Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, formerly considered THE evangelical flagship has now become THE Christianity Today of post-secondary evangelical institutions. The degradation of theological orthodoxy, the erosion of sound application of biblical principles, and the deceitfulness of institutional leaders who refuse to demand faculty adhere to Wheaton’s own foundational documents are shocking.
If there were sufficient integrity and courage remaining among administrators, trustees, and faculty members, they would publicly acknowledge that Wheaton is no longer the school it once was and that the number of leftists in the administration, on the board of trustees, and on the faculty has reached critical mass. It will take a miracle to restore Wheaton to the theologically sound institution it once was.
Some leftists try to rationalize the transformation of Wheaton from a conservative school to a leftist school by emphasizing some purported impregnable separation between faith and civil governance. But for Christians living in a country in which we the people are the government, no such impregnable wall exists.
For Christians, every aspect of our lives should be permeated and directed by Scripture: our hearts, minds, wills, and actions.
We are constitutionally and rightfully prohibited from mandating religious practices, but we are absolutely permitted to have biblical principles that are accessible to reason inform our political views. We are not only permitted to do so, but as Christians, God requires us to do so.
When laws and policies touch on matters on which Scripture speaks, Scripture should shape our positions. That’s why Wheaton College was once a conservative institution—a place where Scripture was not cordoned off from politics and where faculty members affirmed Scriptural truth in every applicable area of life.
Not so much any longer.
An outrageous post by the faux-humble Wheaton professor Shawn Okpebholo illustrates both the malignant presence of leftism at Wheaton and the moral vacuity that shapes wokesters like Okpebholo, who would be ideologically at home at Brown, Columbia, or Dartmouth.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, Okpebholo opined on the accidental killing of children at a school in Iran, thereby revealing how he really feels about conservatives, which presumably includes conservative Wheaton students—the few that are there:
… Part of the many reasons I left the Republican Party is because I believe the movement as a whole doesn’t actually care about life. Because if the American right were truly “pro-life,” this [accidental school bombing] would break their hearts.
They would condemn it.
They would mourn those children the same way they claim to mourn the unborn-because life is life. Children are children. And every single one of them bears the image of God.
But instead, there is silence.
And sadly, I suspect there will be people more outraged that I wrote this post than outraged that those children were killed.
If being pro-life truly meant defending life, we would also see outrage at the victims revealed in the Epstein files-young people exploited and abused by powerful men. Protecting life means protecting the vulnerable from predators, not shielding the powerful from accountability.
If being pro-life truly meant defending life, there would also be serious concern for the unborn in the womb—not just in rhetoric, but in reality. That means protecting maternal health, ensuring access to adequate prenatal care, and not stripping away healthcare that mothers and babies depend on to survive and thrive.
If being pro-life truly meant defending life, there would be equal concern for the unborn after birth: adequate maternal care, healthcare for children, food security, and safe communities-here and around the world.
And yes, there would be real moral urgency about the mass shootings of children in our own schools.
Because loving life means protecting children wherever they are: in the womb, in a classroom, in a hospital, in a home, or in a school halfway across the world.
But somewhere along the way, “pro-life” stopped meaning life.
It became a slogan. A political identity. A convenient moral badge.
And when 168 children and 14 teachers can be killed in a school and the people who claim the loudest commitment to life say nothing-then something has gone terribly wrong and we should all pause and ask what “pro-life” has reallv come to mean.
Because if life is truly sacred, then our grief, our outrage, and our compassion cannot be selective—as if only certain people were created in God’s image.
So much to say in response, so little space.
First, and perhaps most important, note the moral vacuity in Okpebholo’s statement: He is, evidently, incapable of distinguishing between accidental killings and intentional targeted killings of innocent lives made possible by laws socially constructed by Democrats.
The accidental loss of lives due to old or flawed intelligence is a tragedy but wholly distinct in moral weight from laws passed by Democrats that have legalized the intentional killing of humans from conception to birth for any or no reason at all. A moral calculus that fails to acknowledge that difference is monstrous.
Okpebholo argues that the failure to mourn all deaths of children killed accidentally in the same way murdered children are mourned signals intolerable hypocrisy. Does Okpebholo mourn all deaths of children equally? Does he mourn the intentional, targeted, legal killings of over 65 million humans in their mothers’ wombs since 1973 in the same way he mourns the tragic accidental killings of 168 children at a school in Iran?
Every single one of those 65 million human persons bore the image of God. And yet, what do we hear from Okpebholo on those 65 million dead humans? Silence.
Isn’t Okpebholo’s grief, outrage, and compassion selective? What evidence is there that he has been equally grief-stricken and outraged by the deaths of the 35,000 Iranian protesters who were intentionally murdered—not accidentally killed—in the streets by the Iranian government as he is for the accidental deaths of 168 children?
Since Okpebholo claims to believe that all life is sacred, why so little expressed outrage about the murders of Christians by Muslims in Africa?
Why Okpebholo’s silence on the oppression of women by both the Iranian government and Muslims all around the world?
I wonder what Okpebholo would post if some trad Protestant or Catholic group in America forced American women to wear black tents in public and prohibited them from appearing in public without their menfolk. I’m just spit-balling here, but I think Okpebholo might be selectively outraged about that.
Okpebholo claims to believe that “Protecting life means protecting the vulnerable from predators, not shielding the powerful from accountability.”
No word from Okpebholo about the predatory practices of physicians and mental health “professionals” who profit from promoting the “trans” superstition.
No word from Okpebholo about holding physicians, mental health “professionals,” and “educators” accountable for the destructive lies they have told gender-confused children and their frightened parents for years.
Okpebholo’s perverse moral calculus is further revealed when he compares the legalized slaughter of the unborn to Jeffrey Epstein’s abhorrent sexual abuse of teens, and to “adequate maternal care, healthcare for children, food security, and safe communities—here and around the world.” That statement reveals either his ignorance or his dishonesty.
His argument is that unless Republicans focus on nothing but Epstein in perpetuity, their expressed concern for the lives of the 3,300 humans targeted and legally killed every day is phony. Sexual abuse is evil, but it pales in enormity when compared to the feticidal mania of the Democrat Party.
Which Republicans don’t care about maternal care, children’s healthcare, and starvation? Which Republicans have called for the eradication of maternal care or children’s healthcare? Who has called for the starvation of Americans?
What Okpebholo means is Republicans disagree with Democrats on the amount of money that our inefficient, bloated, fraud-infected, debt-ridden government should spend on those issues.
Democrats don’t argue for limitless expenditures on those noble causes either. So, why do their limits not suggest lack of care for life?
As for “safe communities,” the last I checked, it was Democrats who wanted to defund law enforcement, “decarcerate,” open wide the borders, incentivize lawless border crossings and sanctuary cities, and interfere with efforts to deport criminals.
The slogan, the political identity, the convenient and conveniently euphemized moral badge is “pro-choice”—a term that elides the choice, just as “product of conception” elides what exactly the product of conception between two humans is.
Wheaton College faculty members must sign a contract that says,
By signing this contract, the Faculty Member signifies that the theological and moral affirmations of the College’s Statement of Faith and Community Covenant express his/her own convictions. (emphasis added)
So, what are those convictions that all Wheaton faculty members must hold?
The Wheaton Community Covenant states,
[A]s followers of Jesus Christ, we promise to … uphold the God-given worth of every man, woman, and child—from conception to natural death—as a unique and equal image-bearer of God.
Does every Wheaton faculty lefty hold that conviction?
The Wheaton Community Covenant also states,
[W]e promise to … uphold purity and chastity, honoring … the sanctity of covenant marriage between one man and one woman.
That position is iterated on Wheaton’s Human Sexuality page:
Wheaton’s convictions regarding human sexuality are summarized in our Community Covenant, which all community members affirm and agree to live by. We believe that sexual immorality is sinful and define it as behavior that includes “same-sex sexual intimacy.”
The Student Handbook reaffirms these biblically derived institutional positions:
Wheaton College believes that sexual intimacy was created by God to be an expression of love between a woman and a man in the context of a life-long marriage commitment.
Further in a statement of its Institutional Commitments, Wheaton says,
The College hires faculty for [inter alia] … their … moral and theological commitments in areas such as … human sexuality.
This makes Wheaton College professor Brian Howell’s recent post surprising. On the same day that Okpebholo posted his fatuous statement about conservatives, Howell posted what is essentially a campaign endorsement for his daughter who is running for the Washington State House on a platform that includes support for feticide and homo-faux-marriage.
His daughter, a pro-abortion activist, begs for support by complimenting her leftist opponent on his support for “marriage equality.” And Wheaton wolf Howell writes,
This is the kind of youthful energetic leadership Washington needs.
Sure doesn’t sound like someone who upholds “the God-given worth of every man, woman, and child—from conception to natural death” or like someone who holds the conviction that same-sex intimacy is sinful.
If Okpebholo, Howell, or any other of the scores of lefty faculty members at Wheaton support in any way abortion, homosexual relationships, or same-sex marriage, they must resign. If they don’t hold Wheaton College’s theological and moral affirmations as their own moral convictions, they must resign. If the administration and board of trustees are honest, they will demand resignations of every professor whose convictions are contrary to Wheaton’s.
Okpebholo is right. His post is an outrage, a sickening affront to human decency and compassion and a blot on Wheaton College’s fraying reputation.