The skillfully disingenuous Wheaton College faculty member Shawn Okpebholo isn’t a fan of the article I wrote yesterday that addressed his encomium to the Super Bowl half-time show featuring arse-twerking galore and a boy-man disrespectful to women and obsessed with his own penis. Today Okpebholo responded on his Facebook page, describing my article or the part about him as “sadly hilarious one today, whose arguments are logically thin, drenched in irony, and fueled by a strange cocktail of outrage and projection.”
I can’t address his claims that it was sad, hilarious, logically thin, drenched in irony, or fueled by outrage and projection because he didn’t provide any evidence for any of those claims. But I will try to help alleviate some confusion he expressed.
He claims to be “honestly” confused by my reference to his employer, Wheaton College. For the life of him, he can’t figure out why in the world I would mention his employer—once considered the evangelical flagship and well known for its purported theological orthodoxy and cultural conservatism.
I’ll try to clarify for the surprisingly baffled Okpebholo why I, the mother of two Wheaton graduates and mother-in-law of two Wheaton graduates, mentioned his employer.
I mentioned it for the same reason I mention Wheaton College when I write about other leftist Wheaton faculty members: it’s to warn theologically orthodox, culturally conservative students, their parents, and donors that Wheaton is no longer the institution it once was. Leftists now dominate both the faculty and the board of trustees.
Many parents who shell out thousands of dollars for college educations for their children care deeply about the kind of education their children receive. For many theologically orthodox Christians, education is far more than just the transmission of facts.
Many theologically orthodox, culturally conservative parents don’t want their children “educated” by men who view them as “racists” for condemning Bad Bunny.
Those parents don’t want their children educated by men who heap praise on a performance with nary a critical word about the vulgar objectification of women and groin-grinding of two men.
Those parents don’t want their children educated by men who heap nothing but praise on a man who currently sings about sexuality and women the way Bad Bunny does.
Those parents don’t want their children taught by men who heap praise on a performer who dresses in drag, kisses men, and actively supports the normalization of homosexuality.
Many theologically orthodox, culturally conservative donors and potential donors don’t want to support financially an institution that hires men with the cultural views of Okpebholo. They have a right to know the beliefs, values, and character of those Wheaton hires.
Okpebholo asks “Why” I would mention his employer, and then speculates,
Perhaps it is an attempt at intimidation. Perhaps it is an effort to pressure the institution to reprimand or fire me. Perhaps it is an attempt to collapse my identity into my workplace. … Surprising to some, but Wheaton is not my identity.
Surely, Okpebholo knows that it’s not just individuals who have identities. Institutions have identities as well. Those identities are founded on principles and sustained by the commitments of employees to honor and uphold those principles.
Wheaton College’s identity is found in it’s motto: For Christ and His Kingdom. Wheaton’s own explicit standards and beliefs include, inter alia, the following:
- The call to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ over all of life and thought. This involves a wholehearted obedience to Jesus and careful stewardship in all dimensions of life: our time, our possessions, our God-given capacities, our opportunities
- The call to pursue holiness in every aspect of our thought and behavior
- The call to treat our own bodies, and those of others, with the honor due the very temple of the Holy Spirit
- Love and side with what is good in God’s eyes, and abhor what is evil in God’s eyes
- Uphold the God-given worth of human beings, from conception to death, as the unique image-bearers of God
- Uphold chastity among the unmarried and the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman
- Scripture condemns … sexual immorality, such as the use of pornography, pre-marital sex, adultery, homosexual behavior and all other sexual relations outside the bounds of marriage between a man and woman [emphasis added]
Can Okpebholo really not see why his unequivocal and public praise of Bad Bunny and his—Okpebholo’s—harsh condemnation of those who criticize Bad Bunny may be related to Wheaton College? Can he not understand why theologically orthodox, culturally conservative parents may want this information about faculty members before sending their children to Wheaton?
Many parents, children, and donors choose colleges and universities based on the identity of the school as revealed in mission statements, statements of belief, and standards that they assume all faculty members heartily and unashamedly support.
For example, every Wheaton College faculty member should be willing to say publicly that they believe homosexual behavior is deeply sinful, that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and that abortion is evil. If they reject any of those positions, they should resign. If they have integrity, they would.
Okpebholo continues:
If the loudest critics, the trolls, the MAGA bots, the outrage entrepreneurs, assume that invoking my employer is some kind of leverage or intimidation tactic because they are alumni or have children who attended, then they clearly do not know me. And respectfully, I am not sure they fully understand Wheaton either.
Just curious, when Okpebholo called critics of the Bad Bunny spectacle “racist” and imputed evil motives to them, saying that they “dressed up” their racist “dog whistle” complaints about “‘values,’ ‘lyrics’” and “’American culture,’” was he being an “outrage entrepreneur”?
When he asserted with omniscient certitude that the alternative show had nothing to do with “decency” or “patriotism,” was he engaged in outrage entrepreneurship?
When he accused the alternative show of being impelled by “sacred doctrines” of “racism,” “cruelty,” and “dehumanizing Black and brown migrants” was Okpebholo guilty of outrage entrepreneurship?
In today’s response to my article, Okpebholo wrote,
My Facebook wall is not a classroom. It is not an institutional statement. It is simply me. Imperfect. Honest. Prayerful.
I agree that his public Facebook wall is not a Wheaton classroom, but it does teach, as he intends it to do. And while it is not an institutional statement, it ought not conflict with any institutional statement of Wheaton College.
I suspect Wheaton does have parameters, limits, or boundaries—or should have—regarding the personal beliefs and public statements of faculty members. It appears that no one knows what those parameters are.
Okpebholo’s public statements reveal what he believes to be just, good, and true. Donors, parents, and students are fully entitled to decide if Wheaton faculty members’ beliefs and words align with with their own theological beliefs and cultural views and with Wheaton’s institutional commitments.
No one can make sound judgments about training up their children in the way they should go, stewardship of their money, or truth without full transparency. I heartily endorse more public posts from Okpebholo.