Georgetown Boots Evangelicals

The University of Georgetown has booted evangelical ministries off its campus. And “booted” may be putting it nicely. The letter of *cough* “blessings” from the Protestant Chaplain to the ministries may be found here. As the letter states, the banning of the evangelical groups is rather comprehensive.

In case you think this is a case of a Catholic university guarding its distinctives, it isn’t. Note it’s the Protestant Chaplain who’s booting them. Mainline Protestant ministries are still very much welcome at Georgetown. But narrow-minded dangerous evangelical groups -- like InterVarsity -- are not.

And as many Georgetown alum will tell you, the Catholicity of Georgetown is dubious at best. Besides, this is an uncatholic act. Relations between Catholics and Evangelicals have improved markedly in recent decades as marked by such efforts as Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Booting evangelical groups off campus is certainly not in that spirit.

And, at the risk of stating the obvious, this act also goes against the spirit of genuine diversity that should mark any liberal arts university.

But I guess “diversity” only applies to those deemed not too conservative worthy.