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[normative_]

Being a devote Christian means you worship the Lord. Literally. I guarantee you they will use this word at least once a week. If you're not prepared to do it, then don't apply to be a member of the group. They've made it clear that this is central to their lives and their belief system. It's not good for anyone to try to circumvent it. Unless of course, they start advocating the overthrow of the state, which is another thing altogether. But that has nothing to do with you applying.

If it's this way or the highway, then I would always choose the highway if applying collided with my own religious beliefs. Whether it's legal or not, and apparently it is, I see no harm in a college affirming their adherence to a guy nailed to a cross or a guy holding a couple of tablets or a guy with a horse and scimitar, a guy with four heads, or a guy under a banyan tree and so on <wishes that there were more female deities, hopefully with a better sense of style than the guys>. The students choose to live out their lives like that and the faculty recruits from people who share their world view. That world view will express itself on a daily basis, and at least some of your colleagues will decide that you don't fit in if you don't play nice. By refusing to enthusiastically worship 'our Lord Jesus Christ'. After all they're sharing the joy, the love and the salvation, a sense of shared community and purpose in a sinful world. It's not for me (or for you), and so I would look elsewhere. I could apply to a nice Buddhist university that expects regular meditation, for example without any problem at all. But not beyond that.

Expecting neutrality is delusional and expecting to be accepted because you view neutrality as fair is a good step beyond that. Even if you lie on the application, they will find you out at the interview stage, which they should.

I come from and continue to live in a religiously diverse network of friends and family, not to speak of my colleagues. Many of them are devout to the nth degree. We get along because we coexist by respecting one another. That isn't what's going to happen here.

[imawakenow]

I see no harm in a college affirming their adherence to a guy nailed to a cross or a guy holding a couple of tablets or a guy with a horse and scimitar, a guy with four heads, or a guy under a banyan tree and so on

It's the first one.

From the mission statement: "Belmont University is a Christian community. The University faculty, administration and staff uphold Jesus as the Christ and as the measure of all things."

[normative_]

Heh. I did sort of get that point. <hands coffee to Iamawakenow>

[formerly_the_fiver]

Thanks to all who replied. It does stir the pot some, doesn't it? I was thinking that I would respond to their statement, which follows:

Vision:

To be a leader among teaching universities, bringing together the best of liberal arts and professional education in a Christian community of learning and service.

Mission Statement:

Belmont University is a student-centered Christian community providing an academically challenging education that empowers men and women of diverse backgrounds to engage and transform the world with disciplined intelligence, compassion, courage and faith.

Values:

As a student-centered Christian community with a rich Baptist heritage, Belmont University upholds the following core values as essential to intellectual, spiritual, personal and corporate life:
Integrity
Inquiry
Collaboration
Service
Humility

I could get behind integrity, inquiry, collaboration, service, and humility (I'm nothing if not humble, to the point of self-effacement sometimes!). Basically, I agree with everything they have except the words "Christian" and "Baptist." I like Nashville, and have family there. And I did answer "no" honestly to the "Are you a Christian" question. Ultimately, though, if they want somebody who will go to church on a regular basis, and who has been personally saved, etc., I'm not the person, so my conclusion is that it would be a waste of my time and money (sending a credentials file), and Belmont's time, to submit an application.

Thanks again for the assistance.

[imawakenow]

Heh. I did sort of get that point. <hands coffee to Iamawakenow>

I'll happily accept the coffee, but my post was tongue-in-cheek also.

[chomp96]

I had a campus interview at Belmont (in a STEM field) two years ago.  Being an evangelical myself, I found the Christian distinctiveness of the university attractive.  One of the faculty in the department where I interviewed expressed some disappointment that the institution isn't as Christian as they might claim.

The impression that I came away with is that the upper administration are generally practicing evangelicals, the faculty are nominally Christian (but with varying backgrounds and levels of commitment), and the students are diverse.  While on campus, most of the students I met appeared to be genuinely pursuing their faith; however, I am told that there are also many (particularly in music, business, and music business, their strongest programs) who are not Christians.

OP, if you were a Christian of a different stripe (Catholic, liberal Protestant, etc.), then I would say still apply.  However, if you're not a Christian, then I don't think it would be a good fit for either party.

[lillybelle]

It's worth noting that Belmont separated from the Baptist convention a few years ago because they are heading in a more secular direction. They do have some people teaching there who are not Christians - but they are adjuncts; I don't know about for tenure-track positions.

[macadamia]

I'd lie.  You have no ethical obligation whatsoever to give a truthful answer to any religious institution.

Can you explain the rationale?  Is lying ok generally or just when it involves religion?

Untenured

I certainly think that lying to an employer about your discriminated-against attributes is ethically ok. And hiring only Christians to teach basket weaving *is* discrimination. If you go the lifestyle route, then there is nothing to stop universities to go back to nice (European) traditions of only hiring women who are not married because then they are supposed to look after their husband's household. (Evidently, there might be laws stopping them, but I do not see the difference in demanding women to stay at home because it is Christian or people to worship because it is Christian if you hire them to teach basket-weaving.)

I take exception to the "You would not want to work there, anyway.". It presupposes that there are acceptable alternatives. Turn back the time some decades and then try to work while homosexual, turn it back a century and then try to work while female. If I had a penny for every time someone told me where I would not want to work anyway, then I would indeed not have to work there.
You would also tell people that they would not want to be the first female university student, I guess. After all, there are acceptable tutoring positions in private households for educated women.

That said, I assume that in this particular case there are acceptable alternatives, but my decision or advice not to apply is certainly not based on lying about your religion being *unethical*, and the OP might have personal reasons that make applying and lying a good choice.

I do know high-school teachers teaching at Catholic schools (not in the US) who have to lie about their same-sex relationship (to each other).

Does the US have an atheist university where professors sign a charta that they "as an atheist community we believe in integrity, intellectual honesty and charity that does not expect something return in an 'after-life'" or some other stuff that implies that Christians lack in moral values? And should the hires there happen to become religious during tenure-track, they better hide it carefully?

Note that there are Western European countries where Christians run most of  the hospitals and pre-schools and have monopolies in some regions and they are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion when hiring pre-school teachers, nurses and hospital cleaners. If you are a nurse or a social worker in one of that countries, you better start practising your lying while studying, and I damn well think that it is ethical to lie. I also think that it is ethical to bring a law-suit before the European court of human rights, but religion often gets a pass when it comes to human rights.

[rambling]

This:

It amazes me how much leeway religious institutions get.

and this:

religion often gets a pass when it comes to human rights.

no wonder have some causal relationship to some feeling like this:

You have no ethical obligation whatsoever to give a truthful answer to any religious institution.

and this:

I really hate all religions and wish there weren't any.

[spyzowin]

I'd lie.  You have no ethical obligation whatsoever to give a truthful answer to any religious institution.

Can you explain the rationale?  Is lying ok generally or just when it involves religion?

Untenured

I certainly think that lying to an employer about your discriminated-against attributes is ethically ok. And hiring only Christians to teach basket weaving *is* discrimination. If you go the lifestyle route, then there is nothing to stop universities to go back to nice (European) traditions of only hiring women who are not married because then they are supposed to look after their husband's household. (Evidently, there might be laws stopping them, but I do not see the difference in demanding women to stay at home because it is Christian or people to worship because it is Christian if you hire them to teach basket-weaving.)

I take exception to the "You would not want to work there, anyway.". It presupposes that there are acceptable alternatives. Turn back the time some decades and then try to work while homosexual, turn it back a century and then try to work while female. If I had a penny for every time someone told me where I would not want to work anyway, then I would indeed not have to work there.
You would also tell people that they would not want to be the first female university student, I guess. After all, there are acceptable tutoring positions in private households for educated women.

That said, I assume that in this particular case there are acceptable alternatives, but my decision or advice not to apply is certainly not based on lying about your religion being *unethical*, and the OP might have personal reasons that make applying and lying a good choice.

I do know high-school teachers teaching at Catholic schools (not in the US) who have to lie about their same-sex relationship (to each other).

Does the US have an atheist university where professors sign a charta that they "as an atheist community we believe in integrity, intellectual honesty and charity that does not expect something return in an 'after-life'" or some other stuff that implies that Christians lack in moral values? And should the hires there happen to become religious during tenure-track, they better hide it carefully?

Note that there are Western European countries where Christians run most of  the hospitals and pre-schools and have monopolies in some regions and they are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion when hiring pre-school teachers, nurses and hospital cleaners. If you are a nurse or a social worker in one of that countries, you better start practising your lying while studying, and I damn well think that it is ethical to lie. I also think that it is ethical to bring a law-suit before the European court of human rights, but religion often gets a pass when it comes to human rights.

Yay! You managed, in an inoffensive way, to say exactly what I was thinking.  I will, however, add one additional explanation:

As organized religions from Tibetan Buddhism to Roman Catholicism have been responsible for the majority of the world's recorded history of totalitarian repression and human rights violations, they deserve to have any and all of their dogmatic beliefs and policies challenged, subverted, and ignored.  If a person can frustrate a religious policy, he or she has the ethical obligation to should do so.

[chomp96]

<<End of thread on Belmont University>>

[tinyzombie]

<<End of thread on Belmont University>>

Tsk, tsk. Only Fiona can do that.

[rambling]

Yes, the topic was Belmont, right. I do know a few people at Belmont, and they seem pretty happy there. I do think though that the intervening tangential discussion was interesting and could be relevant to the OP.

[losemygrip]

Totalitarian repression under Tibetan Buddhism?  I'm not aware of any historical regimes that practiced totalitarianism in the name of the Buddha.  Perhaps you can enlighten me (so to speak). 

[spyzowin]

Totalitarian repression under Tibetan Buddhism?  I'm not aware of any historical regimes that practiced totalitarianism in the name of the Buddha.  Perhaps you can enlighten me (so to speak). 

Prior to the Chinese expulsion of the moronic Dalai Lama, Tibet was a feudal theocracy.