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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

‘Lookout’ for your soul

On Monday in Lookout Mountain, Ga., four activists from the militant homosexual liberties group Soulforce were arrested for trespassing on the campus of Covenant College. They had been participating in an “Equality Ride,” a seven-week tour of demonstrating and pamphleteering at Christian colleges and seminaries, with the intent of undermining those institutions’ commitment to biblical sexuality.\nCovenant College, a liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America, was informed several months ago that the Equality Riders intended to visit the campus, whether they were welcome or not. Responding to this manifesto, Covenant suggested a compromise with Soulforce and sent the group a proposed itinerary for the visit, which would’ve included meetings with administrators, faculty and students, as well as lunch – courtesy of the college – and a chapel service.\nSoulforce rejected the invitation, demanding it be granted unfettered access to Covenant’s students and freedom to roam the campus. The college received this rejection of their hospitality, and “after much prayer, counsel, and consideration of various options” decided to bar the obdurate activists from campus. However, according to Covenant’s Web site, the school still planned to provide boxed lunches for the Riders, and on Monday it allowed groups of students to meet with the Riders just outside of campus.\nThis is a fundamentally irreconcilable conflict of doctrines. The school states that “Covenant’s policy on human sexuality is based on the teachings of the Bible,” whereas Soulforce states that its mission is to oppose “spiritual violence.” According to its Web site, simply “quoting scripture” can constitute “spiritual violence.” Thus Soulforce – an ostensibly faith-based organization – is opposed to the document on which Covenant College and all of Christianity are founded.\nThere’s nothing peculiar about Covenant’s policy regarding homosexuality. Every student signs the College’s “Standards of Conduct,” agreeing to “abstain from sexual sins (such as premarital sex, adultery, homosexual behavior and the use or possession of obscene or pornographic material).” By labeling homosexual behavior as a sin (along with other enumerated sexual sins), Covenant’s administrators have simply followed two millennia of Church doctrine and the crystal clear teaching of the Bible.\nI know this sounds very holier-than-thou and arrogant, until you realize what is implied by “sin.” It’s like this: Every single one of us has the same terminal disease that happens to manifest different symptoms in different people. For some people, homosexuality is the most manifest symptom; for me, pride, greed and laziness are the most manifest symptoms.\nThere’s nothing special about homosexuality that makes “God hate fags” (as seen on posters and picket signs) any more than God hates other sins. If God has any special hatred for a particular sin, it’s probably pride; while homosexuality gets cursory mention with other enumerated sins, the Bible says more than once that “God opposes the proud.”\nThis week of all weeks I couldn’t end without noting that this is exactly the good news of Easter: Everyone has a terminal illness, but Jesus is the cure. That’s all of Christianity in a nutshell. It has stood the test of time, and it won’t be changed by any road-tripping activists.

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