Your urgent prayers and actions are needed immediately. Please read the email from Dr. Everett Piper (president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University) below and the accompanying documents and pass this article on to pastors and godly Christians in your network. Let there be no mistake: this is a pivotal moment. If we compromise with sin at this time, there will be no going back. We need to RESIST this blatant attempt to disavow the truths of the Bible and the message of holiness. It’s time to take a stand and let your pastor, your church, your district superintendent and board members know that you are not OK with a capitulation to the perversion of our culture. If we can’t count on The Wesleyan Church to stand up for biblical morality, who can we trust?
Here’s the info I received tonight from Dr. Piper in its entirety and unedited. I’ll keep you updated on any developments right here during the week.
The urgent email
From: “Everett Piper”
Date: Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 10:52 PM -0500
Subject: Very Important. Critical to OKWU’s future. Please read.
OKWU Board members:
As you know The Wesleyan Church is sponsoring a trustees conference at the Gathering in Orlando Florida this week. A few of you are attending. Many of you were not able to work it into your schedule.
One of the key items on the agenda for this conference is what appears to be a favorable presentation of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) laws and, more specifically, a legislative agenda known as “Fairness for All legislation.”
It is important that you know Oklahoma Wesleyan University does not support this legislation and stands unequivocally opposed to it.
Also opposed to Fairness for All and SOGI laws is the Alliance Defending Freedom, the firm that represented OKWU all the way to the Supreme Court in our successful fight to preserve and defend religious freedom. Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation has written extensively against Fairness for All. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has done likewise as has David Preston, OKWU’s internal legal counsel. There are also well over 70 key evangelical and Catholic leaders who have signed a joint letter opposing Fairness for All.
All of us agree that SOGI and Fairness for All is a legislative strategy that is sorely misguided and will result in compromising our religious freedom rather than preserving it.
It is very important that you understand why OKWU opposes this legislation and why I will continue to speak and write against it at every turn.
To that end, I have provided the following attachments.
- Ryan Anderson’s briefing for the Heritage Foundation on the reason to not support Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Laws (SOGI) and why they represent the exact opposite of “fairness for all.”
- A list of questions prepared by the Alliance Defending Freedom concerning those leaning toward support of Fairness for All and SOGI legislation.
- David Preston’s legal advice to OKWU concerning the pitfalls and fallacies of Fairness for All.
- The Alliance Defending Freedom’s comprehensive paper on why SOGI laws, and in particular Fairness for All, are unfair, unjust and unnecessary.
- The official SCOTUS blog that cites the Alliance Defending Freedom as being the number one legal firm in the nation representing religious freedom cases before the Supreme Court from the years 2013-2018.
- And finally, my column in The Washington Times where I make it very clear that Fairness for All will end in compromising our religious freedom rather than protecting it.
I consider this to be one of the most important issues confronting OKWU today. If Fairness for All prevails, our religious freedom is lost and our very existence will be called into question. Please read each and every document that I have provided. Oklahoma Wesleyan is the only WEC school that has fought for religious freedom all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and prevailed. The Alliance Defending Freedom is the foremost legal firm in the nation in successfully defending First Amendment rights. Ryan Anderson is one of the country’s foremost scholars on this issue. David Preston is as well informed as anyone I know on these matters. We all stand unified and with one voice in saying this is not the right path for our nation’s schools and churches.
Everett Piper, PhD
President
OKLAHOMA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
What to do right now
- Pray for wisdom and courage for Dr. Piper and others from OKWU
- Pray for conviction on the part of our denominational leaders
- Read every resource included above so you clearly understand the dangers of this legislation and why supporting it will undermine our faith and witness and actually do the opposite of what its proponents are claiming
- Share this article with your contacts on Facebook and in Messenger and through a link in an email – we need an army of prayer and awareness of the issue
- Call your pastor or district superintendent and let them know your concerns
- Check back on this page this week for updates
- RESIST and STAND FIRM
UPDATES and RESPONSE
1/8/19 – 11:00 a.m. Dr. Piper’s response to pastors accusing him of being an “alarmist” online:
Apparently whoever did thinks they know more than the legal firm that has won more supreme court cases on religious freedom than any other firm in the nation!
Apparently they know more than the president of the only Wesleyan school who has fought for religious freedom all the way to the Supreme Court and won.
Apparently they know more than the Heritage foundation’s lead scholar in religious freedom.
Apparently they know more that OKWU’s internal legal counsel.
And by the way – the “expert” they have here today pushing Fairness for All doesn’t even have a JD. He’s not even an attorney.
This is classic group think. Ignore and marginalize the dissenting voice. Call those who disagree “alarmists” and other pejorative names. Silence any critical points of view. Stick your head in the sand and pretend you’re the wiser for it.
Let me personally add that there is an incredible lack of discernment among our Wesleyan leadership. – Patty
2/16/19
Many of you have been asking for updates. This is the update I sent out to standard and premium members via email on January 12…
The gist of the concern right now is legislation on the horizon that identifies the gender preferences of people in the LGBTQ community as protected rights but seeks to exempt religious institutions from protecting those rights. We simply cannot give in to defining people groups by their delusions or predispositions and preferences. Once we acknowledge those rights, it will eventually be deemed unconstitutional to deny them. Or at least that’s the fear. And it’s not unfounded in a society where religious freedom rights and the rights of conscience are continually being violated or challenged. There is also a concern that we would be exempting ourselves from the legislation while opening the door for Christian business-owners to be denied the same exemption. Non-exemption would result in having to afford services and accommodations based on one’s chosen gender identity. For a college campus, it might mean allowing men who identify as women to room with women, use their bathrooms and dorms, participate in women’s sports, etc. For businesses, it would affect hiring practices, bathrooms, etc. It would also affect the use of gender-specific pronouns and other communication that is exclusive by being binary.
Before “The Gathering” this week in Orlando, there was a “Wesleyan Higher Education Board of Trustees Conference” at the same location in Orlando (Tuesday to Wednesday). That is the meeting referred to in Dr. Piper’s email. The conference included a presentation on FFA (“Fairness for All”) and SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity), which was led by the creator of the FFA legislation. Organizations such as the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, which strongly oppose FFA (as do many other conservative organizations), were not invited to share an alternative perspective. No questions were permitted from the floor, though the moderator did allow written questions in advance and chose those he thought were appropriate to ask the presenter. The following morning, Dr. Piper was permitted to make a statement, but only to the 18 or so people in his breakout group and not to the 150-member conference.
On Thursday morning I spoke with one of the attendees who happens to be a Southern Wesleyan University trustee. He was impressed by Dr. Piper (describing him as intelligent and “classy” in how he asked questions in the breakout session and how he responded to the presenter). This trustee said the host from headquarters was asked if they were asking the trustees to sign on to the legislation that day. The answer was no. The presentation was to make them aware of the conversation and to provide information. Even the FFA legislation was described as a work in progress. This trustee shared with me that he was under the impression that Houghton College had already signed on as a supporter of the legislation. So, it’s hard to know what direction the denomination will take. One thing is important to remember – our denominational officials did not take an official stance. And they ensured (either purposely or incidentally) that the view of conservative legal experts was not shared. This should cause us all alarm. I stand by my article headline. The Wesleyan Church IS on the verge of compromise. Make no mistake; if we sign on to this, we are playing into the LGBTQ agenda, even though the legislation exempts us from complying with the premise of the legislation. What they are really seeking is an acknowledgment that gender identity is a protected class of citizens. Once we make that compromise, we’ve lost the battle.
A couple of weeks later, a Wesleyan wrote this letter to our General Superintendent:
And this is the response she received (with permission to share):
Please note what isn’t addressed in the response. Why was one of our Wesleyan college presidents not permitted to share about the legislation’s impact on our colleges? Why was the presentation one-sided? Why were conservative views silenced? Why didn’t our denomination want to hear legal opinions about the legislation? Why were questions discouraged? Why was “Fairness for All” presented as the only option?
And notice there is nothing in this letter that addresses gender fluidity or transgenderism, which are at the heart of the issue. By stating that The Wesleyan Church supports “long-standing civil rights laws” and that the schools need to defend “their religious freedom” [emphasis mine], it opens the door to FFA (which acknowledges the civil rights of the gender-confused while affirming the exemption of religious educational institutions from enforcing SOGI legislation). This is exactly the issue we’re concerned about! And the letter from the GS offers nothing to alleviate those concerns.
While we can appreciate that The Wesleyan Church doesn’t intend to change its doctrine, it doesn’t have to in order to accommodate Fairness for All. Note Houghton College president’s support of FFA here. It’s too bad that our denomination orchestrated an event meant to illuminate the issues for our colleges but only provided one set of facts, leaving our college boards with false impressions of the legal ramifications of the legislation. And it’s a shame that the only concern is for free speech and religious freedom protections for our religious institutions and not Believers and Christian businesses in general, which would not be protected by FFA.
Here’s a telling summary on Fairness for All by historian Chris Gehrz: “… the boards of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) have endorsed what’s been called the “Fairness for All” compromise: seeking to advance LGBT rights in tandem with religious freedom, rather than treating them as intractable opponents.” Are we really at the point as Christians that we’re willing to “advance LGBT rights”? Because that is the end result. That’s what’s being hidden from view by a denomination that is lurching to the Left.
