Administrators at the London School of Economics have stripped Lent and Easter — as well as Christmas — from the academic calendar in an attempt to become more “international.”
The move has been decried by critics as “ludicrous” and “virtue-signaling nonsense.”
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Beginning next year, the Michaelmas term — a reference to the feast of Michael the Archangel — will be renamed “autumn term,” Christmas to “winter break,” Lent to “winter term,” and Easter to “spring break,” according to LBC.
The LSE, founded in 1895, has been an academic stalwart for centuries. In a statement, a spokesperson said the university’s revamped calendar is intended to align with its “broader global engagement.”
“These new names use more accessible and widely recognized terminology, and better reflect the international nature of our community and our broader global engagement,” said the representative.
Some fear this shift is nothing more than an attempt to appease the political and cultural left.
Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said the move “reflects the fact that the LSE, like most British universities, is in thrall to a new religious cult — the church of woke — that is far more dogmatic than Christianity.”
Anglican Deacon Calvin Robinson called the rebranding “whitewashing Christ from the calendar.”
“[Pop singer] Sam Smith is trending for normalizing debauchery and degeneracy,” he tweeted. “Police officers are prancing around with rainbow flags and glitter again. We truly live in a post-Christian Britain and it is ugly.”
Simon Calvert, deputy director of The Christian Institute, told The Telegraph, “We have been warning for years that Christians are being pushed from the public square, yet the problem is getting worse.”
“Christians and those with traditional views often find themselves silenced or bullied,” he said. “It’s particularly ironic when this happens at institutions that were originally founded on Christian principles and with endowments from Christian benefactors.”
“So this ludicrous decision by the LSE to rebrand traditional academic terms, by scrapping references to the calendar of the established church, is more virtue-signaling nonsense that creates exclusion in the name of inclusivity,” added Calvert.
The LSE’s announcement comes on the heels of a new report about the decrease in Christianity in Europe.
A census from 2021 found that — for the first time — less than half of England and Wales (46.2%) describe themselves as Christian, the BBC reported. In 2011, 59.3% called themselves Christian.
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