<font size=”2″><span style=”FONT-FAMILY: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; FONT-WEIGHT: bold”>Religious persecution in the New World.</span></font><br /><font style=”FONT-FAMILY: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif” size=”2″><br />According to an article in Maclean’s Magazine’s “on campus” website, an organization called the Canadian Association of University Teachers [CAUT is alleging that Trinity Western University, a Christian University, violated academic freedom. The reason? Because TWU describes itself as a “a faith-based institution, one inspired by Christ’s life and guided by his teachings.” More than that, it requires faculty to sign a “Statement of Faith” annually, in a document that outlines the “philosophical framework to which all faculty, staff and administration are committed without reservation.”<br /><br />At first glance, one might conclude that CAUT is correct. The concept of forcing faculty to submit to a series of absolutist statements [belief in the bible, in one infinitely perfect god, that Jesus Christ was a real man, and in “the bodily resurrection of the dead; of the believer to everlasting blessedness and joy with the Lord, of the unbeliever to judgment and everlasting conscious punishment.” seems at odds with the premise of a learning institution as being one of an open-ended perspective on the Universe.</font> <font style=”FONT-FAMILY: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif” size=”2″>But is there anything that really violates academic freedom in creating a school whereby people with an absolutist faith in Christianity agree to ascribe to those beliefs as a condition of their employment there? Must all ideas in life be relativist? Why can’t Christians create a University in which they explore both the relativist ideas of the world, but under the observance of their absolute belief in their theology?</font><div style=”BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; TEXT-ALIGN: left; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); OVERFLOW: hidden; BORDER-TOP: medium none; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; TEXT-DECORATION: none” id=”TixyyLink”><font style=”FONT-FAMILY: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif” size=”2″><br /><a href=”http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/25/adrian-macnair-clamping-down-on-canadian-christians.aspx#ixzz0dlm9xlco”>More…</a></font><br /></div>