It’s easy to mock and laugh at “woke” seminars and college classes when they aren’t happening at your school. That only happens at public universities, not my private Christian school, I thought until just a few weeks ago.
Earlier this month, Azusa Pacific University’s Disciples in Action club hosted a seminar on “Gender Identity/Pronouns.” The meeting, hosted by the group on campus encouraged to promote and teach the student body in discipleship, began their meeting on one simple premise: we were there to respect lived experiences, not to discuss biblical principles.
The conversation moved to a lecture, question and answer format. After a discussion of “neo-pronouns” including xe/xem and ze/zer, the leaders briefly explained what they believed it meant to be transgender. One individual described it as someone feeling as though one is “different from the sex they were assigned at birth.” Of course, this confuses gender and sex, which the left argues are simultaneously entirely different and interchangeable words.
The leaders then asked the group how each individual had explored his or her identity and pronouns, implying this is something everyone goes through.
Someone in the classroom responded to this by mentioning that her journey began with a book called “Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: How the Church Needs to Rediscover Her Purpose.” This book, according to the APU student, taught her that to be a woman means “nothing more than feeling like a woman.”
No biological traits. No chromosomes. Not the ability to give birth. Nothing is needed to be a woman except to feel as though you are one. And this is falsely described as a “Christian” teaching.
Another student went so far as to describe gender as a sweater. “Take on the sweater that feels cozy right now,” she told students, as though one’s sex is as alterable as getting dressed in the morning. Some suggested that clothes are an expression of gender while others argued that gender is a made-up construct and therefore clothes have no gender. Whatever the argument, it is an inconsistent one.
One member of the club even shared her story of dressing as a boy when she was younger. Had she been a child today, the modern left would have her injected with irreversible hormone treatment. Classic tropes on “westernized toxic masculinity” were thrown around the room as though it was a prerequisite to the conversation that it is radical to believe in the idea that there are only two sexes.
When Ideology is Enforced
Then the group began to brainstorm ways to solve alleged problems on APU’s campus. Students recommended creating safe spaces within classrooms, having professors begin class by asking for pronouns, and reevaluating Title IX. One individual stated that the “toxic masculinity of Christianity trickles down” by generation. This is when the conversation turned from the school to the Bible.
As mentioned earlier, the meeting was not supposed to reference the Bible at all. One of the largest charges against the school was regarding campus pastors: Why do they use masculine pronouns to describe God?
“They always use he or father,” one student complained. “God is so masculine, which just doesn’t make sense to me.” The student went on to explain how self-described pastors interchange pronouns for God, occasionally using female and other times using male. This would, of course, present a gender binary; so now God operates in a gender binary but man does not?
In Matthew chapter six, Jesus Christ, son of God, teaches people to pray by explaining how they should pray to their “Father in Heaven.” So you can imagine how interesting it is to learn on a Christian campus that I should be calling God “mother.” Of course, God is not man nor woman, He simply is God, but for human understanding of an eternal and all-powerful being, we refer to the Lord as God the Father, as the Bible describes Him repeatedly.
Were this group not trying to impose their misconceptions about God on the rest of the campus, maybe their actions would not matter as much as they do. But alas, when a Christian college has students on campus who wish to alter the fundamental relationship with and understanding of God, that is worthy of covering.
Although this group does not have a faculty sponsor who could be reached, it is important to understand that this is not a one-off group on campus. These are activists on a college campus actively working to undermine the mission of the evangelical university whose mission statement claims to “encourage students to develop a Christian perspective of truth and life.”
In 2018, APU had problems when they went back and forth on whether they were willing to permit same-sex couples on campus. Student government and the Board of Trustees disagreed about whether the ban was appropriate.
Considering the change showed the university was not firm on which parts of the Bible they were willing to uphold. Their wavering revealed they are able to be persuaded to ignore parts of the Bible. This made room for groups like Disciples in Action to push APU to abandon many core principles of Christianity. From marriage to biological sex, DIA is working to undermine basic principles of the faith in favor of leftist ideology.
The group has gone so far as to create Google forms where complaints can be filed over any “acts of cisgenderism.” The APU Bias Report form is for anything considered an act of bias as well as a definition of microaggressions as insults based on a variety of characteristics, “often carried out automatically or unconsciously.”
These complaints are taken up by the campus’s chief diversity officer and the Office of the Vice President, which decide on what further actions must be taken. Although not clearly defined, further action can include taking into account the desired outcome of the reporting student; this is an example of justice by way of the individual.
As an advocate for free speech, I support these individuals’ right to speak and live as they please, but I also fear that my beliefs will be reported as an objectionable “act of cisgenderism” or “microaggression.” As a defender of truth, I worry for what the future holds if evangelical universities continue to promote what the Bible says is false in pursuit of worldly respect.