Students need’ independence’ to discover their unique ‘ faith traditions,’ division chair explains
University of Portland theology degrees will no longer have to take a class on” Biblical Texts”, according to the department head who has previously said critics of queer actions are like the men who nailed Christ to the mix. The administrative change may help individuals more “autonomy” so they can take classes like” Queer Theologies”.
The Catholic school, run by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, even announced it may change the name of the office to” religion and religious research”. The ministry changes drew condemnation from a Catholic chief who spoke to The College Fix.
” This program examines how Bible texts and interpretations form faiths, theologies, beliefs, ethics, techniques, names, cultures, and social and political relationships”, a university description states. ” It gives students tools to perceive and employ these old Jewish and Christian texts from the Aegean world in fashionable global circumstances”.
Students may also consider Theology 105, which does involve a Biblical texts component, but then you “pick from a variety of upper-division courses to satisfy their next theology requirement”, according to The Beacon, the student newspaper.
These training options include” Queer Theologies”,” God Our Mother”, and a group on” the intersectionality of sex discrimination with different forms of discrimination”.
” Interculturalist Feminist Theology” is also an option. Students can also choose from more traditional theology courses such as” Christology” and” Biblical Spirituality”.
Department Chair David Turnbloom did not respond to several letters sent in the past two months asking for more information about the alterations, including the determining factors for the title change. The Fix even asked about the gay religion training and what benefits the school provided.
He told the student newspaper the shift was” to help students more control over their UP knowledge and provide students with the opportunity to take classes that align with their beliefs traditions”, according to the scholar newspaper’s paraphrase.
Turnbloom previously compared opponents of homosexuality to the soldiers who nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. ” The anger of the Queer community is a grace-filled, divine instrument”, Turnbloom wrote for a Good Friday essay in 2022. ” The question for Catholics is: do we have the competence to see our sin? Without this competence, any courageous acts of ministry run the risk of simply continuing the crucifixion”.
However, the leader of a Catholic organization said the changes are disappointing for a university “founded by and for Catholics”.
” This functional apostasy is one more example of how faithful Catholics have been dispossessed of their own institutions by modernist heretics”, C. J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, told The Fix via email.
” Courses in Queer Theologies, God our Mother, and Trickery, Gender, Power and Politics in the Bible represent a radical rejection of Catholic Faith and Morals, the institutionalization of heterodoxy”, Doyle said. ” And the arrogant conviction that Catholic higher education belongs not to the Church nor to the Catholic community, but to an entitled class of culturally conforming academics who believe themselves unconstrained by any fidelity to the Catholic truth, or to ecclesiastical authority”.
” God Our Mother” “aims to broaden the theological imagination of the students as they reflect on the wonderful reality some call God”, according to its course description.
Meanwhile,” Queer Theologies”” traces developments of queer ( ing ) theologies—from early turns to Scripture/doctrine affirming same-sex relationships, to efforts revising theologies in light of queer lives—and considers key themes, future possibilities, and impacts on ecclesial and public contexts”.
The University of Portland has previously embraced an LGBT agenda at odds with the Catholic Church’s teachings on human sexuality.
Several years ago, it held a session where students cried because a priest objected to an LGBT pride flag in the residence hall, as previously reported by The Fix. That incident sparked the comparison by Professor Turnbloom that opposing homosexuality is akin to killing Christ. In his 2022 essay, Turnbloom criticized Catholics who said they were facing persecution for upholding the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality. He said such views “perpetuate a form of systemic violence”.
Meanwhile, the university has had to make large cuts due to declining enrollment, as The Fix reported.
MORE: Kentucky becomes latest state to ban DEI
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A Bible lays open with a ribbon down the middle, Stevepb/Pixabay
Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
