When You Ban Something It Isn't Gone

Case in point, premarital sex or only allowing straight people to attend a Christian college,

Christian Colleges Are Tangled In Their Own LGBT Policies
NPR
By Tom Gjelten
March 27, 2018

Conservative Christian colleges, once relatively insulated from the culture war, are increasingly entangled in the same battles over LGBT rights and related social issues that have divided other institutions in America.

Students and faculty at many religious institutions are asked to accept a "faith statement" outlining the school's views on such matters as evangelical doctrine, scriptural interpretation and human sexuality. Those statements often include a rejection of homosexual activity and a definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Changing attitudes on sexual ethics and civil rights, however, are making it difficult for some schools, even conservative ones, to ensure broad compliance with their strict positions.

"Millennials are looking at the issue of gay marriage, and more and more they are saying, 'OK, we know the Bible talks about this, but we just don't see this as an essential of the faith,' " says Brad Harper, a professor of theology and religious history at Multnomah University, an evangelical Christian institution in Portland, Ore.

The times, they are a changing and they are leaving behind those who can’t change.

Staff and faculty at these Christian schools have to balance a need to attend to their students' personal and spiritual needs with a commitment to their schools' faith statements or official positions on sexuality.

"You've got those two values," says Mary Hulst, senior chaplain at Calvin. "We love our LGBT people. We love our church of Jesus Christ. We love Scripture. So those of us who do this work are right in the middle of that space. We are living in the tension."

Consider… Last night I taught a class at a Catholic college run by the Dominican Sisters and I was greeted by the Director of Education Programs who gave me a warm welcome and introduction to the class.

At Calvin College, Hulst says the struggle to find an appropriate response to her LGBT students is among the most difficult challenges she has faced as a college chaplain.

For Christian colleges and universities they are going to have to make some hard decisions because many Christian religions are now affirming churches; now that same-sex–partners can get married the colleges that say “no sex outside marriage” how are the colleges going to deal with LGBT Christians who remain celibate?