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In this episode John and Gregg discuss an open letter by Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. The letter concerns Dr. Piper’s response to a student who felt “victimized” by a sermon on 1 Cor 13, a chapter of the Bible devoted to explaining the nature of love.
(NB: Gregg has created two blog posts responding directly to this letter).
John sees similarities between this discussion and episode #108, where we discussed an article from The Atlantic magazine. John finds that the tenor of the letter is all too similar to the Christian perspectives that John experienced in his past, in that Dr. Piper clearly assumes that everything that the message that his staff (the minister or preacher) presented was completely correct and that the presentation was entirely appropriate. By consequence, if the student has an issue with the sermon then the problem is with the student (and his inability to understand or respond properly)!
As John summarizes, “Here’s the message, get on-board with it, and if you don’t agree with it there’s something wrong with you!” Everything is the responsibility of the other party and the authority figures (the university and / or its president) takes no responsibility
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