The London School of Economics is set to change the names of its religious-affiliated terms and breaks, like “Christmas break” and “Easter break,” to be more inclusive.
The school will now use terms like Winter break” and “Spring break.” while other changes will include changing “Lent Term” to “Winter Term” and “Michaelmas Term” to “Autumn Term.”
The move to updating terms will commence in the 023/2024 academic year, providing “time to update relevant systems, processes, and content.”
The school also noted that the “term names will remain the same for the remainder of the 2022/2023 academic year, with key processes undertaken to amend our systems and communications from 2023/2024 onwards.”
“If this was an effort to secularise the LSE I’d be sympathetic,” Free Speech Union general secretary Toby Young said via The Telegraph.
“But in reality, it 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.”
“This is typical that in the name of inclusion what it does is exclude Christians and those who think our Christian heritage is important,” Christian Institute deputy director Simon Calvert noted, according to the Daily Mail.
“We have a long Christian heritage that millions of people cherish, why are they so embarrassed by it?”
“Staff and students who don’t hold to the Christian faith respect the fact that Britain has this Christian heritage,” he noted.
“I have yet to meet an international student who thinks an institution should erase references to Christian faith.”
“These new names use more accessible and widely-recognized terminology, and better reflect the international nature of our community and our broader global engagement,” the school said in a statement.
British universities that have named their academic terms after Christian holidays have been a tradition for hundreds of years.
Calvin Robinson, the Anglican deacon in the separatist Free Church of England, also condemned LSE’s move as an attempt at “whitewashing Christ from the calendar.”
“We truly live in a post-Christian Britain, and it is ugly,” Robinson tweeted in part.
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