Hello, dear readers:
Please read this brief message from Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. I find it remarkable for two reasons:
1) This message was written by the president of a relatively obscure university in Oklahoma; and it should have been written by the president of Yale, University of Missouri or Dartmouth or by the president of any of a couple of dozen elite universities where students have professed the infantile view that they are entitled to be protected from unwelcome ideas.
2) President Piper writes concise and clear declaratory sentences, and that is quite rare among academic administrators today.
Enjoy! You can find President Piper's message at this web site address: http://www.okwu.edu/blog/2015/11/this-is-not-a-day-care-its-a-university/
This is Not a Day Care. It’s a University!
Dr. Everett Piper, President
Oklahoma Wesleyan University
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. 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.
I’m
not making this up. 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.”
I
have a message for this young man and all others who care to
listen. That feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon
is called a conscience! An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad!
It is supposed to make you feel guilty! The goal of many a good sermon
is to get you to confess your sins—not coddle you in your selfishness.
The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your
confession, not your self-actualization!
So here’s my advice:
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.
Oklahoma
Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn
that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you
have while listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to
address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than
blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This is a place
where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up!
This is not a day care. This is a university!
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