The ideological persecution of evangelical students in public and private universities is rapidly worsening. This is what some of the students and leaders of student groups who work at these institutions say.
Although the university environment has teaching as its main objective, which implies the need for free debate and respect for different worldviews, this place has become, over the years, spaces of political-ideological militancy.
“Some think they are all from the ‘extreme right’, fascists, homophobes, sexists and so on. But for a while, what was on the agenda was that we were stupid, illiterate, without resources, and that our pastors were thieves”, said Pedro Mantovan, leader of Rede Universitária, an organization of Christian groups that work in cells and is present in 20 universities in the country.
The reported persecution is far from circumstantial. Generated by a wave of ignorance and prejudice, many persecutors are unaware or ignore the fact that a large part of scientific evolution only occurred thanks to the work of Christian scientists of the past and present, such as Johann Mendel, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galiei, Francis Collins, Michael Behe and dozens of others.
According to some students who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, intolerance also comes from teachers. One of them, for example, told Gazeta do Povo that a professor tried to destroy a Christian cell at his university.
She, according to the student, “went to the director of the course and said that we shouldn’t stay after class playing the guitar. They managed to stop us for a month, but we spoke to the dean and managed to return”.
“She put issues in the room to question and debate. My colleague and I were always against her thoughts. But who was against her opinion, she discounted the grade or tried to harm in some way”, completed the evangelical student.
Politicization
The politicization of teaching is what seems to be most affecting university teaching, which is extremely serious, since this means replacing the formation of scientific thinking with ideological thinking.
And this is reflected in the formation of an increasingly intolerant view by new students. One student reported, for example, that a classmate categorically stated that “all people who defend the Judeo-Christian family system must die”.
To the evangelical student’s surprise, the student received the support of other colleagues and the university’s management did not take any action regarding this hate speech and discrimination. Instead of being supported, the Christian began to be persecuted for having made the complaint.
“Nobody greets me or talks to me anymore. Imagine if someone said that ‘everyone from the Northeast has to die’? The person would be arrested, because it is hate speech. But whoever says that ‘every person who defends the Judeo-Christian family system has to die’ is freedom of expression”, criticized the evangelical.
firm testimony
Fortunately, millions of evangelical students have responded to university persecution. They are students who are part of groups such as the Student and Professional Crusade for Christ, Cru, an organization that has 25,000 missionaries and 200,000 volunteers in 190 countries.
The objective of these Christian students is to show that faith is not opposed to science, much less science to faith, and that it is perfectly coherent to follow Jesus Christ and be an excellent professional in any area of activity.
But even so, for Gilberlei Oliveira, one of the national directors of Cru Brasil, hostility against evangelical students in universities has grown and should be a cause for concern.
“I note with concern that there is an escalation of hostility towards evangelicals today,” he said, attributing the greatest responsibility for this reality to leftist politicization.
“Articles have been written, headlines produced and news have been manipulated to attribute responsibility to evangelicals for what are called ‘coup, terrorist and anti-democratic acts’”.
Mantovan, for his part, makes it clear that the movement of evangelical university students is not about politics, but about a declaration of faith. “We support Christian biblical ideologies whether they are on the right or the left. And we do not support unbiblical and anti-Christian ideologies, be they on the right or the left,” he says.