I Beg to Differ

INTOLERANCE TOWARD CONTROVERSY IS THE DEATH OF UNIVERSITY

Let me paint you a scenario: A woman makes a bean soup and shares the recipe on TikTok. Viewers go wild. It’s vegan, cozy, and packed with iron. Save that recipe for later… but it doesn’t take long until one commenter writes, “But what if I don’t like beans?” 

*Internet breaks* 

And the Bean Soup Theory is born. 

This isn’t hypothetical. The Bean Soup Theory really exists. It was first posted in 2023 but recently resurfaced. It describes the social phenomenon we’re living in these days – the days when someone can’t simply scroll past a recipe they don’t like. It calls attention to the absurdity of the self-centered expectation that every post must cater to your needs, and the ridiculousness of not being able to pass by what doesn’t apply to you. 

The phenomenon isn’t exclusive to social media. Students on American university campuses seem to be getting more and more sensitive to situations where another person holds an opinion that is different from them. When they see a poster for an event held on their campus that they don’t want to attend, some students can’t just walk past that poster. They feel like the person who even suggested such an event must hate them… and they must retaliate. 

In America, the idea of going to university used to mean expanding your horizons. Students were eager to open themselves up to new perspectives, ideas, and ways of living. University meant debating ways of thinking, and this debate only made students stronger. It produced mentally strong graduates who knew what they believed and could still enjoy a dinner with those who thought differently. Those days are seemingly gone.  

In an ironic twist, today’s “university” has effectively pushed aside divergent ideologies to line up behind a single school of thought, all in the name of inclusion. Although occasionally events are held to encourage competing perspectives, those beliefs are not protected in controversial day-to-day circumstances. Minority opinions are put into a position where they are forced to fight through marginalization, and even vandalism, to simply have a seat at the table. All voices welcome? I beg to differ. 

Debates, and other discussions where competing perspectives are shared are no longer places where the average student feels comfortable. Instead, when a minority opinion is expressed and other students don’t like it, they view it as hate speech and feel welcome to destroy property to show their distaste. This has happened repeatedly to the magazine you’re holding throughout the years it has been produced. 

Last semester, multiple copies of our magazine (and the racks themselves) were found in the trash on the University of Wisconsin-Stout campus, torn in two. The covers were ripped and pasted to vandalize the poster of our campus ministry, Street Level, as well as the poster for an individual student advertising her senior art exhibition. Following the vandalism and a meeting with the Assistant Dean of Students (whom we met with last year when a similar issue happened), we filed a police report, however there is no resolution to this matter. It appears we have to wait for the next time an incident occurs to report it again. 

We’ve fallen a long way from university being that eager exchange of ideas and expanding horizons. How did we get here? At what point should we be fearful that a ripped-up magazine will be replaced with something much more damaging? One professor at UW-River Falls, Trevor Tomesh, saw the same thing happening on his campus. He concluded that we have to get over the idea that expressing a different opinion is violent hate speech or an attack on people who hold a differing viewpoint. Tomesh made national news after publishing conservative comments on social media following the assassination of political activist, Charlie Kirk, at the Utah Valley University in Utah, United States in September 2025. Kirk frequently visited college campuses to engage in debate with students and challenge them to consider what they believed. 

“The fact that Charlie was killed on a college campus for expressing his opinions and ideas—the one place in society that’s sole purpose is to express opinions and ideas—should be a watershed moment for all universities,” Tomesh wrote. “Every single member of every single university community— faculty, administrators, staff and students—should be lamenting this as it spells the death of the university.”¹ 

Tomesh expressed his extreme concern–as we all should–that Kirk’s death was celebrated by both faculty and students. Regardless of opinion, since when should murder be celebrated? Tomesh also stressed that Americans, students on college campuses especially, must unlearn the idea that speech itself is violence: 

“And that’s one huge problem, I think, especially with the ideological progressives, is that they have taken an assumed identity, assumed ideas into part of their core identity,” he said. “And that is a very big mistake, because then any attack on an idea inevitably is interpreted as an attack on your personal identity and on you as a person.”¹ 

UW-River Falls saw similar reactions when controversial TikTok preacher Sister Cindy Smock visited campus. The school offered counselors to students and according to Tomesh, “assembled a task force to determine how to handle people like Cindy and the trauma she inflicts on students.”¹ The University of New Mexico had their own fun to deal with in 2022 when offended students pulled the fire alarm on conservative speaker Tomi Lahren in an attempt to shut the event down. Thankfully, the university took action to allow the speaker to finish in a safe manner, stating it would not tolerate students who violate the free expression of others.² 

Every sub-group and individual has the right to hold to and express their own system of belief. In practice, the university system only seems to go out of their way to protect rights for the voices they agree with and are politically expedient. Many groups have the freedom to voice their opinions without fear of retaliation. Is it too much to ask for the Christians on campus to be given that same freedom? Or, are we okay with the idea that the beliefs of some groups can literally and figuratively be thrown in the garbage? 

It feels appropriate to quote the Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, in his message to Utah Valley students following the Charlie Kirk assassination: 

“Right now, it may feel like rage is the only language in our politics, but you have the power to choose differently. Every person you meet is more than a party, more than a label, more than a post online. Everyone deserves dignity and respect. That means talking to people you disagree with, listening even when it’s hard, and forgiving even when it feels impossible. Campuses like yours must be a place of the free exchange of ideas. It’s critical to our American experiment. I want to challenge you to spend less time online, where outrage has become so normal, and more time in the real world…You can build a culture where we embrace differences without letting hate divide us, where hope is stronger than cynicism, and where forgiveness breaks the cycle of violence.”³ 

So, are we really at the death of university? We sure hope not. We hope we can be one voice of many heard on our campuses, standing up for the truth we believe in, just like everyone else. We’re not trying to “convert” anybody against their will. We’re asking for a fair seat at the table to allow those who want to join us, to join us. To silence us is to take away the opportunity for those who actually want to challenge their own thinking, swim upstream, and to live radically for Jesus. We won’t remain quiet for their sake.

¹ foxnews.com/us/wisconsin-professor-slams-isolating-environment-conservatives-campuses

² thefire.org/news/fire-commends-university-new-mexico-its-response-disruption-tomi-lahren-event

³ attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/a-message-from-governor-spencer-cox/