denying the role of tradition and interpretation that most Christian Churches have?

And if, as some reports have commented, the issue of homophobia is tied up in this, why has the ECU forgotten that the only people Jesus condemned weren't gays but religious fundamentalists.

Some such as Ben are asserting that there are "at other universities other faith groups... [which] have a simple statement of faith". If they are existing and receiving students' union funds through affiliation (the crucial point that a lot are overlooking) then they too should be looked at.

Ben Martin:
We believe that our fundamental rights of belief, association and freedom of expression have been violated and infringed so we are quite prepared to stand up for these freedoms.

Just what is stopping the ECU existing outside the Students' Guild? As has been often pointed out, this is the position that the Universities and Colleges' Christian Fellowship advocated for years. Indeed they made it a condition of membership so it's a big cheek for them to start whining about other organisations having and enforcing requirements for affiliations.

Truly this whole affair is reflecting badly on the ECU.

Fantastic cartoon

I found this on a post that linked to my blog:

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Bishops jump on a bandwagon

In the latest development in the row about Christian Unions at universities, a group of bishops have signed a letter calling the Christian Unions to be reinstated.

I suspect that some of the bishops have not done their research on this. They might have taken into account the following comments from a student at Exter:

I find it incredibly saddening that the Catholic Church has opted for a quick 'PR' win, commenting on an issue that it hasn't bothered to research.

Had the Roman Catholic church's lead bishop on higher education spoken to the Student Catholic Society at Exeter (and many other of the other denominational societies) he would have learnt of thriving Christian societies on campus at Exeter, working together with other religions in a spirit of unity and peace.

Instead it has jumped on the growing media band wagon claiming that Christians are being ruthlessly suppressed.

How very ironic that on the day that murmurings from the Vatican suggest that the Roman Catholic church will take a more liberal view of contraception, Bishops in England clamour to defend a evangelical view of Christianity that even moderate Christians would find offensive.

Posted by alaindesmier on November 23, 2006 10:22 AM.

I've seen similar comments in various discussion forums, including a messageboard of Exeter students that has linked to this very blog (thanks for the link peeps). But all too many are jumping on a bandwagon and seeing persecution where there is none.

Perhaps all the people talking about the law can explain why Christian Unions should be exempt from Section 22-2-i (I don't know the formal way to cite laws) of the 1994 Education Act:

(i) the procedure for allocating resources to groups or clubs should be fair and should be set down in writing and freely accessible to all students;

How is it fair to require other societies to be open to all students and democratically run but give exemption to Christian Unions?

Or for that matter, why do many Christian Unions require people to sign a statement of beliefs to join? Since when has a Christian Union Membership Secretary been needed to judge an individual's personal relationship with God?

On Christian Unions and Students' Unions

As both a Christian and a Students' Union officer it was almost inevitable that I'd write something on the current row in the media and the blogosphere about the current clash between several university Christian Unions and their Student's Unions.

One of the things that stands out the most is that this issue has been very badly reported and I suspect some have misrepresented the position they are in to increase their apparent "victim status". I can't comment on the individual cases without further knowledge (although as a colleague and friend works at Birmingham I have heard some of the details of the situation there) but some of the issues are quite commonplace across the board.

First off these are not cases of "banning" but rather the Students' Unions are disaffiliating the Christian Unions from the union. Society affiliation is basically the formal means by which a society at a university applies and qualifies for access to students' union society resources, which variously include funding, cheap or free room bookings, the SU acting as a guarantor on booking rooms from the university, a website on the SU server, maybe a voting member of the Societies' Forum or Union Council (depending upon how the Students' Union governance is structured) and so forth. In order to qualify for this, there are often a number of requirements set down by the Students' Union that societies must meet. These invariably include:

*The society must be open to membership by all students
*Conformity to equal opportunities and non-discriminatory practices
*The society officers (who are the ones who will be determining how the students' union resources are being used) must be democratically elected by the members of the society
*A minimum number of members (sometimes more than one minimum, related to the levels of funding available)
*Not substantially duplicating another society already in existence

And often some or all of the first three cause problems for Christian Unions. If one comment I've seen on a blog today is true then for years the Universities and Colleges' Christian Fellowship (the national body for Christian Unions) used to have a policy that Christian Unions would not affiliate to Students' Unions. In a somewhat ironic position given the current row, the UCCF would disbar any Christian Union that did.

When I was at the University of Kent the Christian Union there was not affiliated to the Students' Union and, as far as I could see, had no intention to. Whether they had tried to in years past I do not know, but in my day the attitude of the CU was that affiliating would be incompatible as they did not wish to elect their officers, instead having the outgoing officers and some outsiders select the new ones, they would have to drop the requirement for members to sign the UCCF Doctrinal statement (see here for more details, albeit from a critical source) to be open to membership by all students and some other reasons relating to the way they raised and spent money. Also they weren't the only Christian group on campus - others such as the Anglican Society (later "Christian Focus") and the (Roman) Catholic Society were in strong existence and were open to membership by all students. Indeed there were a number of students (mainly reading Theology but also some with friends in several societies) who were members of both, as well as of the Islamic Society.

It seems the Kent problems weren't unique - at Reading it appears there were tensions between the SU and CU, not helped by some in the UCCF apparently spreading scare stories and encouraging confrontation. However an agreed relationship between the two bodies was worked out that is now praised by both UCCF staff members and the current Reading SU President.

Unfortunately not all have pursued a constructive policy and I suspect that much of the current uproar stems from confrontationalists once again spreading misleading advice and encouraging a hardline stance.

The other issue that comes up the most in clashes between CUs and SUs is equal opportunities. Many have felt the Christian Union is not always preaching tolerance - I can recall reports of moments when they have said "We pray against Muslims" and many have found their position on homosexuality to be deeply and proactively intolerant. This is a much harder issue to comment on without knowing the facts, but if true then the societies are promoting intolerance and it is right for the students' union to deny affiliation, funds and resources because of this.

One other point that has been raised is that the actions against Christian Unions are somehow "anti-Christian". But many critics of CUs are to be found amongst Christians. Indeed when the Warwick CU was disaffiliated from the SU some years ago, it was members of Christian Focus who were amongst the most prominent supporters of the move. Many Christians at universities find the CU to be very narrow in their doctrine, being only evangelical protestant but claiming to be a body for "all Christians".

Unfortunately much of the media seems to be spinning the story as one of secular fanatics persecuting innocent Christians. Will they ever get their facts straight?