A university in the United Kingdom has reportedly flagged the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and a story in the book of Genesis, warning English Literature students studying biblical and classical sources this semester that the content contains “graphic bodily injury and sexual violence.”
The University of Sheffield has placed a “trigger warning” on literary works that examine Christ’s crucifixion and the story of Cain and Abel, according to Freedom of Information requests obtained by the British Daily Mail. The University pointed out that “a content note is a standard academic tool used to signpost when sensitive or graphic content will be discussed.”
“Its purpose is to ensure subjects can be highlighted and discussed openly and critically, while preparing students who might find such details difficult,” the university said in a statement.
However, Christians and historians told the British paper that the guidance issued to students is “misguided” and “absurd.”
“Applying trigger warnings to salvation narratives that have shaped our civilization is not only misguided, but absurd. Singling out the Bible in this way is discriminatory and deeply ill-informed,” said Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre.
She continued, “To suggest that the crucifixion story involves ‘sexual violence’ is not just inaccurate, it’s a profound misreading of the text. The account of Jesus’s death is not a tale of trauma; it is the ultimate expression of love, sacrifice, and redemption, central to the Christian faith.”
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Historians point out that the biblical account of Cain and Abel does not detail how Cain kills his brother.
“Neither the Gospels nor Genesis give explicit accounts of Abel’s murder or Jesus’ crucifixion, and what the ‘sexual violence’ label refers to is mystifying,” said Angus Saul, the Christian Institute’s Head of Communications.
“While Christians and unbelievers alike can be profoundly moved by the powerful and enduring words of Scripture, such passages are far less explicit than many of the set texts English Literature students come into contact with,” he added.
Critics are calling the university’s warning “nonsensical” and condemning the move as a “hollow form of censorship masqueraded as sensitivity.”
“I think it’s typical of the culture that wants to sexualize our children and have drag queens and all this kind of stuff, and they want to censor the Bible,” Catholic podcaster Mark Lambert told GB News.
“You know, they want to censor the book that built our civilization,” he added. “This isn’t education. It’s a superficial evasion that undermines the very purpose of academia.”
This is not the first time academics have tried to censor faith-based literature.
As the Christian Institute points out, last year, Nottingham University placed a trigger warning on some medieval literary course materials to indicate that it may be distressing to some students because of its Christian content.
Undergraduate students taking “Chaucer and his Contemporaries, c.1380-c.1420” were told that some of the texts contained “incidences of violence, mental illness and expressions of Christian faith.”
The Christian Institute points out that the school did not warn about the “sexually explicit or anti-Semitic content in Chaucer’s writings,” but solely focused on Christianity in its label.
The university defended its position in a statement.
“This content notice does not assume that all our students come from a Christian background, but even those students who are practicing Christians will find aspects of the late-medieval worldview they will encounter in Chaucer and others alienating and strange,” wrote a Nottingham University spokesperson.
