Everett Piper

The audacity of Obama

This past week, Barack Obama delivered a speech where he said, "unfortunately too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth ... People just make stuff up ... We see the utter loss of shame among political leaders where they're caught in a lie, and they just double down."

July 22, 2018

Where Anthony Kennedy and Brett Kavanaugh diverge

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life."

July 15, 2018

Sinners miss the lesson of the Gospel by fixating on sin instead of transformation

In his book "The Divine Conspiracy," Dallas Willard talks about what he calls the "gospel of sin management." He confronts the errors of both conservatives and liberals. He challenges the left and the right by saying both have missed the truth of the Gospel by ironically committing the same error: Fixating on sin rather than focusing on transformation.

July 8, 2018

Suddenly, the left loves Leviticus

This week in the news: All of the sudden, the mainstream media, Hollywood, the liberal church, and other members of our national intelligentsia seem to care about what the Bible says. In particular, they appear to have suddenly acquired some affection for the Old Testament — a book that, heretofore, these proud members of the "smarter-than-thou" club have excoriated as laden with "hate-filled rhetoric."

June 24, 2018

The despair of Anthony Bourdain

In the early 1900s, G.K. Chesterton spoke of the unavoidable consequences of denying God as our Creator and worshipping science above the sacred. Observing that the naturalists of his day were only too willing to turn their science into a philosophy and then impose their new religion upon all of culture with near fanatic zeal, Chesterton said, "I [have] never said a word against eminent men of science. What I complain of is a vague popular philosophy which supposes itself to be scientific when it is really nothing but a sort of new religion and an uncommonly nasty one."

June 17, 2018

‘Reclaiming Jesus’ promotes a distorted Christian faith

A bit of news you may have missed over the past couple weeks was that of about 2,000 high-profile Christian pastors and church elders who, on May 24, marched on the White House.

June 10, 2018

Demanding tolerance while refusing to show tolerance is folly

Delusion reigns in the mind of Lord Diversity and his minions. He demands tolerance while declaring he will not tolerate the intolerant. He requires openness of mind but closes his mind to all who disagree. His Majesty Diversity, after all, says it is true that nothing is true. He knows nothing can be known, he is sure that nothing is sure, and he is absolutely confident that no one can have confidence in absolutes.

June 3, 2018

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