Re: “Principled pluralism is needed today,” March 17
Brian Bork seriously does not understand the concept of separation of church and state.
Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.
You do not have the right to push your religious beliefs from the platform of a public institution. I know he works at a university, but I’m beginning to wonder if he has ever attended one. His entire
argument is basically a false equivocation of secularism with state atheism. Secularism is not even close to becoming a “hegemonic force against religious points of view.”
It is merely the concept that religion should be separate from the state, which is one of the foundations of modern democracy.
And only through secularism is freedom of religion even possible in the first place.
I also do not appreciate being indirectly accused of hiding behind a veil of secularism even if that accusation made sense in the first place.
With all his talk about pluralism it is quite ironic that he is actually the one who is trying to justify his religion’s hegemony over the Chaplain’s Office.
–Andrew Chai
I would like to say that in the last issue of The Cord, our university’s chaplain did a great injustice to every course that touches on ethics and human rights at this university.
I doubt he’s even been in one for quite some time. If he would have, he would see that the questions of “what is best?” and “what is good?” are being addressed rather well without an appeal to a metaphysical authority.
As for the rest of his article, I think he hit the religious oppression button prematurely.
While people should not hide their deepest beliefs, and his call for more religious dialogue on campus should be answered, I find it ironic that the only group (as far as I know) that has been pushing for a multi-faith discussion for quite some time is the Laurier Freethought Alliance, the one club on campus promoting the chaplain’s much-dreaded secularism. As far as I’ve heard, they have been unsuccessful.
–Anatolijs Venovcevs
