Shorter University in Rome, GA – a school that has as its motto “Transforming Lives Through Christ” – just instituted their own form of theocracy. They obviously have closed their eyes and ears to what Christ really stood for, as their institution preaches the kind of hatred and divisiveness that would have infuriated the Jesus portrayed in the New Testament. Here’s my open letter to Donald Dowless, the president.
Donald,
I just read a story about your university requiring all employees to sign a “Personal Lifestyle Statement” or be fired. I’m appalled. First of all, the hypocrisy of you calling your school a “Christian” university is stunning. You are about as far from Christ as East is from West. If you don’t recall – as many of you self-professed “Christians” don’t – Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. He did, however, list the two greatest commandments: Love God, and Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. I don’t find any ambivalence with that statement. He didn’t say, “Except for gay people.”
If you truly are a school of higher learning, you might take note of the fact that the Bible 1) was written by humans, some 70+ years after Jesus’ death; 2) was not compiled into its present-day books until hundreds of years later; 3) was not written in English; 4) has much nuance and debated translation. In fact, there is no “one” Bible that God just plunked down on your desk. And many, many Biblical scholars – people who actually think and explore and research and seek answers and who don’t wear blinders – debate the meanings of the verses that you use to promote your hateful and decidedly non-Christian agenda of the persecution of gay men and women. Not to mention that the verse most quoted in defense of your indefensible position was in the book of Paul, and not from Jesus himself.
I wonder how many other Biblical tenets you will force your employees to follow. Will you prohibit shellfish from being eaten on campus? Will you stop the wearing of all clothing with mixed fibers? Will you require professors to kill their children if they talk back to their parents? Since you follow the Bible so closely, I’m sure you’ll be enforcing these “rules” as well. Or will you use the tired argument of the “Christian” zealot and say that those rules were just a product of that time period, and that we now know better? The fallacy that somehow you know which parts of the Bible can be discarded and which parts should be applied religiously (pun intended)? If you’re going to tell me it’s the infallible word of God, then you better follow all of it, buddy. But I’m familiar with your hypocrisy, and am sure you have shielded yourself from logic with raiments of twisted God-speak that sound wonderful to the unthinking extremists that seek “learning” in the halls of your institution.
Perhaps you may someday – not out loud, but in that tiny part of your soul still struggling for love and compassion to win out over hate and fear – consider the idea that the Bible is a spiritual guide, and not the faultless writings of a God who somehow took pen in hand and wrote down a series of conflicting messages – in English – and then expected us to follow them all unerringly. I pray for you and your misguided policies, and especially for the teachers and students who are subjected to your unloving and un-Christian actions.
You can send your own letter to Don at chimes@shorter.edu. He’s far too important to make his own email address available, so filters it through his administrative assistant.