Tufts Christian Fellowship wavers in pursuit of exemption from non-discrimination policy

Nobody is sure what the Tufts Christian Fellowship's next move is - not even the group itself.
Questions about the religious tenets and requirements for leadership of Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), a Tufts chapter of the national group InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, have kept the group in a state of limbo since the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Judiciary derecognized the group last semester.
The Judiciary ruled that clauses in the group's governing documents requiring its leaders to strive to abide by a strict set of beliefs - called its Basis of Faith - excluded anyone whose beliefs fell outside these tenets from consideration for a leadership position and violated the nondiscrimination clause in the TCU Constitution.
The debate in October then moved to the Committee on Student Life, whose resulting ruling created a new policy that shifted the responsibility of judging TCF's requirements for its leaders onto the Chaplaincy, a university department consisting of the chaplains for the four represented religious sects and currently headed by interim University Chaplain Patricia Budd Kepler. As a result of the CSL's ruling, the Chaplaincy now has the ability to issue permission for "justified departure" from the university's nondiscrimination policy on a religious basis - if the Chaplain, that is, decides such an exemption has a basis in religious doctrine.
It remains to be seen whether TCF will take the opportunity granted by the CSL to apply for exemption from the university's nondiscrimination policy. If it does, the group will be required to provide more clarity in the coming weeks on how it interprets its own religious doctrine. In doing so the group would also become the guinea pigs of the CSL's policy, which asserts, in part, that "it is reasonable to expect that leaders within individual [student religious groups] be exemplars of that particular religion."
TCF leaders say they have yet to decide if the group will apply for "justified exemption." Applying through the chaplaincy, for one, they will likely be faced with specific questions about leadership criteria that that the group says they simply don't feel comfortable answering.
"We don't have a codified policy about leadership," TCF Vision and Planning Team member Jessica Laporte, a junior, said. "It is a discernment process, and that's an important part of what we desire to maintain as a group, that it's individualized, that it's not a one-size-fits-all policy."
If TCF does decide to go forward with the process of requesting religious exemption from the Chaplaincy, they may find an ally in Tufts' Interim Chaplain, Reverend Patricia Kepler. Under the CSL's new policy, she would head a team tasked with ensuring that any student religious group's deviation from the Tufts anti-discrimination policy is accurately based on the doctrine of that group's religion.
"I think that it's common sense that the leaders of a religious group be in adherence of that faith tradition, if that's what the group wants," Kepler said from her office in Goddard Chapel last week.
Kepler, whose term as interim chaplain began in early 2012 after longtime chaplain David O'Leary left the Hill to lead a local Catholic parish, added that it is critical for any religious group to be upfront about what values it believes in. She praised TCF for its decision to hold firm against the Judiciary request that it remove the constitutional clause that potential leaders "support and advocate for the letter and spirit" of the group's Basis of Faith.
"The reason they didn't [remove the Basis of Faith], as far as I understand it, is because they have integrity. They said 'we cannot honestly do that, this is who we are, this is what we believe'," she said.
The Basis of Faith - initially authored by InterVarsity - includes a belief in the "entire trustworthiness and authority of the Bible," and "justification by God's grace to all who repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation," among others.
Kepler said that she does not plan to press any student religious group seeking an exemption to specify its religious doctrine to the utmost detail. The Chaplaincy would not bring up issues of sexual ethical behavior, for example, unless students initiated specific concerns about that. The Chaplaincy, she said, would consider leadership requirements for faith-based positions at "face value."
"I am not in a position, and I don't think our other Chaplains are in a position, to require people to defend, expand on or interpret their faith tradition to somebody within the Chaplaincy," she said. "For instance, if the Protestant group says 'our leaders need to be Christian', I'm not going to come back at them and say, 'What do you mean by Christian?'…That could mean a lot of different things."
The Judiciary, on the other hand, has more specific expectations for any religious group that might decide to apply for TCU recognition for a justified exemption. The Judiciary would expect TCF or any other group to be entirely transparent about what each component of its leadership guidelines entails. This includes any requirement of a certain behavior component, such as sexual chastity, according to Judiciary chair Adam Sax, a senior.
"This whole policy is about transparency," Sax said. "For me, saying that we believe in chastity - I want to know what that means. That's going to have to be spelled out."
Circling the bureaucratic legalese that has characterized the recent debate over TCF's leadership selection has been the issue of sexuality. TCF was reprimanded over a decade ago for allegedly denying a TCF member in 2001 a leadership position because she was openly gay. TCF in that case lost - and then regained through a CSL ruling - its TCU recognition. While the debate this time has almost never explicitly referenced how TCF's Basis of Faith and leadership requirements restrict on the basis of sexuality, it remains a sticking point for those who accuse TCF of discrimination.
Senior Brandon Archambault, who has been active in the TCF controversy as a former TCF member, the complainant in a Judiciary case involving TCF, an advocate for the group's defunding and a current leader in the Coalition Against Religious Exclusion, said the CSL policy has backed TCF into a corner on that issue.
If TCF leadership were to spell out exactly what its rules for sexual chastity were, he said, the group would be forced to admit to that its religious doctrine with regards to chastity holds a double standard that bars non-heterosexual relationships.
"Heterosexual sex is okay [for TCF] within certain limitations, like marriage," Archambault said. "It's not in and of itself wrong, it's only contextually wrong. Homosexual acts are in of themselves wrong all the time, no exceptions."
Five TCF leaders - Laporte, senior Elaine Kim, senior Emmanuel Runes, senior EzichiEdnahNwafor and junior Ji-Sun Ham - declined to comment on whether the Vision and Planning Team has a consensus on how the Basis of Faith applies to sexual behavior or orientation. TCF leaders in 2011 confirmed to the Daily that, based on their value system, they saw any homosexual act as "unchaste."
"You can date," former TCF Vision and Planning Team member Wai Cheng (LA '11), told the Daily in a Dec.7, 2011 article, "but, according to our beliefs, [only] in a heterosexual relationship."
"If there's a student who is actively engaged in a homosexual relationship, that's also not sexually chaste," former TCF leader and current Intervarsity Christian Fellowship Team Leader Alexandra Nesbesda (LA '06) added in the article.
According to the student leaders handbook produced by IVCF, it is unacceptable for a Christian to engage in a homosexual encounter. On page 87 of the section "Understanding Your Campus Culture, the handbook reads: "Is it okay…to have a homosexual encounter? ... A Christian says 'no,' because immorality as defined in the Bible offends God and brings harm to the individuals involved."
In analyzing TCF's constitutional leadership requirements, an important distinction lies in the difference between sexual orientation and action, Archambault said. If TCF or InterVarsity discriminated based solely on sexual orientation, Laporte said, she would not have chosen to be a leader in TCF. Laporte wrote last semester in an op-ed in the Daily that she is attracted to both men and women, but would not act on her attraction unless she was married to a man.
"I am not a leader inTCFbecause 'I chose to be straight' but because I have chosen to deny myself in all things and take up my cross daily in order to follow Christ," Laporte wrote in the the Dec. 10 op-ed. "My sexuality is only one part of my identity that is being transformed by God's will."
Moving forward, leaders in TCF said that they are unsure if they want to go down the murky road that the CSL's route for a justified departure from Tufts' anti-discrimination policy presents. The group will have to make a decision soon if it intends to reapply for recognition by the Judiciary in time to apply for Senate funding from the TCU Treasury, a process that happens annually each March.
TCF's leaders are concerned with the potential negative perception the process could create, and remain doubtful that they can explain TCF's leadership criteria in a way that satisfies the CSL, the Judiciary, and the student body at large.
"Part of this issue has been perception," Nwafor said. "How do we explain in almost two different languages the concepts of our belief to this campus, and how are we being understood when we do try to explain that? ... I think this policy tried to help us be better understood, but I think it's leading to even more misconception of our goals and our desires on this campus."