Everett Piper Won’t Be Endorsing Donald Trump

By Jay Richards Published on January 27, 2016

Dr. Everett Piper, the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, doesn’t mince words. He made national news a while back with his commentary aimed at the culture of victimization pervading so many American campuses. A student had complained to the campus chaplain after hearing a sermon on St. Paul’s great ode to faith, hope and love, 1 Corinthians 13 (that “first Corinthians thirteen”). His response? “Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a ‘safe space,” he wrote. “This is not a day care. This is a university.”

Because has Piper has been so critical of political correctness, perhaps some in the media imagined that he would follow Jerry Falwell, Jr. of Liberty University by inviting the King of Political Incorrectness, Donald Trump, to speak at Oklahoma Wesleyan. Piper didn’t hedge his bets. Here’s his response:

Anyone who is pro-abortion is not on my side. Anyone who calls women “pigs,” “ugly,” “fat” and “pieces of a–” is not on my side. Anyone who mocks the handicapped is not on my side. Anyone who has argued the merits of a government takeover of banks, student loans, the auto industry and healthcare is not on my side. Anyone who has been on the cover of Playboy and proud of it, who brags of his sexual history with multiple women and who owns strip clubs in his casinos is not on my side. Anyone who believes the government can wrest control of the definition of marriage from the church is not on my side. Anyone who ignores the separation of powers and boasts of making the executive branch even more imperial is not on my side.

I’m a conservative. I believe in conserving the dignity of life. I believe in conserving respect for women. I believe in conserving the Constitution. I believe in conserving private property, religious liberty and human freedom. I believe in morality more than I do in money. I hold to principles more than I yearn for power. I trust my Creator more than I do human character. I’d like to think that all this, and more, makes me an informed and thoughtful citizen and voter. I’ve read, I’ve listened and I’ve studied and there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing, in this man’s track record that makes Donald Trump “on my side.”

I refuse to let my desire to win “trump” my moral compass. I will not sell my soul or my university’s to a political process that values victory more than virtue.

No, Donald Trump will not be speaking at Oklahoma Wesleyan University.

For good measure, he finished with a quote from conservative intellectual Russell Kirk: “The conservative…will not surrender to the contagion of mass-opinion or the temptations of … power. … [I]f he hopes to conserve anything at all, he must make his stand unflinchingly.”

If the Donald was hoping for an invitation to a Christian college in one of the most conservative US states, he’ll need to look elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

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