College Ministry Kicked off Campus - for Requiring Leaders to Be Christian

Via Garrett Haley over at ChristianNewsnet:

TURLOCK, Calif. – A Christian campus organization has lost recognition from its university and been accused of “religious discrimination” for not allowing non-Christians to hold leadership positions in the group.

Chi Alpha is a national student ministry organization with a presence in over 300 college campuses across the United States. According to the group’s website, Chi Alpha exists to “reconcile students to Christ, equipping them through Spirit-filled communities of prayer, worship, fellowship, discipleship and mission to transform the university, the marketplace and the world.”

On September 11, 2014, Chi Alpha’s chapter at California State University-Stanislaus was informed by the university that the group would no longer be recognized as a campus organization. The school accused the organization of religious discrimination and abruptly severed ties with the Christian group.

In a letter mailed last week to Cal State Stanislaus, Chi Alpha’s National Director, E. Scott Martin, explained that the Christian group was effectively “exiled from campus.”

“Within twenty-four hours, university personnel locked Chi Alpha students out of their reserved meeting space and forced them to hold their meetings off campus—in effect our Chi Alpha chapter was exiled from campus,” Martin wrote. “The harm from these incidents is ongoing, as it continues to affect Chi Alpha’s student members to this day.”

Chi Alpha was allegedly kicked off the Cal State Stanislaus campus because, although any student can become a member of the group, its leaders must affirm the organization’s Christian beliefs. University officials claim that this requirement violates the school’s non-discrimination policy.

“No campus shall recognize any fraternity, sorority, living group, honor society, or other student organization that discriminates on the basis of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, color, age, gender, marital status, citizenship, sexual orientation, or disability,” states the university’s official policy.

Time Magazine: Inside the Evangelical Fight Over Gay Marriage

The "Reformation Project," an LGBTQ advocacy group dedicated to making all churches gay affirming and accepting, is getting a huge spread in Time magazine this month. The project's founder, Matthew Vines, is trumpeting the article as proof that his work is making inroads into the hearts and minds of Christians who once held firm to what the bible has to say about homosexuality, and who now hold firmer to what the popular culture has to say.   An excerpt from the magazine highlights the impact Vines has had on the visible church:

The generational shift is easy to spot elsewhere. Consider the Reformation Project, a Wichita, Kans.–based effort by 24-year-old gay evangelical activist Matthew Vines to raise up LGBT-affirming voices in every evangelical church in the country. To reach that goal, he is training reformers in batches of 40 to 50 at regional leadership workshops who can go back to their home churches and serve as advocates for LGBT inclusion. The Reformation Project has staffers in three states, representatives in 25 more and plans for a presence in all 50 states by 2018.

At the group’s conference in Washington, D.C., in early November, some 300 people came from some of the country’s largest megachurches... “The LGBT issue has been one of the most obvious forces behind the increasing loss of regard for Christianity in American culture at large,” Vines says. “It’s like slavery and anti-Semitism, where the tradition got it totally wrong. It’s one of the church’s profound moral failures.”

If you are a paid subscriber, Time will let you read the entire article. Even better, head tosite for an in-depth analysis.

Pentatonix and the elephant in the sanctuary

One of the most talented new groups singing carols is Pentatonix, a five-member band who has more talent than most of us have ever heard before. I see my friends posting their music videos, and am struck with wonder at how perfectly harmonized these singers are together. NOTE: The reason I wrote about this is not to point fingers at the world, but to ask questions of the visible Church. A big shift is happening, and many are going along with the cultural tsunami rather than make waves being set apart.

Read the article here