Head of Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowships on Christian Unions Bans
The head of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowships, the Rev Richard Cunningham, speaks to Christian Today about the Christian Unions and their current legal struggles with several universities to regain their full rights as legitimate student societies.
by Maria Mackay
Posted: Monday, November 27, 2006, 12:53 (GMT)
The decision by university authorities at Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, Exeter and Birmingham universities to either ban the Christian Unions or severely curtail their privileges has led to an outpouring of criticism not only from Christian leaders and institutions but also from leading academics and the media.
The bans and curtailments follow complaints from students that the Christian Unions are too exclusive, promoting homophobia and discriminating against people who are transgender.
The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowships (UCCF) - the umbrella organisation which runs the Christian Unions - has defended the right of the Christian Unions to be run by Christians and teach an orthodox Christian perspective of relationships and sex.
The Rev Richard Cunningham is the Chief Executive Officer of the UCCF. He spoke to Christian Today about the current legal struggle facing the Christian Unions.
CT: Were you surprised that some university authorities had gone so far as to ban the Christian Unions?
RC: Yeah, I think so. I think it was an extreme act. And while we are aware that Students' Unions have made noises and some of them don't like the activities of Christians and don't like the view of Christian Unions on some issues like homosexuality, we also felt that their responsibility to provide resources and services to those prospective interest groups should always overrule any personal agenda that they may have. I think this is why there has been so much outrage in the country. They've stepped over a line. They've got an agenda of disliking the orthodox Christian view.
What they've done is they've essentially reformulated their constitutions so as to decide what equality of opportunity looks like and what it looks like is that there can be no insistence by a society as to who should run the society. Of course they're not going to action it across the board; they're not going to insist that Jews run the Muslim society.
But because they know we're not going to back down on this they are going to set us a trap that we are going to fall into and say to us, as Birmingham did, that we need to be willing to have atheists running the Christian Union.
But as far as Christian Unions are concerned they have a responsibility to ensure that their societies are open to all people who want to investigate what a Christian Union is about and everyone is welcome to their meetings. But they need to, like trustees of a charitable trust, ensure that the funds given to a society and the aims of that society are properly used, maintained and all the rest of it.
So it is unlawful. What they have done, we're convinced, is unlawful and they are not fulfilling their own duties of actually providing the goods and services that taxpayers and students are paying for the Students' Unions to provide.
Their complaints were centring on the Christian Unions being too exclusive and not including non-Christians, which we've just touched on. But they also included accusations of promoting homophobia and excluding transgender sexuality. What do you have to say about these complaints?
The transgender issue came from the Birmingham Guild. They looked at our constitution which said that all men and women are welcome to come to any of our meetings and what they said is that there is nothing in here to say that people of transgender are welcome to our meetings. So the CU there said they would change it to 'all people'. They made a big deal of that but that was literally all that was about.
They behaved very badly in Birmingham. A little cohort decided they were going to discuss the CU constitution and asked the CU to come to the meeting but they posted the invitation in German in the corner of the SU website. Fortunately one of the CU committees was studying modern languages and read it and the CU turned up, albeit a little unprepared. So they used dirty tactics.
The comments below are readers' personal opinions and are in no way intended to reflect the editorial opinion of Christian Today.
Added: Sunday, December 24, 2006, 10:41 (GMT)
The Christian faith has been under attack from secularist liberals for some time. They have used the guise of multiculturalism and set themselves up as pretend defenders of minority faiths. When in reality they had no real interest in the other faiths it was has just been used as a weapon to attack Britain's Christian heritage and values, which they obviously hated.
Recent support for Christian Christmas celebrations from muslim, hindu and jewish faith leaders has shown this secularist political correctness for what it is. Complete nonsense.
It has no real backing from anyone except the liberal elite. Who have tried to interfere and control the lives of the majority using the weapons of multiculturalism and political correctness. At last they are now being found out and the silent majority and the Christian church are starting to fight back and the liberal secularist don't like it one bit. After all liberals are only liberal when people agree with them!
Simon Icke, Aston Clinton, UK
Added: Thursday, December 7, 2006, 18:57 (GMT)
Whatever happened to turning the other cheek? And how about 'Judge thee not lest thee be judged'. It would appear that Mr Cunningham fails to respect these central tenets of his own faith. I'm neither gay nor Christian though I respect that both groups have the right to do what they do as long it does not impinge on anyone else's freedoms. If a person or persons rights are violated, steps must be taken to ensure redress is made. I agree with Tim from Exeter - what kind of Christianity discriminates against Christians? Talk of 'curing' homosexuals by prayer is as insulting as saying Christians should be cured of their false consciousness by reading Marx or Darwin. I wonder what's next? Is Mr Cunningham's dogma going to inspire in the UK the same kind of intolerance and hatred we see in the US? Would he like to see abortion clinics bombed? How about the deflowering of children as long as they're married (13 year old marriages are allowed in some States of America). Did he think the victims of the gay bar bombing in London's Soho got what they deserved? Would he sanction the suspension of free condoms and skewing the education of countless young people thus risking their health and choice? I wonder with fear. I think Mr Coren of The Times puts it well:
The belief that Christianity is under attack is similar to the belief of Nick Griffin and the BNP that the white race is under attack, or the belief of Richard Littlejohn (and other Sun columnists) that middle-class white males are the most embattled of minority groups. It is specious, racist sophism. The Daily Mail indulged in it yesterday, with a big page 4 photograph of a check-in girl at BA wearing a headscarf under the headline, “The airline’s dress code in action”. So witty, these defenders of the faith.”
Nick, Stirling, UK
Added: Saturday, December 2, 2006, 13:59 (GMT)
In truth, the only people discriminating against Christians at universities are the "Christian Unions" themselves. Why? Because they systematically block non-evangelical Christians - including Catholics and Orthodox Christians - from speaking at their meetings or standing for committee positions. The real issue here isn't one of Christians versus non-Christians, or the rise of secularism - it's the fact that "Christian Unions" exclude and discriminate against the vast majority of mainstream Christians. This is why the Exeter student body voted in a referendum last month for the former "Christian Union" to be known as the Evangelical Christian Union - to prevent students being misled as to the society's true nature.
Tim, Exeter, UK
Added: Friday, December 1, 2006, 12:03 (GMT)
Well Done to our Christian youth who are taking asuch a positive,sensible, balanced, loving,challenging approach to ,yet another attack on the fredom of Christians, that all other (numerous) groups are allowed to have.Many who offend Christians.Maybe we should be encouraged more from our various leaders to be vocal to the right source about our objections.
We need to be more united as believers instead of focusing on our differenent worship format,similar to London Churches plan to form a 24/7 prayer for their city.
Agnes Cross, Cowdenbeath,Fife
