By: Brent Stephenson
4/14/2006

Editor's note: Senior Brent Stephenson has decided to share his views on intolerance on campus as part of our new Guest Column section of the Crimson Chronicle. We encourage any other students interested having their own Guest Column to contact us.

On September 30, 2005, a Danish newspaper made the decision to publish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad – cartoons that, after inspiring a string of riots and violence, resulted in the deaths of 139 people and the injuries of 823 others.

 On April 11, 2006, a student tore down and ripped up signs, two of which read “Christ is the wisdom and power of God,” and “Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?” – an act that resulted in … nothing.

 Most who know me well are aware that I am all but a Christian fundamentalist, but I do hold on to the notion that universities should provide an environment where all religious views and beliefs are respected; universities should be the one place where people vow not to be threatened by ideas. In an era that values the ideal of tolerance, the violent destruction of any (non-oppressive) statement of religious faith or belief need not be tolerated.

When I began investigating the battered posters, I was greeted with a unanimous “Well, were the posters stamped?” (as though a stamp issued by the Center for Student Success is the defining marker of all things moral). If I found a Bible or a Koran sitting on Rose Window Plaza and began tearing out pages, I do not think anyone would stop to ask whether or not it was stamped. Which is more sacred, the words and ideas of religion or the forum through which those words and ideas are transmitted?

The fact that the posters were ripped from the walls was easily discerned; parts of the posters remained firmly attached to the walls, and the remnants of the posters became rugs to the feet of passing students. The posters were not “removed” but intentionally left as evidence of someone’s high school-like tirade (not a surprising event in the Village following the “flour” power incident and the Airsoft War to end all Airsoft Wars).

 The issue is not that the posters were removed; it is the pseudo-removal and apathetic aftermath that is noteworthy. While some students literally walked over the word of God, more attentive students basked in the hope that someone else would pick up the trodden word of God and retire it to the sanctuary and solace that is only found in a Friends University trashcan. I will never know how many students passed by the fallen posters before they received a proper burial.

 Although I am thankful that there were no riots and no one was killed, I like to think that an academic environment would respond adversely to a violent assault on the religious beliefs of any people. 

If Friends University provides an education in a Christian context, why is it that some intolerant of Christianity are attracted to it? The conceptualization of the anti-Christian student within the matrix of a Christian university is counterintuitive. If I woke up tomorrow morning and decided that I wanted to join Al Qaeda, I wouldn’t drive into Afghanistan in my Hummer 2 (featuring a framed picture of a Muhammad cartoon hanging from the rearview mirror and a CD player blasting a Toby Keith record) sporting a sweet pair of American flag, kickboxing pants and a W.W.J.D. bracelet. When one chooses to assimilate in a particular social climate, it serves him or  her well to bear some surface conformity.

How could it be that such an act of intolerance occurred within a “Christian context”? Surely, five credit hours of required Christian coursework is more than enough to cultivate religious tolerance in the minds of young college students. Not to mention, I have never heard a swear word uttered by someone who signed the Community Life Standards policy. Luckily, the key to tolerance is signing honor codes and sitting through 36 lovely Faith and Learning classes.

Are the requirements that mandate every student to sign a sheet of paper and enroll in five credit hours of religion courses sufficient to justify the labeling of Friends University as a “Christian context”? To answer such a question would necessarily require defining the term “Christian context” – something Friends University will never do; the marketability of Friends University hinges on the perpetual broad interpretation of the term. 

Friends University is technically a Christian university by name, but when issues become murky, especially if those issues find their way to the public sphere, I am uncertain that the institution will harness the self-awareness required for preservation.

A moment will arise, whether it is the formulation of an organization like Promoting Equality for Everyone or the articulation of a dissenting voice, that will force the institution of Friends University to consider aligning itself with a particular brand of Christian paradigm or not, and when that brink is tested and the verdict is pronounced, the recruitment and economic success at this University will be shaken and an identity crisis will ensue.

It is not essential that Friends University establish a rigid Christian environment but that the University is exactly what it claims to be. With the luxury of ambiguity, this task will not prove difficult.