A blog written by Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University (OKWU), is receiving national attention for castigating a student who complained about being offended by a sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 that was recently given in the campus chapel. The verses, which are about authentic love, apparently made the student feel bad about himself for not showing enough love to others.
“I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen,” Piper wrote. “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.”
He goes on to give the student some advice:
“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.”
OKWU teaches students to be selfless rather than self-centered, he continued, and is more interested in students practicing personal forgiveness rather than political revenge.
“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.”
Piper goes on to warn that OKWU is not a “safe place” but is rather a place 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.”
He concludes: “This is not a day care. This is a university!”
