Citizenship Confusion: Sometimes "Political Correctness" Is Just Common Decency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Messiah College student group stands up for edifying language, leading conservatives and Christians to condemn the college for caving to "political correctness." 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He received his PhD in Contemporary American Literature from Baylor, writing on manifestations of transcendence in 20th Century American Lit. He and his family attend Redeemer Waco, a PCA church. Alan's passion is studying how believers can be a faithful presence in culture to the glory of God and the edification of others. In addition to editing, Alan writes his column, Citizenship Confusion for CaPC. ---Follow Alan on Twitter\u00a0@TheAlanNoble and on Facebook. ---For questions, comments, or interest in speaking engagements please email me at noble.noneuclidean [at] gmail [dot] com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/thealannoble\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/author\/anoble\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Citizenship Confusion: Sometimes "Political Correctness" Is Just Common Decency","description":"A Messiah College student group stands up for edifying language, leading conservatives and Christians to condemn the college for caving to \"political correctness.\" Wait, what?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Citizenship Confusion: Sometimes "Political Correctness" Is Just Common Decency","og_description":"A Messiah College student group stands up for edifying language, leading conservatives and Christians to condemn the college for caving to \"political correctness.\" Wait, what?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/","og_site_name":"Christ and Pop Culture","article_published_time":"2011-10-24T14:00:08+00:00","author":"Alan Noble","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Alan Noble","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/","name":"Citizenship Confusion: Sometimes "Political Correctness" Is Just Common Decency","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-10-24T14:00:08+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-24T14:00:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/08868a891b6ea4b842db4fce67dc4e5d"},"description":"A Messiah College student group stands up for edifying language, leading conservatives and Christians to condemn the college for caving to \"political correctness.\" Wait, what?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Citizenship Confusion: Sometimes "Political Correctness" Is Just Common Decency"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/","name":"Christ and Pop Culture","description":"Where the Christian faith meets the common knowledge of our age","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/08868a891b6ea4b842db4fce67dc4e5d","name":"Alan Noble","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b3d4149adb62d3be491438cd7b1abb4e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b3d4149adb62d3be491438cd7b1abb4e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Alan Noble"},"description":"(Co-Founder\/Editor\/Columnist) is a part-time lecturer at Baylor University. 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{"id":14905,"date":"2011-10-24T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christandpopculture.com\/?p=14905"},"modified":"2011-10-24T10:00:08","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T14:00:08","slug":"citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/citizenship-confusion-how-messiah-college-republicans-are-not-confused-but-human-events-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizenship Confusion: Sometimes "Political Correctness" Is Just Common Decency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Every Monday in\u00a0Citizenship Confusion<\/a><\/strong>, Alan Noble discusses how we confuse our heavenly citizenship with citizenship to the state, culture, and the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

In my last two columns<\/a> I have written about the importance of charity and humility in all our proclamations and conversations. This last week, the College Republicans at Messiah College enacted that charity when they cancelled a talk they were going to host because they realized that the speaker was politically \u201cpolarizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The previous week, Frances Fox\u00a0Piven<\/a>, a political scientist known for her leftist politics and extreme statements, had given a talk at Messiah College. The College Republicans, wanting to offer the community an alternative to Piven\u2019s views, asked Jason Mattera (Yes, that Jason Mattera<\/a>\u2014the guy who VP Biden told, \u201cDon\u2019t screw with me\u201d) to speak at the college. When one of the faculty advisors for the club, Dr. James LaGrand, told them about some of Mattera\u2019s recent comments at another college (Mattera reportedly told a student to \u201ctake out your tampon\u201d), the students voted\u00a0unanimously\u00a0to cancel the talk.<\/p>\n

They decided that it would be better to allow the radical speech of an opposing political party to go unanswered than to contribute to the unedifying and uncharitable discourse that defines contemporary politics. The Messiah student paper<\/a> quotes the VP of the Republican club as stating,\u00a0\u201cIn order to have good\u00a0dialogue\u00a0on the issues, we need to eliminate this polarizing language, whether it\u2019s\u00a0Piven calling Tea Partiers racist or\u00a0Mattera\u00a0on the other side calling liberals something\u00a0else.\u201d<\/p>\n

In our country\u2019s public square, what is most important is \u201cwinning\u201d the political argument. We redefine love for our neighbor (or political enemy) as \u201ctelling the harsh truth\u201d so that we can justify unedifying and abusive language. Many Christians have wrongly accepted this mindset, confusing their heavenly citizenship (which calls for charity and true, selfless love of the Other) with our earthly citizenship (which couldn\u2019t care less).<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the College Republican\u2019s positive example of prioritizing charity over political gain was balanced out by commentary on the situation by Human Events<\/em> and The Pearcey Report<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Human Events<\/em>, the conservative magazine where Mattera works as editor, posted an editorial condemning Messiah College<\/a> for canceling his talk. The headline reads: \u201cChristian College Gives Pro-Riots Leftist Piven a Forum, Then Cancels Conservative Speaker.\u201d Note how it conflates the student organization with the school, making it seem like the school intentionally censored Mattera. The editorial states that the republican students were \u201cpressured\u201d by Dr. LaGrand into voting to cancel the talk, a claim that the editorial provides no support for and which\u00a0Dr. LaGrand denied in an e-mail to me.<\/p>\n

It ends with this warning: \u201cParents who are thinking of sending their kids to Messiah College, take notice.\u00a0Alumni who repeatedly get letters and phone calls from Messiah\u2019s fund-raising department, you too. The students there are being programmed to be politically correct drones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Human Events<\/em> and Rick Pearcey blame Messiah College for the College Republicans\u2019 unanimous decision to cancel Mattera\u2019s talk and both suggest that parents and financial supporters should complain to administration. Even worse, Pearcey warns that the school might soon be \u201canti-Christian\u201d and Human Events <\/em>says that Messiah\u00a0produces \u201cpolitically correct drones.\u201d These are serious accusations to make about a Christian college, and they could have very real consequences for the college and its faculty.<\/p>\n

Rather than commend the College Republicans for standing up for edifying speech, Human Events <\/em>and Rick Pearcey publicly condemned Messiah College, suggesting that winning the political war is more important than speaking with grace.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"