No one likes to make decisions between hard and yet harder ones. Sometimes, however, difficult circumstances require that agonizingly tough choices have to be made. This is precisely what is upon Christian Colleges in the US. Do they remain "in good standing" with accrediting agencies, or do they persist in hanging on to what is perceived as discriminatory policies? Every one knows accreditation is a huge currency in higher education. If you lose it, why would students continue to come to your school? It amounts to a lawyer being disbarred or a physician losing his/her license to practice.
Those who lament how quickly times have changed and how the tide has turned simply do not interpret History right. The human experience is replete with revolutions that occurred in a tremendously accelerated tempo. The causes might have taken a long time, but the execution (pun intended) unfolds at a breathtaking pace. Right now the cultural warriors of the new moral majority sense that final victory is just around the (SCOTUS) corner. Those holding to common grace marriage and sexual ethics are in full retreat.
What is a college to do? One approach would be to take a re/conciliatory tone. Since we can't change the culture now, why be labelled discriminatory by the general public? The specter of a shameful era gone by (still a giant scar across the face of "America the Beautiful") is impossible to avoid. Discrimination is one of the worst social sins in American society since "all men (and women [why has that not been added yet?]) are created equal. So let's change the policies that are perceived as discriminatory and move on.
Another approach is to remain re/conciliatory but to politely decline by appealing to another enshrined law in American society: separation of church and state. In this approach, we condemn discrimination and embrace people of every walk of life and we promote these principles of good citizenship in our curriculum and within our walls. However, our admission policy is selective and in step with our values enshrined in our historical documents. For instance, Annapolis trains future naval officers and looks for leadership qualities in their midshipmen. If you don't qualify (and many don't), tough. Go study somewhere else. We don't call that discrimination. Neither should we when it comes to small private (private!) confessional colleges. If the dam breaks here, there is no stopping: Catholic schools, Orthodox schools, evangelical seminaries, etc. will be forced to admit students who don't believe in the standards of the school and who, depending on the situation, will not be able to find any job related to their traditions.
But here lies the problem: We know what the United States Naval Academy is all about. I am not so sure some Christian colleges do anymore. In their efforts to shed their "Bible College" image, a lot of the historical identity is gone too. On the plus side, some of these schools truly compete with some of the finest Liberal Arts Colleges in the country and attract extremely bright individuals. But not many of these people go to Christian College X because they themselves are necessarily Christians preparing to go into the ministry and/or the mission field (I'm told only two schools in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities require a statement of faith as pre-requisite for admissions). Students are there because they want a first rate Liberal Arts education. In the old Bible College model, Biblical Studies and Theology used to provide intellectual leadership on campus, but this model is not possible to maintain in a Liberal Arts university: it's been replaced by Philosophy, Political Sciences, Biology and so on. Classes in Scripture and Theology remain important, to be sure (in a cultural heritage, religious studies, sort of way) but they have ceded the agenda.
This is why we will see variegated answers to this dilemma: Liberal Arts schools who have retained their strong Bible College (read: theological) identity won't budge (it's already been documented). And, I bet if they make a good case to the accrediting agency that they exist for the purpose of training Christian leaders in all areas of society, the accrediting agency might in fact respect this decision. Accreditors may not like it and may slap the school on the wrist. However, since accrediting bodies look for consistency between what a school says it is, and what it actually does, those schools with strong Christian identity may actually survive with both their accreditation and values intact (this is the optimist in me speaking). But for those schools who have only residual and historical ties to their roots, the decision to dismiss distinctly Christian sexual ethics will be easier to make. We are a Liberal Arts school and we don't discriminate. It's time to move on from the historical artifacts of our past and complete the makeover toward what they view as non-discrimination. It will make sense to both the institution and the accrediting agency.
In reality many schools are finding themselves somewhere in between these two positions: divided constituencies within the Board of Trustees/Governors, Administration, Faculty, Staff, Students and Alums. Tough decisions will be made by the leadership of these schools. Compromises will be ironed out with less than decisive outcomes which will be hailed and wailed with equal fervor. In the end, however, I don't think it's a guessing game as to who will do what: simply look at the current identity (more "Bible College" or more "Liberal Arts") of any particular institution and it can be a pretty good guide as to what will govern their decision-making process.
Pray that the Lord may cause these schools to revive and rekindle the reason why they were founded in the first place.
P.S.
Some evangelicals are also openly questioning the wisdom to pursue a legal path to protect our religious freedoms. The argument is that we lose the "missional" dimension of our faith if we were to win this legal battle (e.g. winning according to the law, but losing according to "hearts and minds"). My take is that you can do both: protecting our rights to hire whomever we want according to our biblical code of ethics, and yet at the same time welcoming other sinners to join us to receive redemption, forgiveness of sins and the accompanying fruit of repentance.
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