Belmont University’s “Inclusiveness”

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Belmont University has decided to add “sexual orientation” to its nondiscrimination policy. I remember the days when Belmont was a fairly conservative Southern Baptist university–it is still a huge rival of my alma mater, David Lipscomb University. But Belmont has cut its ties with the Southern Baptist Convention and no longer considers itself bound by traditional Christian moral teachings.

Someone might argue that a nondiscrimination policy does not imply acceptance of practicing homosexuality. The difficulty with that argument is that a nondiscrimination policy places sexual orientation on the same par as race and sex–just another non-essential difference between human beings when it comes to admissions and hiring. In addition, if the policy is consistently applied to faculty as well as to students,  it would allow practicing homosexuals to teach at an ostensibly Christian university.

Traditional Christians have long desired to send their children to educational institutions that uphold the orthodox Christian faith. State universities, with their general hostility to Christianity, are not an option for these parents and their children. But the options are increasingly being taken away as “Christian” schools hire faculty who often hide their true positions until they receive tenure. The university does not want a lawsuit on its hands, so it keeps those faculty, who hire more faculty in their own image. Over time, the traditional Christian nature of the college or university evaporates and is replaced by a watered down liberal Christianity that puts tolerance above the teaching of the church. Sadly, that is what has happened at Belmont University. I pray that the same process does not take place at Lipscomb, my alma mater, but as it increases in size and influence, it, too may follow the ways of the secular world. It is one thing to be an at institution which from the start is mainline Protestant–one expects a general liberal bias at those schools (although they will hire the occasional traditional Christian!). But for a school traditionally loyal to the historic Christian faith to deny the basic sexual ethics held by the Christian Church from the beginning is a betrayal of its Christian mission. Belmont is a fine university academically, but potential students for whom it is important to attend a traditional Christian college or university should consider other schools.