Biola can be a marvelous university. It is not perfect. Members of the Biola community strive to live into the call of God on our lives individually and thereby to help Biola do so as an institution. Yet we exist within a culture that is at times hostile to goals of the Kingdom of God as well as the disciplines that are necessary for life in that kingdom.
Biola has adopted a University Plan to guide the institution into a Godly future. The chief feature of that plan is a set of "Aspirations" that we hope to achieve. One of these is our desire to become a loving cross-cultural community. This aspiration is rooted firmly in the word of God. In Ephesians 2 Paul had occasion to reflect upon his life before Christ. He reckoned that in that state he like everyone else existed in a posture of hostility to others, as each ethnic group is divided from the others by what he termed a dividing wall of hostility. He acknowledged that the blood of Christ, however, had made possible a different order of human relationships to come to pass, one in which Jew and Greek form a new humanity. It is this new humanity that is the object of God's reconciliation. The blood of Christ not only reconciles us to God, it also has the power to reconcile us to one another. And so Paul throughout his letters implored Christians to accept one another as Christ accepts us, to bear one another's burdens, to consider one another family, as sisters and brothers one with another, and to recognize that we exist in a state of mutual interdependence with one another. We need one another as we are one body.
It is not so easy.
Our culture does not necessarily prize such sentiments.
But as Christians we must.
Discriminatory and even hateful incidents occur all around us. They occur on this campus and within the Biola community. The advent of social media and particularly those sites that promise anonymity has vastly extended the reach of these corrupting events. Some have occurred on campus already this year. Some have involved social media sites that allow unfiltered and hurtful anonymous comments to pollute our environment.
As a Christian community we seek to live by biblical standards of community behavior. Discriminatory behavior, whether overt or anonymous, is hurtful. It damages your brothers and sisters and is sub-Christian, unbiblical and as such is not welcome at Biola.
The Undergraduate Student Handbook contains a wealth of information regarding discriminatory behavior. Similarly, the faculty handbook outlines policies for non-discriminatory practices.
In light of the pervasive and ongoing changes unleashed by the digital revolution, President Corey has called for a thorough review of our practices and policies regarding discriminatory behavior, including reporting, adjudicating, and determining consequences for those members of the community found responsible for discriminatory actions. The goal of this review is a plan of action aimed to help us achieve our aspiration of becoming a loving cross-cultural community. Expect in the coming months to hear the results of this review and the coming plan to update our policies and procedures so as to guide us into the biblical vision of community.
As Christians we live in a world not our own, for we are, as Paul said, ouranopolitai, citizens of heaven. Let us fortify ourselves for the responsibility such citizenship requires.
