We couldn’t agree with this more!
A letter from our Wesleyan Church College President, in Bartlesville Oklahoma.
In the face of college students far and wide complaining about emotional “triggers” they see and hear, annexing “safe spaces” where opposing views can’t hurt their feelings and even threatening free speech, Everett Piper is seemingly fed up with it all.
The president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University began his recent open letter to students with a story it appears he could hardly believe himself.
“This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt ‘victimized’ by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13,” Piper explained in his letter posted to the school’s website.
“It appears that this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love! In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable.” And with that, Piper apparently had enough.
“I’m not making this up,” he continued. “Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic! Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims! Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them ‘feel bad’ about themselves, is a ‘hater,’ a ‘bigot,’ an ‘oppressor,’ and a ‘victimizer.'”
Piper went on to explain to students that the familiar feeling of “discomfort” when confronted with wrongdoing is called a “conscience” — and that the “goal of many a good sermon is to get you to confess your sins–not coddle you in your selfishness” or help you achieve “self-actualization.”
More from Piper:
If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.
If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them.
At OKWU, we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We are more interested in you practicing personal forgiveness than political revenge. We want you to model interpersonal reconciliation rather than foment personal conflict. We believe the content of your character is more important than the color of your skin. We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty and we don’t issue “trigger warnings” before altar calls.
“This is not a day care,” Piper concluded. “This is a university!”
