Katherine Timpf:
Students in a Bible course at the University of Glasgow are being given trigger warnings before being shown images of the crucifixion — and permission to skip those lessons altogether if they are worried they’ll feel too uncomfortable.
Predictably, much of the conversation surrounding this has been focused on the cultural implications of the policy, and how it contributes to creating a generation of weak little snowflakes. Of course, that discussion is relevant. After all, giving young adults the idea that they deserve “trigger warnings” and protection from potentially traumatic material is ridiculous in a world where bad things are going to inevitably happen to them anyway. They are going to get dumped, their loved ones are going to die, and neither a partner who is done with them nor a metastasizing cancer is going to give a s*** how triggered they are before wreaking havoc on their lives.
But the problems with this policy go far beyond the abstract cultural implications. It’s also objectively, indisputably wrong on a logical level — because receiving credits for a class signifies that you have learned enough about the subject matter to earn those credits, and no student in an introductory Bible course could meet that qualification without having learned about the crucifixion.
The crucifixion may be a traumatic Biblical event, but it is also arguably the most monumental one. The crucifixion and corresponding resurrection of Jesus Christ are the entire foundation of the Christian religion, and yet somehow we have an institution willing to give students credit for a class about that religion’s holy book without them having to learn anything about the book’s most consequential event?
