Religious discussion not 'safe'

I was pleased to learn the CommUNITY Education Program has been sponsoring discussions on religion and spirituality, such as the recent meeting Tuesday in Teter Quad. I hope people will continue talking. You can't sum up one religion or worldview in one hour or evening; any such discussion can only be a beginning. And it seems to be difficult to get such discussion to continue, especially informed discussion.\nI was less pleased to find references to those discussions as "safe space." Granted, the term "safe space" has been stretched until it has hardly any meaning, but I think it was originally used in a therapeutic context. I think it was a term for people who've been abused emotionally and physically and who need to be assured they won't be abused further. I don't object to such "safe spaces," but it's not a term that ought ever to apply to discussion in an academic environment. Least of all should it be applied to religion, whose adherents routinely demand a hands-off attitude to their beliefs but rarely extend it to others' values. \nRebecca Jimenez, campus minister of the Center for University Ministry, claimed religion "is often disdained, and those who are serious about their faith are denigrated and suspected of ignorance or naivete." This appears to be a slam at atheists, but usually it is believers who disdain other believers, and who indeed believe it their religious duty to do so. Within the Christian Bible alone, Jesus' attacks on his fellow Jews, and Paul and John's attacks on their fellow Christians show that "disdain" is too mild a word for believers' behavior to "those who are serious about their faith."\nPresent-day Christians have learned these great teachers' lesson well. It won't be news that conservative evangelicals (commonly known as "fundamentalists") are hostile not only to "secular humanists" but to non-evangelical Christians. It's less often recognized that non-evangelicals fully return the hostility. \nEpiscopal Bishop John Shelby Spong implies evangelicals have kidnapped the Bible and are holding it prisoner, in the title of his book, "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism." Neo-conservative gay Episcopalian Bruce Bawer explicitly said evangelicals "worship evil" in his book, "Stealing Jesus." \nIn Bloomington, I've heard one liberal minister tell a classroom audience he didn't like to think of conservative Christians as Christians at all. Well, they feel the same way about him, I believe. (Ironically, this same minister says he prefers a "more inclusive" definition of Christianity.)\nDeclaring a "safe space" in these circumstances not only is contrary to the spirit of a university, it smothers discussion in its cradle. Those participants who are most intolerant, or most manipulative, will be able to keep dialogue from straying beyond the most innocuous areas, and important issues will be off-limits because someone's feelings might be hurt. (What would such people have done in the first Christian centuries, when the risk of hurt didn't stop with feelings, when declaring belief could put one's life on the line?)\nThe standard tactic is to say something offensive; then, when confronted, to deny that one said it; and when pinned down, to declare that the offensive statement was a matter of faith and so exempt from discussion or "persecution;" repeat as needed. It isn't only believers who use this approach, of course, but they're more likely to get away with it.\nBelievers are likely to protest at this point that their spiritual beliefs are very important to them, central to their identities and it hurts them when those beliefs are criticized. Of course; but if you don't want your beliefs to be criticized or disagreed with, you had better not talk about them at all, except among your own sect. Even there you won't be safe -- you might say something heretical. And again, a university-sponsored discussion should not be a place where such risks are not taken. Where, then, will real discussion take place?\nAs an atheist, I've had to develop a thick skin, because atheists are generally considered fair game to be "denigrated and suspected of ignorance or naivete." Truly, this doesn't bother me; I'm willing to take responsibility for my beliefs (or lack of them) and defend them in the face of challenge. I expect religious believers to do the same, and this they generally aren't willing to do. Dialogue doesn't end with the expression of strong disagreement -- rather, that's where it begins.