By The Editorial Board
Love thy neighbor.
Christian or not, you’ve heard these words. While the Bible might be full of confusing parables and themes open to interpretation, “love thy neighbor” is a simple, universal phrase.
The word “love” appears in the Bible over 300 times, and the exact phrase “love one another” is mentioned 14 times — twice by Jesus himself. In fact, “love thy neighbor” is the second “great commandment” outlined in the Bible, second only to loving God.
If you consider yourself a Christian, you are called to follow God’s commands, and Scripture acts as a guide. Even if you don’t consider yourself a Christian, being kind to others is just in good taste. But somewhere along the way, we lost sight of these commandments. Christians have gotten caught up in interpretation rather than truth, using words created in love to spread hate.
Recently, the East Village Dining Commons introduced halal chicken at students’ request. “Halal” comes from the Arabic word “lawful” and simply means the animal was slaughtered with minimal suffering, and the name of Allah is invoked before slaughter. “Allah” means God in Arabic and is linguistically similar to “Eloho,” the Aramaic translation of God, and the word Jesus uses in the Bible.
“At Baylor, ‘Love thy neighbor’ are not just words … they are a way of life,” reads Baylor’s official website, under its values and vision section. An integral part of Baylor’s mission is a caring community — something that’s somehow gotten lost in translation.
Something as simple as chicken turned into an online theological frenzy, with our Christian community spewing obscenities and discriminatory statements.
Food cannot be “un-Christian,” but spreading hate always has been.
Representing other cultures does not negate your own Christianity, the same way being a student at Baylor does not automatically make you a Baptist. The individuals who are harassed online are as much God’s children as you are, and your faith is not validated by the hate you incorrectly attribute to God’s name. As students, we represent Baylor as a Christian university as much as you, and we reflect God’s love by showing the same compassion and care to our fellow students.
Belonging to a Christian university like Baylor isn’t passive — it’s a daily choice to respect and uphold the ideals for which it stands. Baylor proudly boasts international student enrollment from 90 countries and added “Pro Mundo,” or “For the World,” to its mission statement in 2023. The fact is, Baylor cannot have the international presence it strives for without representation and inclusion on all fronts.
According to Baylor’s Office of Institutional Research, the population of Muslim students has increased by 105% since 2018, no doubt due to Baylor’s continued international recruitment efforts. It is not enough to use these students as statistical bragging rights — they deserve to be cared for, supported and able to eat at the university they pay thousands of dollars to attend.
Baylor cannot and will not maintain its diverse international enrollment if it is not intentional in its support for those students. International students will not seek out or stay at an institution whose students and faculty do not respect them. We cannot make a name for ourselves as a Christian institution without following the ideals of Christ, and that starts most basically with loving others because He loved us first.
Imagine an international student whose first experience with Christianity is hateful online rhetoric. If the “caring community” we so gratefully proclaim on the university website doesn’t include all members of the Baylor community, we have failed at our Christian mission.
To our international students, you have a place here just as Christian students do. The hate you might see online does not mean Baylor doesn’t want you here; we do. You broaden our worldview and make us more well-rounded students, and we hope our university can offer you support on an institutional, academic and cultural level.
Bears, it’s OK to be firm in your faith; in fact, it’s honorable to stand in conviction while living in a world that sometimes seems to demonize faithfulness. But using your faith as a weapon against others is a gross misrepresentation of all we stand for here at Baylor.
No matter what faceless usernames say on the internet, Baylor is not “soft” or “woke” for fulfilling its written Christian mission of love. Our university is not “less Christian” because of inclusivity efforts. Online discriminatory and hateful statements will not change Baylor’s mind, but they hurt the real-life students who walk alongside you on Fountain Mall.
If you don’t believe in halal chicken, don’t eat it. If you don’t believe in Islam, you aren’t forced to worship it. But do not shame others online for not worshiping in the same way you do. Religion is never a platform to be hateful, and if you are using it as such, you are not upholding Baylor’s values the way it intends.
