In the year before his death, Charlie Kirk increasingly raised the alarm about the progressive drift in America’s Christian colleges and seminaries. He particularly focused his warnings on one of the largest and most trusted evangelical universities in the country — Southern California’s Biola University.
In one exchange during a stop on his 2024 Brainwashed Tour, he argued that the school had “slipped in its stature as a Christian school” because many of the students graduating “do not believe in the core tenets of the Christian faith.”
“There’s a lot of deconstructionism in the last five years that has been introduced at Biola,” Kirk said.
The recent Biola grad who asked the question looked perplexed as he stood squinting in front of TPUSA’s iconic “Prove Me Wrong” tent on the sunny University of Nevada quad. He said this wasn’t an accurate summary. In his experience, Biola was as Christian and conservative as it had ever been.
While Biola’s administration maintains this same line, subsequent events suggest it was Kirk, and not the alum, who had a better understanding of what’s been happening at the school.
Compromise and Concern
In recent months, Christian podcasters like Alisa Childers and Krista Bontrager have warned of unbiblical compromises they believe Biola has been making on issues like sexuality, gender identity, and race-based politics.
Childers, particularly popular among moms, said she “cannot recommend it as a safe place [for parents] to send [their] kids.” She cited that the school’s handbook — updated in response to the controversy — promised to work with trans-identifying students to “arrive at decisions around facilities use,” seemingly permitting opposite-sex access.
Childers also voiced concern about The Dwelling, an administration-sanctioned LGBTQ support group that allows “affirming” views denying the sinfulness of gay and transgender behaviors and identities. Finally, she pointed to the school’s decision to host Rich Villodas — a pastor who accused Kirk in the wake of his death of “using words that have caused great harm to black and brown people, to Muslims, and to LGBTQ people” — to speak on “spiritual formation and the Church.”
Bontrager, a three-time Biola graduate, had additional concerns, including the implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion departments, and lectures teaching critical race theory and black liberation theology, widely considered heretical for holding that the purpose of the Gospel is to free believers from social, political, and economic oppression in this life.
Biola has largely brushed off the concerns. Four of the school’s best-known conservative professors, including authors Sean McDowell and Thaddeus Williams, recorded a podcast gently mocking the notion that the school had “gone woke.”
“At Biola, you have to be a Christian to work there,” said theology professor Erik Thoennes. His department colleague Fred Sanders implied that those raising concerns are trafficking in gossip, saying, “The internet has made possible a whole lot of low information opinion-having.” Yet, in an hour-long discussion, none of the four men offered any rebuttal to the specific reports and records that Childers and Bontrager highlighted.
And now, new evidence of leftward drift has come to light.
“Bans Against Conversion Therapy are Bans Against Conversion”
On October 7, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case challenging Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” for minors with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Representing Kaley Chiles, a Christian counselor in Colorado Springs, Alliance Defending Freedom argued that the ban violates Chile’s free speech and religious liberty rights because it outlaws any therapy that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
Yet changing sinful sexual behaviors and gender expressions is, biblically speaking, simply known as repentance and sanctification.
Colorado’s definition suggests that verses like Romans 6:14, Corinthians 15:57, and Galatians 5:16 are wrong because real change isn’t possible for individuals struggling with gender dysphoria or same-sex attraction. A Christian counselor who prays with a client that God would strengthen them to stop engaging in LGBTQ behavior would violate the ban, even if the client requested such prayers.
As ADF’s SCOTUS filing put it, “when Chiles counsels young people with gender dysphoria, Colorado allows her to speak if she helps them embrace a transgender identity. But if those clients choose to align their sense of identity with their sex by growing comfortable with their bodies, Chiles must remain silent or risk losing her license, her livelihood, and the career she loves.”
Clinical psychologist Laura Haynes received both her master’s and doctorate degrees from Biola and is a board member for the International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice. She says conversion therapy is a term specifically used to make efforts to stop LGBTQ activity seem impossible. It’s “a pejorative, oppositional term,” she told The Daily Wire.
“It forbids any openness to a client’s goal for change in sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual feelings,” Haynes said. Ultimately, she said, Colorado’s ban has a “chilling effect” on Christian counselors and their ability to use biblical instruction to help clients overcome LGBTQ sins.
It was hardly surprising then that numerous conservative and Christian groups, including the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Religious Freedom Institute, the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, the Institute for Faith and Family, and others, joined ADF in opposing Colorado’s ban.
But Dr. Michele Willingham, head of Biola’s Rosemead Counseling Center, took a different view. She signed an amicus brief in favor of the law, arguing that because it prevents only licensed mental health providers from trying to help clients lessen or end unwanted LGBTQ attractions and behaviors, it is constitutional.
It’s not clear, though, that Willingham would oppose any limits on so-called conversion therapy, given that she identifies herself as “LGBTQ Allied” on the website MentalHealth.com.
Tracey Harrison, Biola’s vice president of communications, told The Daily Wire that the school supports Chiles and ADF in their efforts to overturn Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, and she highlighted a long list of religious liberty cases Biola has joined in the last six years. She also said that Willingham signed the brief in her “individual capacity as a private therapist” without consulting or informing the school.
But the official FAQ page for Rosemead states that the center “[does] not teach or practice conversion therapy for same-sex oriented individuals,” and it offers no hint that its faith-based counseling would include encouraging students to repent from such sins.
Harrison did not address Willingham’s description of herself as an LGBTQ ally. She said only that all faculty and staff are required to regularly renew their commitment to Biola’s doctrinal statements, including its provision that sexual intimacy is reserved for the “covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.”
Greg Burt, Vice President of the California Family Council, a Christian group that lobbies for pro-family policies, was disappointed to learn of Willingham’s stance.
“Bans against conversion therapy are bans against conversion,” Burt said, “there’s no way you can say those laws are great, and at the same time, say you are integrating your Biblical faith with your counseling. Because biblical counseling should be out there helping people change.”
Guilty Whites
In her email to The Daily Wire, Harrison also referred to a statement Biola President Barry Corey released on October 27, explaining why the school was updating the section of the student handbook relating to marriage, sexuality, and gender. Corey admitted that Biola is, like any school, “imperfect with occasional things done or said that may not meet our high standards.” But he said the university is “learning from and working through these situations.”
Bontrager does give Biola credit for making some needed corrections.
In 2020, she was alarmed at how Corey and the administration seemed oblivious to how deeply embedded social justice and DEI ideology had become at Biola. Since that time, she says, the DEI department has been shuttered, and a number of more progressive-leaning faculty have left. She’s also pleased with the update to the gender and sexuality policies.
She remains concerned about the lack of transparency surrounding some practices on campuses.
“My concern now is if you’re an RA and you have a student standing in front of you revealing that they have gender struggles, what’s the counsel that you’re going to give them?” she asked. “You’re going to tell them two things—one, go to The Dwelling, and the other, go to the Rosemead Counseling Center. But neither of these are safe options for that student.”
Several Biola faculty members who spoke to The Daily Wire on the condition of anonymity share Bontrager’s concern.
One professor described the training he and other faculty received on dealing with students who identify as LGBTQ. He said communications professor Timothy Muehlhoff held out two models for comparison. One was Rosaria Butterfield, an ex-lesbian and queer theory professor now married to a pastor who urges repentance for both same-sex desires and behaviors. The other was Preston Sprinkle, an advocate of “Side B” Christianity, which holds that gay or transgender identities are compatible with Scripture so long as those feelings aren’t acted on. Butterfield, the professor said, was presented as a negative example to avoid, while Sprinkle was offered as one to emulate.
“He just critiqued Rosaria and held out Preston Sprinkle as the model for how to have winsome conversations with LGBTQ students. But if you’re familiar with Preston, it’s all very affirming.”
The faculty member went on to say Muehlhoff’s training encouraged them not to attach labels like “sin” to LGBTQ activities, and he argued that churches need to do a better job creating safe spaces for trans people on church campuses by giving them trans-designated bathrooms.
The professor also noted that, for a time, some faculty of the Rosemead School of Psychology were including preferred pronouns in their bios. “Everybody knew that they were LGBTQ affirming,” he said.
Another source had particular concerns about the ongoing influence of social justice on campus, sharing an audio recording of a September 23 chapel that featured rapper Street Hymns going on a rant about white guilt:
Now to my white brothers and sisters in Christ, I’m not here to deal with the concept of white guilt, but I am here dealing with the reality of guilty whites. And you know exactly who I’m talking about. The ones who, when it comes to knowing how to utilize data that fits their agenda, they’ve taken a master class…The ones who would have left 94 out of 95 theses unread because it was woke. White Christians who come to conclusions about police brutality quicker than my grandmother whipped up her hot water cornbread. And who, for whatever reason, can quote my culture’s statistics better than they can quote their own scriptures, saying things like, ‘Well, most civilizations have historically been involved in slavery, and less than 2% of Americans actually own slaves.’
Now, even though that statistic is misinterpreted and misunderstood, let’s just say less than 2% of people in America own luxury cars. That don’t mean they don’t want one. Owning slaves was indeed a luxury. So, yes, whites with wealth matching their wickedness took advantage of a wage-free workforce. Don’t manipulate the numbers to fit your narrative.
Another professor, who was not aware of the chapel, nevertheless said she fears that secular academia is shaping the culture at Biola. “I think the whole approach toward DEI, the influence of [critical race theory], all of that kind of stuff happened because we have faculty that were trained in it at non-Christian institutions,” she said. “And they will tell us, ‘This is just the correct way of doing things, this is just how things are done.’”
“And I’ve been stopping frequently and saying, ‘Yeah, but is anybody asking if this is biblical?’”
Rescuing Christian Higher Ed
Like Bontrager and Childers, the Biola faculty that The Daily Wire spoke with say a solid Christian education is still possible at the school, but it now requires careful navigation.
“Biola is a great place in many respects,” one said, “if you select the right classes with the right professors.”
“But if you take some of the other classes, or if you go to the counseling center and your Christian worldview is formed by people who are very ‘Side B’ in their approaches to sexuality, or who are teaching critical theory, it’s really dangerous,” the professor said. “Because you end up coming out with a worldview that’s not theologically grounded in Scripture, but you think it is because we’re just kind of throwing Christianese and Christian diction on top of it. So it’s very deceptive.”
Echoing Kirk, the professor added, “I do think it leads a lot of the students after Biola to deconstruct.”
That, Childers has warned, is the ultimate danger for parents sending their kids to Christian colleges unaware that the instruction may not look that different from what they’d get at any secular school.
“I’m certainly not in here saying that if a Christian is sort of, you know, hazy on critical race theory, that they’re not a Christian,” she said in a recent podcast interview. “But when critical race theory is actually taught in a university, it does undermine the Gospel, and that’s the point. Then you have kids that aren’t really formed yet. They don’t really have their spiritual legs, in many cases, strong underneath them, yet. And then they hear these ideas promoted as Christian, and then it can lead to deconstruction. And it often leads to them leaving the Christian faith.”
To avoid this trap, one Biola professor advised parents to prepare their kids to be just as alert and cautious as if they were going to Berkeley. Another agreed, saying, “I feel bad for the parents that think they’re sending their students to Biola to get a conservative Christian worldview and education, and the kids come out speaking Christianity as a language but believing something very different.”
Those with extensive experience in Christian academia say the most alarming thing about the controversy surrounding Biola is that it isn’t unique to the religious college landscape.
From Seattle Pacific University, where 70 percent of the faculty disagree with the biblical definition of marriage, to Bethel University offering a “George Floyd” scholarship, to Calvin University’s course on “Faithful Antiracism,” to Point Loma Nazarene rejecting a TPUSA chapter while allowing Black Lives Matter clubs, veteran educators like Dr. Everett Piper say Christian higher education is awash in left-wing teaching and activism.
“I never thought I’d say it,” Piper, who spent more than four decades as president, vice president, and dean of various Christian colleges, wrote in the Washington Times, “but until the Christian academy repents, you’re better off sending your kids to a school run by pagans. At least the predatory professors there don’t disguise themselves as your child’s counselor, pastor, or priest.”
This, TPUSA communications director Andrew Kolvet says, is the reason Kirk grew so focused on Christian colleges and universities. And why he wasn’t afraid to do what so few conservative and Christian pundits will — offer specific critiques for specific institutions.
“One of Charlie’s repeat themes over the years was a deep concern that Christian universities and seminaries had turned to soft-progressivism or even a complete abandonment of their biblical mandate to make disciples,” Kolvet told The Daily Wire. “He believed most schools had surrendered to the culture and lost their Christian courage. ‘Christian in name only’ is of no value to the kingdom, in fact, it’s profoundly destructive, and Charlie was calling on these institutions to repent.”
“He was not afraid to name names,” Kolvet said.
Kolvet says one of Kirk’s highest goals was to rescue Christian academia for future generations of believers who might then use their biblical training to impact the nation. Even with Kirk gone, he promises that TPUSA will continue that work.
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