A recent article in the Technician talked about the university distancing itself from the Chaplains’ Cooperative Ministry. The article claims that it was the CCM’s failure to promote religious diversity that led to this change, stating that there was only one non-Christian group within the CCM. While it is clear that this is a reasonable concern and that the CCM failed to live up to the diversity the university required from it, the CCM should not have been allowed to operate with the support of the university in the first place, but especially since it seemed to support one religion in particular. 

Because NC State is a public university, run by the state, there should be no religious groups that are given support by the university. Individual groups should have the right to meet on campus as students of the university, but when those groups are given special support and privileges from the university, a line is crossed. The CCM was given easier access to parking passes, NC State buildings and an office in Talley Student Union, according to the Technician. This means that this religious group was given direct support from the university. 

While it is wrong for a religious group to be given special benefits from a public university, the situation is made worse when the group supports one religion. The vast majority of the group members in the CCM were Christian groups, which is the dominant religion within the United States and North Carolina. A group that professes religious diversity but ends up supporting the dominant faith comes at no surprise. More students subscribe to that religion than any other, and so it would make sense that more students of a Christian faith would want to get involved with something like that, on a proportional basis. 

At the end of the day, the CCM was supported by the university. Even though it intended to seek religious diversity, it ended up specifically backing the dominant religion in our culture. So indirectly, the university ended up giving special benefits to that religion. 

I am not trying to suggest that the people in charge of the CCM intended for this to be the outcome. I have no doubt that leaders of the CCM genuinely wanted to promote religious diversity on campus and give students spiritual guidance; this is a noble cause and one that is worthy of an effort on campus. But, you know the proverb about good intentions.