The College Fix

Students need ‘autonomy’ to explore their own ‘faith traditions,’ department chair explains

University of Portland theology majors will no longer have to take a class on “Biblical Texts,” according to the department chair who has previously said opponents of homosexual behavior are like the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross. The departmental change will allow students more “autonomy” so they can take courses like “Queer Theologies.”

The Catholic university, run by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, also announced it will change the name of the department to “theology and religious studies.” The department changes drew criticism from a Catholic leader who spoke to The College Fix.

“This course examines how Biblical texts and interpretations shape faiths, theologies, spiritualities, ethics, practices, identities, cultures, and social and political dynamics,” a university description states. “It gives students tools to interpret and engage these ancient Jewish and Christian texts from the Mediterranean world in contemporary global contexts.”

Students must still take Theology 105, which does include a Biblical texts component, but now can “pick from a variety of upper-division courses to fulfill their second theology requirement,” according to The Beacon, the student newspaper.

These course options include “Queer Theologies,” “God Our Mother,” and a class on “the intersectionality of gender discrimination with other forms of discrimination.”

“Interculturalist Feminist Theology” is also an option. Students can also choose from more traditional theology courses such as “Christology” and “Biblical Spirituality.”

Department Chair David Turnbloom did not respond to multiple emails sent in the past two weeks asking for more information about the changes, including the deciding factors for the name change. The Fix also asked about the queer theology course and what benefits the class provided.

He told the student newspaper the change was “to allow students more autonomy over their UP education and provide students with the opportunity to take classes that align with their faith traditions,” according to the student newspaper’s paraphrase.

Turnbloom previously compared opponents of homosexuality to the soldiers who nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. “The anger of the Queer community is a grace-filled, divine instrument,” Turnbloom wrote for a Good Friday essay in 2022. “The question for Catholics is: do we have the competence to see our sin? Without this competence, any courageous acts of ministry run the risk of simply continuing the crucifixion.”

However, the leader of a Catholic organization said the changes are disappointing for a university “founded by and for Catholics.”

“This functional apostasy is one more example of how faithful Catholics have been dispossessed of their own institutions by modernist heretics,” C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, told The Fix via email.

“Courses in Queer Theologies, God our Mother, and Trickery, Gender, Power and Politics in the Bible represent a radical rejection of Catholic Faith and Morals, the institutionalization of heterodoxy,” Doyle said. “And the arrogant conviction that Catholic higher education belongs not to the Church nor to the Catholic community, but to an entitled class of culturally conforming academics who believe themselves unconstrained by any fidelity to the Catholic truth, or to ecclesiastical authority.”

“God Our Mother” “aims to broaden the theological imagination of the students as they reflect on the wonderful reality some call God,” according to its course description.

Meanwhile, “Queer Theologies” “traces developments of queer(ing) theologies—from early turns to Scripture/doctrine affirming same-sex relationships, to efforts revising theologies in light of queer lives—and considers key themes, future possibilities, and impacts on ecclesial and public contexts.”

The University of Portland has previously embraced an LGBT agenda at odds with the Catholic Church’s teachings on human sexuality.

Several years ago, it held a session where students cried because a priest objected to an LGBT pride flag in the residence hall, as previously reported by The Fix. That incident sparked the comparison by Professor Turnbloom that opposing homosexuality is akin to killing Christ. In his 2022 essay, Turnbloom criticized Catholics who said they were facing persecution for upholding the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality. He said such views “perpetuate a form of systemic violence.”

Meanwhile, the university has had to make large cuts due to declining enrollment, as The Fix reported.

MORE: Kentucky becomes latest state to ban DEI

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A Bible lays open with a ribbon down the middle; Stevepb/Pixabay

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