Arizona State University canceled their only religious studies course about Christianity scheduled for the spring after attempting to neuter the syllabus and revise the course curriculum with social justice themes.
Owen Anderson, a religious studies professor who has been teaching at the public university for more than two decades, submitted a syllabus for his Introduction to Christianity course that was then rejected by the Arizona State University School of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. Anderson said in an interview with The Sentinel that he wanted to discuss the impact of the faith on Western civilization and mention the Old Testament from a Christian perspective, while the department instead believed that the course needed to mention slavery and colonialism.
He submitted a new syllabus to the department with a more generic universal section that all professors for the course would teach while maintaining the more robust section that would have been unique to his own class. That syllabus was returned to Anderson, who is also a pastor at Historic Christian Church in Phoenix, Arizona, without comment and with the sections about Western civilization and the Old Testament removed from the document.
Anderson noted to The Sentinel that students at the university have general education requirements needed for graduation, but since his syllabus was not approved, the course was never assigned a general education designation as students register for spring classes.
Because courses without the designation “will not attract students and will most likely be canceled or not offered” due to lack of interest, Anderson commented that the refusal from the department to approve a syllabus was a “backdoor way to censor conservatives and Christians.”
Anderson wrote in his newsletter that the religious studies department has “successfully censored the one conservative Christian teaching religious studies at Arizona State University,” showing that they “will silence those they disagree with even if those persons are supposedly protected by academic freedom,” even after he made sure that “the portion of the syllabus that will be used by all instructors does not have anything they consider controversial.”
Arizona State University will meanwhile offer courses on Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism in the spring semester, and even several courses on witchcraft. “How can the largest state university in the United States not offer any classes on Christianity?” Anderson asked.
David Reece, a pastor at Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona, added in comments to The Sentinel that Anderson is “fighting against a system that pretends neutrality while seeking to snuff out Christianity.” He called on Christians in the state to “be aware of and resist the weaponization of state-run education” and warned that “worldview neutrality is impossible.”
Beyond the rejection of his course, Anderson previously challenged Arizona State University after he and other colleagues were subjected to a mandatory “inclusive communities” diversity training. Attorneys for the Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit earlier this year which noted that Arizona state law forbids government entities, including public universities, from forcing their employees to “participate in mandatory training programs” that present “blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex.”
