If You Don't Like the Diploma, Go to Another School

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels.
Mark 8.38

Jesus had a word of warning for those who are ashamed of him in this world. But some students at a college that was founded by Christians as a Christian institution of higher learning over 140 years ago have a problem with Jesus being referenced to on their diploma.

If you attend college at Chapel Hill, you will expect when you graduate that your diploma will make reference to North Carolina. Attend out at Berkley and you won’t be surprised when your diploma mentions California. Go to college in South Bend and the Leprechauns in the corners of your diploma shouldn’t shock you (Just kidding.).

So why is it now, that students who attend Trinity University in Texas, a college founded by Presbyterians in 1869, are demanding that the term “In The Year of Our Lord” be removed from the date of their diploma being awarded? At least in 1869 Presbyterians were Christian (I have to admit that I wonder about them nowadays), and the school has apparently never actually formally renounced its founding faith. Yet some Trinity students will now be embarrassed, if not ashamed, to display in their home or office a diploma that makes the “Year of Our Lord” reference to Jesus.

It doesn’t surprise me that a spokeswoman for the unhappy students is the president of something called the “Trinity Diversity Connection” and a Muslim. But it sets me to wondering, if, for some reason, I was to study in, say, Damascus or Teheran, and graduate from an Islamic college, would I be offended by a diploma that made reference to Allah? No, I would be surprised if I did not find some reference to the faith that set the course of the institution represented in some way on the diploma.

Of course, there is a good chance, given that it is Presbyterians we are talking about, that Trinity University of Texas maintains very few vestiges of its Christian heritage. And, if now essentially a secular institution governed by a secular board, than the folks at Trinity should have the decency to change their name and come right out and publicly disavow and forsake their roots. But, if Trinity University of Texas still describes itself, in anyway more than by acknowledging as part of its past, as Christian, than the students who don’t like “The Year of Our Lord” on their diplomas have two choices. They can transfer and graduate from another college, or they can go out and buy a Sharpie and strike out whatever they don’t like on the diploma.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4