Everett Piper

Surprisingly, Donald Trump has proved himself to be pro-life

Two years ago, as I sat in the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, I was crestfallen. Oklahoma Wesleyan's lawsuit against Obamacare and its unjust abortifacient mandate — a mandate that forced my university, under threat of law, to include abortion-inducing drugs in our health insurance package — hung in the balance. Justice Antonin Scalia had just died. All hope for a majority ruling in favor of our religious freedom seemed lost.

May 27, 2018

Pursuing God, or petting goats

It is finals week at colleges and universities across the nation, and the University of Maine at Orono just announced a brilliant plan: It is providing a herd of goats for students to feed and pet in order to help them — presumably the students, not the goats — get through the stress of final exams.

May 20, 2018

A professor’s prayer

Wednesday, May 3, was our country's National Day of Prayer. It was a day where millions of Americans gathered at various venues in various communities petitioning God for his forgiveness, protection and providence.

May 6, 2018

What college campuses can reveal

D. Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College, wrote recently in an article that he penned for The Gospel Coalition, "Every higher education institution has a [hidden curriculum]. It's not the catchy slogan emblazoned on campus merchandise, and it's not necessarily in an admissions counselor's spiel.

April 29, 2018

Open season on Christianity and the Constitution

It's morning in America, and a look back on the week's news proves it is open season on Christians and the U.S. Constitution.

April 22, 2018

Human decency is not about weapons, but about ideas that guide moral direction

The BBC News reported last week that the London murder rate has overtaken that of New York City:

April 8, 2018

Fighting the darkness in search of freedom lights the way

In "The Silver Chair," the fifth book in the "Chronicles of Narnia" series, we follow three main characters, two children named Scrubb and Jill and a Narnian friend called Puddleglum, as they venture into a dark underground world in search of Rilian the Prince of Narnia who is being held captive by none other than an evil witch.

April 1, 2018

How today’s identity politics is fueled by hypocrisy

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column titled "Conversations About Sex." In this article, I asked this basic question: If our culture has decided there is no such thing as an objective moral standard pertaining to sexual behavior then on what basis can we make any moral judgments about any behavior?

March 25, 2018

The devilish details of Oklahoma’s religious freedom measure

On March 15, Oklahoma's Senate was scheduled to vote on SB 197, the Protection of Freedom of Conscience Act. This act sought to codify into law the rights and protections of all Oklahomans to express and practice their religion freely in the public square without fear of government penalty or government coercion. The Oklahoma Senate is composed of 48 members, 40 of which are currently Republican.

March 18, 2018

How amorality thrives on college campuses

"The Lottery" is a classic short story written by Shirley Jackson in 1948. It's the tale of a rural, farming community in America of about three hundred residents. The town seems normal by all accounts as it prepares for a traditional, harvest-time event known as The Lottery.

March 11, 2018

Why sexual immorality should be repudiated rather than debated

As a college president, I'd argue there are some things that should be confronted, some that should be confessed and some about which we can have a conversation. As a teacher, it is my goal to produce students who are able to distinguish between these three categories.

March 4, 2018

How Oklahoma Wesleyan University spurned the Obama administration’s ‘guidance letter’ on sexual misc

In 2011, every college and university in the United States received a "guidance letter" from the Obama administration's Department of Education declaring that all colleges and universities across the land, from Brown to Berkeley, were required to immediately amend their policies and procedures for responding to any claims of sexual harassment and sexual assault on their respective campuses.

February 25, 2018

More laws do not a moral people make

This past Valentine's Day, Nikolas Cruz entered a classroom in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and proceeded to murder 17 people and wound 15 others. Before any meaningful criminal investigation could even begin, our nation's cultural elites rushed to their respective podiums, finding fault and casting aspersions. Scoring political points is the name of the game. Removing personal rights embedded in our Constitution and replacing them with more laws and less freedom seems to be the only way they know to keep score.

February 18, 2018

How integrity unifies the human race and identity politics divides it

C.S. Lewis told us in "God in the Dock": "Put first things first and second things are thrown in. Put second things first and you lose both first and second things." In his publication titled First Things, Richard John Neuhaus warned, "One must never underestimate the profound bigotry and anti-intellectualism [of second things]."

February 11, 2018

Cosmopolitan magazine cover reveals everything wrong with the popular culture

Have we completely lost our minds? In a word: Yes. Cosmopolitan Magazine has released its February issue, featuring the most recent transgender poster child Laverne Cox on its cover. There is so much wrong on this one page that it makes one's head spin.

February 4, 2018

Walking in God’s image

As the president of one of the dozens of universities in the United States that carry the "Wesleyan" name I have often been asked: "What's a Wesleyan?" Likewise, hardly a day goes by where I am not asked what seems to be one of the most seminal questions of our time: How should the church respond to our society's tsunamic shift toward the celebration and acceptance of the broader LGBTQ agenda?

January 28, 2018

HHS ushers in the Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom, thank God

This past week I was invited to speak in our nation's capital at the Department of Health and Human Services' ceremony announcing its new Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom. Here is what I said.

January 21, 2018

Oklahoma teacher’s union calls for boycott of Christian college students

The Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs reports that a collective bargaining group representing public schools in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is calling for a boycott of student teachers from the local Christian university. The reason for the proposed shunning? Oklahoma Wesleyan University's president (yours truly) dared to suggest that the bad ideas presently being taught in our nation's schools might, at least in part, be responsible for the bad behavior we are seeing in our national news.

January 14, 2018

A dialogue with someone on Facebook with opposing views

Piper: It's not about gay or straight, it's about the definition of what it means to be human. Even Gore Vidal said, "there is no more such a thing as a homosexual person than there is a heterosexual person, these are behavioral adjectives." We are not defined by our desires. It's about our behavior. It's not about our being.

January 7, 2018

Teachers: Don’t buckle to ‘snowflakes’

In C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe," Susan, upon hearing of the great lion from across the Eastern Sea, asks whether Aslan is "safe." Mr. Beaver responds: "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.' "

December 31, 2017