Bristol University Christian Union Bans Women From Speaking

[Alecto]

A university's Christian society has banned women from speaking at events and teaching at meetings, unless they are accompanied by their husband, it has been revealed.

The Bristol University Christian Union (BUCU) had originally decided women would be allowed to teach at meetings after their international secretary resigned in protest, but the group has since changed its policy.

The Huffington Post UK has seen the email sent out by president Matt Oliver to all BUCU members which said: "It is ok for women to teach in any CU setting... However we understand that this is a difficult issue for some and so decided that women would not teach on their own at our weekly CU meetings, as the main speaker on our Bristol CU weekend away, or as our main speaker for mission weeks.

"But a husband and wife can teach together in these."

Oliver then warns the society members to "guard the way we all talk about it in the coming weeks, making sure we’re not gossiping".

Rebecca Reid, a member of the university's feminist society wrote on the group's said: "I'm Catholic and I think that's obscene." Student Lucy King added: "So it's ok for women to teach, as long as they're not the most important speaker?!? This is really unbelievable."

Looks like the Fundie Creep is expanding in the UK, sadly.

[Guest Anonymous]

This was common back in the 90s when I was at University. God, it sends shivers down my spine that this is still going on.

Fuck, this is really triggering! I am surprised at how angry I am after all these years! :twisted:

"guard the way we all talk about it in the coming weeks, making sure we’re not gossiping".

This makes me feel explosive and I REALLY want to drive over there and stick pins in his eyeballs....

ETA another Fuck You:

Oliver continues. "We all hold individual convictions on secondary issues such a women speakers, which are often reflected in the churches we choose to attend.

"Secondary issues" ... where is the "stabbing" smilie....?

[mkitten]

I wonder what the Christian Society's reaction would be if all of the women in the group quit in absolute disgust?

[Dysfundamental]

So the "Christian Union" is really the "Fundie Union," then? Because I can't imagine C of E or Roman Catholic or Eastern Rite students putting up with this nonsense.

[freejoytoo]

Ashamed this is happening in my city.

[Boogalou]

So the "Christian Union" is really the "Fundie Union," then? Because I can't imagine C of E or Roman Catholic or Eastern Rite students putting up with this nonsense.

Roman Catholics put up with no women in the priesthood. This isn't really a giant leap.

[thekate]

Roman Catholics put up with no women in the priesthood. This isn't really a giant leap.

Yeah, but it's still a leap they haven't made. Women can be readers, eucharistic ministers, altar servers, and they certainly can and do lead classes. There are levels of mysogyny; they're not as bad as these fundies, so I'll give credit where it's due even if it's not much.

[luckylibrarian]

Oliver then warns the society members to "guard the way we all talk about it in the coming weeks, making sure we’re not gossiping."

[childerowland]

York University also didn't allow female speakers at their meetings. I joined without realising this and invested a lot of time trying to persuade them to change their policy. Their reasoning came down to: 'no-one has a problem with male speakers but some people disagree with women teaching, so having an all-male policy won't go against anyone's conscience.' Except that being part of a discriminatory group DOES go against some peoples' consciences. Shortly after I dropped out of the CU they actually invited a female speaker! But it was considered so controversial I think it only happened that one time. :(

I was shocked when I discovered how fundie many university CUs are. Some universities don't only not allow women speakers but also don't allow women to stand for the position of CU president.

In my experience, only a minority of CU members were anti-women-speakers. But they were a very vocal minority and more liberal members went along with them for the sake of 'unity'. The CU is very good at sucking people in, with loads of fun events at the start of the academic year, so people quickly make friends with other CU members and are then afraid of losing those friends if they speak out against CU rules in any way.

[Childless]

And this is one of the reasons I didn't bother with a CU when I was in college. I was still quite religious in college, but I didn't put up with this crap.

[Dysfundamental]

Roman Catholics put up with no women in the priesthood. This isn't really a giant leap.

"No women priests" (also true of the Eastern Rite churches) is different from "no women leading meetings" by a long shot. Many of the most respected theologians in both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Rite churches are women.

[YPestis]

Is Bristol University a conservative place? Or just this Christian group? I'm not familiar with UK schools. Here, most universities' religious organizations are still pretty mainstream. There are ultra-religious schools which tend to have fundie practices such as regulating women to secondary roles.

[freejoytoo]

Bristol is not conservative AT ALL. It's just a fucking fundie CU.

[julie paradox]

"Christian Union" is a very specific organisation - affiliated to the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship - which is explicitly evangelical (what I thought was pretty fundamentalist until I discovered America). Most of them think Catholics aren't Christians, and the Male President is explicitly above the Female President in authority.

My first term at York we had a big debate over something I don't remember the details of, which involved changing something so fundamental to the doctrinal basis (possibly the line about the inerrancy of scripture and its supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct. Or maybe just allowing that Catholics are Christians - this was where one member attempted to make an analogy saying that just because he thinks he's a carrot doesn't mean we have to agree with him) that the heavies from the UCCF came and said if we went ahead with this they'd just disaffiliate us and set up a new group. (The Anglican chaplain described them thus: "Oi am God. Vis is God. We are: der God Squad" which will make no sense at all to most of you ;-) )

As a result of the discussion I realised it was not the group for me and concentrated on the Methodist-Anglican Society instead. York was unusual in having a joint group. Most places seem to have AngSoc, MethSoc and CathSoc, and perhaps Student Christian Movement - the organisation UCCF schismed from in the nineteenth century - as well or instead.

York CU wasn't part of the Student Union at the time (don't know about now). The official line was that their method of appointing to committee posts didn't comply with the rules (all the final-year members got together and decided who would do what every twelve months), but most of the campus believed it was because they were institutionally homophobic (I think that's what prompted it).

(edit - tl;dr what freejoytoo said ;-))

[spud]

According to the comments here - http://bristol.tab.co.uk/2012/12/03/chr ... -speakers/, this is progress because women speakers used to be banned outright, now they can speak if their husbands are also in attendance. Although, I don't imagine many students are married, so maybe it won't have any affect at all.

GETYOURFACTSRIGHT! · 8 hours ago

The article is embarrassing because its really inaccurate/WRONG! Firstly it states that the CU has just recently banned women speakers where as actually this has been the status quo for at least the last 7 years! What the exec of the CU have actually done is make the decision to ALLOW women speakers at CU in certain settings here is a quote from there society email:

"The decision made was that, because the CU is not a church and because we

unite around the core truths of the gospel, it is ok for women to teach in

any CU setting. However, we understand that this is a difficult issue for

some and so decided that women would not teach on their own at our weekly

CU:Equip meetings, as the main speaker on our Bristol CU weekend away or as

our main speaker for mission weeks, but a husband and wife can teach

together in these. This means that women are able to teach (including on

their own) in any other CU setting."

Considering that no women speakers were allowed before this I think this decision represents a step forward by the CU not a step back! Also an exec member stepped down because they felt they couldn't be responsible for this decision, bearing in mind that the status quo was no women speakers at all, this resignation supports the no women camp rather than the majority which supported the decision for women speakers.

Looks like their twitter account has been recently deleted....

http://www.bristolcu.org.uk/about/exec/

[Guest Anonymous]

Is Bristol University a conservative place? Or just this Christian group? I'm not familiar with UK schools. Here, most universities' religious organizations are still pretty mainstream. There are ultra-religious schools which tend to have fundie practices such as regulating women to secondary roles.

No, none of our universities are particularly conservative places. Bristol is a large, diverse city and the University is a very good academic institution with high numbers of overseas students. It is non-campus, which means students are quite a vibant part of the whole city.The Christian Union will be a relatively small social group of maximum several hundred students out of a full-time student population of 20,000 students. There will also likely be a CathSoc, an EcumenicalSoc and various other groups within the Christian spectrum, and amongst a whole host of other religious groups, who altogether represent a tiny fraction of the University population.

The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) is the organisation which supports the Christian Unions in most higher education institutions and it is broadly evangelical/conservative in nature. When I belonged in the 90s, there was much 'pro-life' campaigning, homosexuality was a lifestyle, women were CU secretaries and events organisers while men were CU Presidents and Evangelism Leaders etc... I still get shit sent to my parent's home address because they won't take me off their mailing list, and while many groups have become more liberal over the last couple of decades, there is still plenty of scope for stuff like this to happen.

They are taking a lot of heat over it on FB and twitter and UCCF are responding to questions with a non-comittal statement about Bristol, but saying that the only requirement for CU speakers is that they are sympathetic to a general evangelical statement of faith.

eta riffle

[Mela99]

I need to punch someone.

[Guest Anonymous]

The UCCF Officer (paid Christian worker) for Bristol - David Bish - is responding in fine fundie form on twitter. Trying to spin it as a good thing because previously women were banned from speaking at all, and now they can speak with a husband present.... Finally spitting his toys out of the pram and crying off with illness...

D.... B...

The story doesn't really reflect what's happening or why its happening...

D... B....

Irony is these leaders have taken a big step in the right direction, and only stopped short in costly love to others..

D.... B...

Friends, I am ill, I am trying to put my kids to bed, I am trying to speak to CU leaders, and my broadband is down...

D... B...

Tempting to reply to every critique shot at us. We're not perfect, come join us? Meanwhile students loving friends + introducing to Jesus.

[FaustianSlip]

York University also didn't allow female speakers at their meetings. I joined without realising this and invested a lot of time trying to persuade them to change their policy. Their reasoning came down to: 'no-one has a problem with male speakers but some people disagree with women teaching, so having an all-male policy won't go against anyone's conscience.' Except that being part of a discriminatory group DOES go against some peoples' consciences. Shortly after I dropped out of the CU they actually invited a female speaker! But it was considered so controversial I think it only happened that one time. :(

Now that is intriguing to me, as I actually went to York. I vaguely remember the CU advertising during Fresher's Week and trying to lure people in, and I got a distinctly fundie vibe off of them, which was really strange to me at the time, as the bulk of Christians I knew when I was living in the UK as a kid were very generic, semi-secular CofE types. The idea that there were enough fundies to staff their own, relatively sizable student org was a bit of a revelation to me. In any case, I high-tailed it to the Jewish Society (with our five members, three of which were women) and stayed there. Had I been entertaining the prospect of returning to Christianity at the time, though, and encountered that kind of asshattery, I would have laughed in their faces and never looked back. I wonder if they realize just how extreme a turn-off it is to the vast majority of people for them to be making such a big production of this particular issue? They're going to pay in membership numbers, methinks.

[Boogalou]

Yeah, but it's still a leap they haven't made. Women can be readers, eucharistic ministers, altar servers, and they certainly can and do lead classes. There are levels of mysogyny; they're not as bad as these fundies, so I'll give credit where it's due even if it's not much.

Sorry that I'm not jumping up and down to congratulate someone for being marginally less sexist than another organization. Honestly, I don't think they deserve any credit at all, although these churches don't put up with this specific nonsense they put up (and encourage) a lot of other shit. And this student union is still letting women speak with their husbands. Credit where it's due, amirite?

[Anxious Girl]

I hate when fundies hide behind the "but we can't help it if it's part of our religious beliefs!" B.S. I'm sure their leghumpers like the CFA's leghumpers would start to complain if people started to boycotted the school... Am I sounding too extreme? :oops: This may be a stupid question, but can you boycott schools? Orignal link, please?

[Guest Anonymous]

I hate when fundies hide behind the "but we can't help it if it's part of our religious beliefs!" B.S. I'm sure their leghumpers like the CFA's leghumpers would start to complain if people started to boycotted the school... Am I sounding too extreme? :oops: This may be a stupid question, but can you boycott schools? Orignal link, please?

Not quite sure what you are asking? Link to what? :)

[Anxious Girl]

Ah, never mind... I read the original link to the article that spud linked to. :oops: :doh:

[thekate]

Sorry that I'm not jumping up and down to congratulate someone for being marginally less sexist than another organization. Honestly, I don't think they deserve any credit at all, although these churches don't put up with this specific nonsense they put up (and encourage) a lot of other shit. And this student union is still letting women speak with their husbands. Credit where it's due, amirite?

No one's asking you to congratulate the RC church. But there is a distinction between the Catholic and fundamentalist/evangelical churches in that women are allowed to have brains as well as uteri, and when one starts misrepresenting something or someone by claiming easily disprovable things it's that much easier for the other side (and people on the fence) to write them off as ignorant and not worthy of listening to. See us snarking on the anti-choice movement and fundies as an example.

You implied the RC church doesn't allow women to speak in its meetings when it's not true. If you want to claim that the Catholic church doesn't actually listen to them, you have my total agreement.

And yes, I do think that allowing married women to speak when none could before is a step forward. It's a tiny and completely bullshit step (that I will still roll my eyes at) because they're speaking under the cover of their husbands, so basically it's the men speaking through their wives, but I hope it inspires the other women to agitate for their own right to speak or boycott the group.

[ladidah]

Catholicism may not have female priests, but it does have a longstanding and vocal feminist tradition, whereas evangelicalism on the whole tends to squash or marginalize feminist voices. As an ex-evangelical woman, I'm often envious of my Catholic friends for all the antifeminist crap they DIDN'T have to put up with in their formative years.

The type of evangelicalism displayed by this CU is especially pernicious, because it slaps "biblical" on its decisions as a substitute for having to explain its thinking (or lack thereof).