If we assume that being winsome will win a favorable hearing, then heated opposition will tempt us to doubt Christian moral teaching. Most people are not ready to be perceived as unloving, hateful, and a menace to society. But that is what, in many circles, publicly affirming traditional moral teaching will get you.

It looked like an April’s Fools’ joke. It had to be. On April 1 a Princeton University student reported in a student newspaper that a social club recently changed its visitors’ policy as a result of a particular lunch guest. That guest was Robert George, distinguished Princeton professor, prominent conservative, close friend and traveling debate-partner of Cornel West, who is also a top-tier gentleman. His mere presence, it was claimed, “caught [members] off guard,” jeopardized the “inclusive environment” of the group, and deeply upset a constituency within the club.

We are left to read between the lines to discern what about Prof. George was so upsetting for these students. One would have to suppose it wasn’t his friendship with Prof. West or his polite demeanor. The narrator of these events suggests the reason relates to Prof. George’s criticisms of “left-wing ideological convictions.” Thus, this “inclusive” space was compelled to exclude a distinguished guest due to his conservative views.

This whole affair serves as a symbolic reminder of “negative world” realities. In contemporary North America, publicly affirming traditional Christian moral teachings that would have been mostly innocuous just 15 years ago is now likely to get you labeled as antisocial, as a threat to the general welfare. According to our post-Christian neighbors, such persons must be pushed to the periphery of polite society. Their views are deemed not only bigoted and backwards, but unsafe. You can be as respectable, kind, and winsome as Robert George, and you will still be declared off-limits.

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