One of the most intolerant places on earth today is the Western university. If you do not adhere to the reigning PC orthodoxy, you will be treated as a pariah – and worse. Woe to any conservatives or Christians who dare to stand against the secular left hegemony on campus.
Anti-Christian bigotry is alive and well in the West, but it is especially pronounced at our universities. Entire books have been penned documenting all this, and one never lacks up-to-date examples of all this. Many of you may have heard of one shocker that happened just recently.
At a Florida university the real face of secular left “tolerance” came shining through. One report puts it this way: “A Florida Atlantic University student has been suspended for refusing to trample on Jesus’ name. According to Ryan Rotela, a Mormon, his Intercultural Communications professor forced his students to write ‘Jesus’ on a piece of paper and then stomp on it as part of a ‘lesson in debating.’ Rotela refused, picked up the paper from the floor and placed it back on the table.
“’I’m not going to be sitting in a class having my religious rights desecrated,’ Rotela told WPEC. ‘I truly see this as I’m being punished.’ Though professor Deandre Poole was supposedly trying to teach the students ‘a lesson in debate,’ the student found the assignment to be offensive and insulting. ‘I said to the professor, “With all due respect to your authority as a professor, I do not believe what you told us to do was appropriate,”’ Rotela said. ‘I believe it was unprofessional and I was deeply offended by what you told me to do.’ The Boca Raton, Fla.-based university, which is defending the professor, later suspended the student.”
Wow, this really does take the cake. What next? Will students be forced to denounce their faith or be expelled from the university? Will they be fed to the lions or sent to re-education camps? Oh yeah, I forgot: most universities today are re-education camps.
And don’t take my word for it. As one famous US professor, Richard Rorty admitted: “I, like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities, try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.”
It is open season on Christianity at most Western campuses today, and this is just one of far too many examples. Oh, and just imagine what would have happened if these students were instructed to stomp on an image of Muhammad. Somehow I don’t think these spineless wonders would dare to make their students do something like that.
But there was a bit of good news here. After a national outcry at this outrage and abuse of power, the school eventually backed down. As another report notes, “FAU has now issued a formal apology. ‘There will be no punishment,’ said Hiram Sasser, Rotela’s attorney. ‘They are wiping the record clean for Ryan. They are reinstating him for a plan to complete the course without that professor.’
“Sasser, the director of litigation for the Liberty Institute, told Fox News that the university was deeply apologetic. ‘The university apologized profusely,’ Sasser said. ‘One of the university officials told us lots of people were offended by the assignment and they were very sorry about that’.”
But of course this whole despicable incident should never have taken place in the first place. And this intolerant bully of a professor should not be teaching there. Indeed, he is the one who should have been disciplined, not the hapless student.
As Christopher White comments, “Instead of teaching what is relevant—understanding the ideas and movements that have shaped history and will shape our future—college campuses often do irreparable damage to families and societies that will be built on the rocky foundation known as secularism.
“For the likes of Ryan Rotela and the other marginalized voices on these campuses, theirs is a journey marked by persecution and ridicule. The idea of a university in which the exchange of free ideas can take place has become a relic of the past. Instead, classes such as Rotela’s ‘Intercultural Communication’ continually prove that the only acceptable form of communication for those who might disagree is silence.”
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Yes, so much for tolerance, openness, and genuine intellectual pursuits. As Ann Coulter put it in Godless: “Public schools are forbidden from mentioning religion not because of the Constitution, but because public schools are the Left’s madrassas. . . . At least the crazy Muslims get funding from Saudi Arabia for their madrassas. Liberals force normal Americans to pay for their religious schools.”
Or as Dennis Prager wrote in Still the Best Hope: “Just as the purpose of Christian seminaries is to produce committed Christians, the primary purpose of most Western universities is, consciously or not, to produce committed secular leftists. The major difference between them is that Christian seminaries declare their purpose, and Western universities do not.”
And Mark Steyn was quite right to say this in After America: “The massive expansion of American education is evidence not of progress but of its exact opposite – its decay into ideological factory farms. It’s a progressive 4-H: Hogwash, Hypersensitivity, Habituation, Homogeneity – for the price of which you wind up in Hock.”
Sadly the nasty experience which Ryan Rotela had to endure is just par for the course. And it will only get worse, unless we wake up to these realities and start doing something about it.
11 Replies to “Universities, Tolerance, and Anti-Christian Bigotry”
Good on Ryan for having the courage and moral decency to stand firm for what he believes is right.
Nobody, and I mean “NOBODY” has the right or the authority given unto them to force people to do things against their will and conscience.
That Professor should have been hung out to dry by the University, not defended. By their implication the University is only condoning these practices.
Leigh Stebbins
The universities have forgotten their mandate: they are supposed to teach students HOW to think, instead they are teaching them WHAT to think.
John Bennett
Your article is very timely, as we prepare to run a university preparation seminar for those who are called to go through these anti-christian dominated institutions. Obviously we will be inviting you 🙂
It is just another indicator of the urgent need to see the university return to God’s original intention; as a means to disciple the nations. You should write an article on the redemption of education Bill. I think you have great authority to do so.
Richard Blake, Perth
The good news in all this is that this persecution is coming as predicted in that oft abused book The Bible and we have to hold fast against this if we are to win what God has promised. Even under the constant threat of persecution we have to make it known that God is the answer.
Here in West Australia I know that we still have chaplains in schools many of which are funded by our church in partnership with others. Of course one single person who dislikes any talk about Christianity in class can with little effort bring the whole thing down bit by bit.
The higher institutions are made up predominately of so-called enlightened people and those that have been over educated in the things of the world who have no room or time for the spirit in their lives, they bat not an eyelid for the decay that surrounds them and of which they are a part. Yet are the first to scream when they are offended by the unruly mobs they breed.
The times are changing and Christian persecution will gather strength as the haters emerge in greater numbers. What we are seeing here is a re-run of the homosexual and abortion Lobby who have gathered great power under so called equality and personal rights. The trial of a “Doctor” who cuts babies spines and heads and allegedly murdered the patient has not received one Iota of publicity in the lamestream news of America. Shades of Goebbels/Hitler propaganda.
Nevertheless we cannot stop spreading the Love of Jesus whether they choose to listen or not is their choice. We must hold fast, there is no doubt we are in the end times and remember Jesus said the time will be short lest the very elect succumb. Fear not those that can hurt the body only those than can take your soul.
Dennis Newland
It’s high time the universities were bypassed.
Tas Walker
Apparently the teacher got this from a textbook:
“The online website Mediate confirmed that the exercise that Rotela refused to participate in was, indeed, listed in the instructor edition of the college textbook: Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5th Edition. The instructions warned that: “This exercise is a bit sensitive, but really drives home the point that even though symbols are arbitrary, they take on very strong and emotional meanings.” Yet despite the sensitivity warning, the manual advised the instructor to “Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper. Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence, instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.”
Nathan Keen
How on earth is the even close to be anything like debating. I thought the whole point of a debate is to argue your views via words, not actions.
Ian Nairn
Dennis Prager wrote,”The major difference between them is that Christian seminaries declare their purpose, and Western universities do not.” This is also because Christianity is a communicable world view. Indeed the Bible was designed to be understood by both the brain surgeon and the child. However, who has read Hegel, Kant, Rousseau or any number of intellectual tomes? Their messages are incommunicable because they do not line up with the real world. However their underlying presuppositions have had incalculable consequences. Though their philosophy is abstruse, the practical consequences have been devastating for over two centuries. It is about time we presented people with the underlying message of these philosophies, concerning existence, moral and truth, just to show just how horrible they are. For instance one could ask people whether they really do see themselves simply as purposeless machines whose only function is to register sexual plain and pleasure? Do they really have no more significance than animals or a puddle of water?
David Skinner, UK
I just have one question that needs an answer why doesn’t this professor or anyone else of his ilk attempt to obtain the same evocative response using Mohammed the prophet PBUH as his example?????
Dennis Newland
My husband just asked why the professor didn’t do as Dennis suggested.
Katherine Fishley
Leigh Stebbins : ” … we never challenged these issues from the very beginning of their initial appearances. Very few of us raised concerns …” .
For anyone interested in the post-war history of the defence of the natural family, in 1973 BA ‘Bob’ Santamaria [1915-98] outlined it’s defence in “Philosophies in Collision”. The Movement he led campaigns today most strongly.
Good on Ryan for having the courage and moral decency to stand firm for what he believes is right.
Nobody, and I mean “NOBODY” has the right or the authority given unto them to force people to do things against their will and conscience.
That Professor should have been hung out to dry by the University, not defended. By their implication the University is only condoning these practices.
Leigh Stebbins
The universities have forgotten their mandate: they are supposed to teach students HOW to think, instead they are teaching them WHAT to think.
John Bennett
Your article is very timely, as we prepare to run a university preparation seminar for those who are called to go through these anti-christian dominated institutions. Obviously we will be inviting you 🙂
It is just another indicator of the urgent need to see the university return to God’s original intention; as a means to disciple the nations. You should write an article on the redemption of education Bill. I think you have great authority to do so.
Richard Blake, Perth
The good news in all this is that this persecution is coming as predicted in that oft abused book The Bible and we have to hold fast against this if we are to win what God has promised. Even under the constant threat of persecution we have to make it known that God is the answer.
Here in West Australia I know that we still have chaplains in schools many of which are funded by our church in partnership with others. Of course one single person who dislikes any talk about Christianity in class can with little effort bring the whole thing down bit by bit.
The higher institutions are made up predominately of so-called enlightened people and those that have been over educated in the things of the world who have no room or time for the spirit in their lives, they bat not an eyelid for the decay that surrounds them and of which they are a part. Yet are the first to scream when they are offended by the unruly mobs they breed.
The times are changing and Christian persecution will gather strength as the haters emerge in greater numbers. What we are seeing here is a re-run of the homosexual and abortion Lobby who have gathered great power under so called equality and personal rights. The trial of a “Doctor” who cuts babies spines and heads and allegedly murdered the patient has not received one Iota of publicity in the lamestream news of America. Shades of Goebbels/Hitler propaganda.
Nevertheless we cannot stop spreading the Love of Jesus whether they choose to listen or not is their choice. We must hold fast, there is no doubt we are in the end times and remember Jesus said the time will be short lest the very elect succumb. Fear not those that can hurt the body only those than can take your soul.
Dennis Newland
It’s high time the universities were bypassed.
Tas Walker
Apparently the teacher got this from a textbook:
“The online website Mediate confirmed that the exercise that Rotela refused to participate in was, indeed, listed in the instructor edition of the college textbook: Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5th Edition. The instructions warned that: “This exercise is a bit sensitive, but really drives home the point that even though symbols are arbitrary, they take on very strong and emotional meanings.” Yet despite the sensitivity warning, the manual advised the instructor to “Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper. Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence, instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.”
Nathan Keen
How on earth is the even close to be anything like debating. I thought the whole point of a debate is to argue your views via words, not actions.
Ian Nairn
Dennis Prager wrote,”The major difference between them is that Christian seminaries declare their purpose, and Western universities do not.” This is also because Christianity is a communicable world view. Indeed the Bible was designed to be understood by both the brain surgeon and the child. However, who has read Hegel, Kant, Rousseau or any number of intellectual tomes? Their messages are incommunicable because they do not line up with the real world. However their underlying presuppositions have had incalculable consequences. Though their philosophy is abstruse, the practical consequences have been devastating for over two centuries. It is about time we presented people with the underlying message of these philosophies, concerning existence, moral and truth, just to show just how horrible they are. For instance one could ask people whether they really do see themselves simply as purposeless machines whose only function is to register sexual plain and pleasure? Do they really have no more significance than animals or a puddle of water?
David Skinner, UK
I just have one question that needs an answer why doesn’t this professor or anyone else of his ilk attempt to obtain the same evocative response using Mohammed the prophet PBUH as his example?????
Dennis Newland
My husband just asked why the professor didn’t do as Dennis suggested.
Katherine Fishley
Leigh Stebbins : ” … we never challenged these issues from the very beginning of their initial appearances. Very few of us raised concerns …” .
For anyone interested in the post-war history of the defence of the natural family, in 1973 BA ‘Bob’ Santamaria [1915-98] outlined it’s defence in “Philosophies in Collision”. The Movement he led campaigns today most strongly.
Gerard Flood