Here's some good and bad news.
The good is that "World" magazine reported it.
The bad is that the PCA's national coordinator of RUF, Rod Mays, says he agrees with the decision of Vandy's RUF chapter not to join all the other campus ministries who have united in refusing to sign Vanderbilt's new nondiscrimination policy. RUF will sign the new policy, justifying their signature by saying they don't have student leaders and they don't want to lose their institutional influence.
Under the new policy, Vandy has required one ministry to remove the words "personal commitment to Jesus Christ" from its requirements of its leaders. Another ministry got into trouble for disciplining a member for his sexual immorality...
"World" reports:
Rod Mays ...said the Vanderbilt group is taking the same approach he would direct other chapters to take. RUF is known for working with campus administrators in official channels, and wants to be a sanctioned organization, he said: "It's just a different philosophy of ministry. It has nothing to do with compromising the gospel. We're completely free to do what we want to do."
Meanwhile, "Vanderbilt chancellor Nicholas Zeppos refused to budge. And to make sure all groups comply... administrators demanded all groups sign a document affirming the nondiscrimination policy."
Says RUF local chapter leader, Stacey Croft: "They're not kicking us off campus, and I can still preach the gospel regularly. Until I feel like my integrity, my conscience, and the gospel are compromised, I don't think we need to step off campus."
"If we had all stood together, it would have been less likely that anyone would have had to leave campus," said Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt law professor and faculty adviser to the Christian Legal Society. Prof. Swain is disappointed with RUF and BCM. "(They) made a decision that was very self-interested and that does not advance the cause of Christ."
"BCM" stands for Baptist Campus Ministry, the other religous organization refusing to join the protest.
Rod Mays and his campus worker, Stacey Croft, are certain that signing Vanderbilt's new nondiscrimination policy "has nothing to do with compromising the Gospel." Rather, it's a question of "philosophy of ministry." RUF "wants to be a sanctioned organization" and to "work with official channels."
We can go far down the road of faithlessness without the slightest problem maintaining plausible deniability. This is one of the lessons I've learned as a sinner saved by grace watching my own conniving heart. And the lesson was heavily reinforced yesterday in our pastors college as I led a discussion of the conflict between Jim Packer and John Stott, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones documented by Iain Murray in his must-read Evangelicalism Divided: A Record of Crucial Change in the Years 1950 to 2000
This book is so important for Evangelicals today that I'd say it's unlikely you understand what's motivting the PCA and Rod May's RUF on the campus of Vandy right now unless you've read it. I'm on my third or fourth reading.
