Zora Sanders, an undergraduate at Howard University, released a letter that she sent to the national administrators of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. In the letter, she says she has “renounced and denounced” her membership because, in her view, the initiation process required committing idolatry and compromised her Christian faith. Sanders’s letter — which is worth reading in full — describes an initiation ceremony that required kneeling and swearing an oath before an “altar” for the “goddess Minerva.” On a different occasion, during a chapter meeting, Sanders observed the “manipulation of scripture,” where Psalms verses were “misconstrued” and “taken out of the context from the Bible to fit a ‘delta version.’”
“As a Christian, I don’t affiliate, partake, or wear anything that is symbolic of any other deity that is not God, including the Greek goddess,” Sanders wrote. “I also shall only receive and seek wisdom from God.”
Although Sanders’s social-media post has amassed over 17,000 likes, her proclamation of faith was condemned as heresy by peers, sorority sisters, and strangers. One woman responded in the comments, “As a member of Delta Sigma Theta, I don’t appreciate our sacred info being shown to the public.” Another user wrote, “Posting information that should not have ever been exposed to any outside of the sorority from the ritual is where this becomes disrespectful.” Yet another person responded, “Not even my org but still INSANE to see private information, sacred information, being displayed like this.”
Aside from panicked complaints about the disclosure of supposedly “sacred” information, there were ad hominem attacks. One person wrote, “I wanna be rich like you, paid for a damn trial run.” Since Sanders previously shared a photo of herself wearing a hair covering while in the Middle East, someone suggested she wasn’t really a Christian: “You got on a whole hijab in one of yo post?? You test running religions too??” People apparently failed to understand that “to denounce” is by definition to make a public criticism of something, with one commenter asking why “yall can’t just quietly denounce??? It requires a professional letterhead to the masses?”
The irony is that insisting the sorority’s “rituals” are “sacred” only reinforces Sanders’s argument that they contravened Christian faith. But on a more serious note, some suggested that Sanders should have “done better research” before joining the sorority. Yet how could she have evaluated her comfort with the initiation sacraments prior to joining if they were, in fact, secret? One woman, who claims to have been a Delta Sigma Theta sister for over 30 years, suggested that, after the viral controversy with Sanders, the sorority might need psych evaluations for potential recruits. That seems like a needlessly rigorous requirement. Why not simply tell people what the organization does? I don’t understand why Greek life organizations want secrecy: Surely, the “sisterhood” is better served by potential recruits learning what membership actually entails. Not one person (as far as I can tell) has accused Sanders of lying about the sorority.
On many occasions, the right-wing media have commended brave conservative students who challenge the progressivism that dominates colleges. I hesitate to classify Sanders among them; she strikes me as someone with conviction but not necessarily conservative, although today it is (unfortunately) easy to deem Christian affiliation a de facto admission of conservatism. Still, Sanders deserves praise for pursuing the truth at the expense of social punishment — a rather rare endeavor on our censorious campuses.
Regardless of her political affiliation, Sanders offers inspiration. A sorority is an apt metaphor for progressive society today: Acceptance is contingent on ceremonial declaration of unwavering support to the Diversitarianism religion, wherein supposed oppression confers rights. Ultimately, it is not necessary that every individual frustrated with the erosion of traditional values be conscripted and deployed to the culture-war trenches to fight battles through nonprofit initiatives or political campaigns — although those actions can be valuable. Instead, we can begin more humbly by summoning the courage to state our convictions. And, more importantly, we must summon the strength to refrain from affirming what we know to be false.