The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Christian Professor Who Almost Got Fired for Wrongthink on LGBT Issues Now Leads Campus Ministry

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

A Christian former professor who almost got fired for ostensibly creating a "suicidal environment" for LGBT students in the classroom is now running an organization dedicated to helping college students maintain their faith in a hostile environment. "We've moved beyond, in this country and especially at universities, free speech," Corey Miller, president and CEO of Ratio Christi, told The Daily Signal in an interview last week at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Orlando. "This is talking about free thought, cognitive liberty, and if you even think the wrong things, if your organization or individual members in the organization think the wrong things apart from the Gestapo viewpoint, the politically correct viewpoint, then you could be targeted." Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, May 31st. I'm Tyler O'Neill. I sat down with Corey Miller, who is the president and CEO of Rachio Christie, a Christian ministry dedicated to empowering college students, particularly Christian students, to maintain their faith in a hostile, spiritual environment. We sat down and spoke about his history. He almost got fired for what essentially amounts to wrong think on LGBT issues, because a student complained and said that he had fostered a, quote-unquote, suicidal environment for LGBT students in the classroom. Corey Miller and I, we sat down at the National Religious Broadcasters Conference last week.

We discussed his history facing that near-firing. And we also talked about how Rachio Christie is defending a Trump administration, rule, allowing faith-based clubs on campus to require their leaders to follow the rules of their faith, particularly biblical sexual morality for Christian groups, and also how Rastio Christi is launching a new program for Christian PhD students. Listen to my interview with him right after this. Conservative women, conservative feminists, it's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Alan. And every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories that are a particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women

whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to politics and policy. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcasts. And we are also problematic. on social media. So be sure to follow us on Instagram. This is Tyler O'Neill. I'm managing editor at The Daily Signal. I'm joined by Corey Miller, president of Rashiow Christi, a really impactful Christian organization on college campuses. It's amazing to have you with me. Hey, Tyler, good to be back with you again. So you were telling me a little bit about this Malik academic fellowship that's focused,

on equipping and training professors to be missional in their field. Can you discuss a little bit about that? Sure. Having been engaged in faculty ministry myself for over a dozen years, it's clear to me that there are a number of Christian faculty in our universities, but I would say that probably a good portion, maybe most, are professors who happen to be Christians, not Christian professors, not missional professors. And if we're ever going to have a a serious endeavor at reclaiming the intellectual voice of Christ or even a conservative voice at the universities, we need to begin with the professors. And so we have launched a kind of a special ops program called the Malik Academic Fellowship. And it's designed to get Christian PhD students,

raise them up in the way they should go. And when they get older, they won't depart from it. So we want to train them on how not to be a professor who, happens to be a Christian, but a Christian professor, a missional professor. And how do you see academia right now for Christians? What is Rachiochristi doing to make the atmosphere more amenable to the gospel? Yeah, Rachiochristi focuses historically on apologetics evangelism. The professor ministry is a little bit different in that it focuses on integration of Christian faith and life, Christian faith, and reason.

and vocation, and then on infiltration back into the institutes that were once ours. I've been to all of the colonial schools, all of them were Christ-centered. In fact, every university president from 1636 until 1840, I believe, were actually members of the clergy. And so the university has come a long way a century ago. Scientific naturalism took over as the reigning paradigm there. And now we are looking at the second revolution in the history of academia in America. And it's cultural Marxism now. And so things have changed, but they are rapidly and radically changing.

And how does fighting for a Christian worldview for the ability to speak freely on the these issues and challenge cultural Marxism. What does that look like right now for Rasha Christie? Well, we've been involved in a number of court cases. We have four federal victories with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom. I myself, as a former ethics professor at Indiana University, was exonerated with the help of ADF. And we have participated in the Supreme Court victory and right now engaged in a legal case that the Biden administration and the Department of Education have stepped in and taken executive privilege. Can you explain what the Trump administration rule had been that the Biden administration rule is rejecting and why this battle is important? Sure. When Trump was president, he had Betsy DeVos leading the Department of Education, and Betsy DeVos put in a regulation

intended to strengthen the ability for campus ministries, for religious organizations on campus, to be free to believe what their religion teaches, go figure. And if universities thought differently about that and inhibited or prohibited them from operating on campus, maybe not giving them club status or kicking them off campus, then the Department of Education could think twice about sending federal funds to that public union,

university. And that really scared the far left. And so the secular student alliance and the American atheists sued the Trump administration on Trump's last day in office. And we jumped in then knowing full well that Biden would take over and give them whatever they wanted. And so we became intervening defendants in that case. So this rule being reversed by the Biden administration would make it so that schools can defund organizations that wish to follow or require members or require leaders to follow certain religious tenets like opposing same-sax activity or things like that? Yes, the other side has argued that the regulation actually gives license to organizations that hold. to traditional views about sexuality and so forth, license to discriminate. And so they're saying it's open season on trans people or gay people or the whole LGBT network.

We're saying, no, this is how we've always operated. This is just standard Jewish Christian teaching on the topic. And we ought to be free to be at the table like everyone else to believe what we do. and at the university, if there's anywhere that ought to be about viewpoint diversity, it ought to be there. And this attempt to dismantle the regulation is an attempt to create open season on groups like us. Well, it's almost, you know, it's less about discriminating against people and more about having people be able to follow their faith and require leaders of a faith-based organization to uphold. the standards that they claim to value? Right.

So we've moved beyond in this country and especially at universities, free speech. This is talking about free thought, cognitive liberty. And if you even think the wrong things, if your organization or individual members in the organization, think the wrong things apart from the Gestapo viewpoint, the politically correct viewpoint, then you could be targeted. So we've moved a long way, especially in academia, from a place for the free exchange of ideas and may the truth went out to now the idea of political truth. And you also mentioned being exonerated yourself through an ADF legal case. Would you unpack that a little bit? Sure. I was an ethics professor. I used all and only atheist or agnostic textbooks because

I felt like I had to. But then at some juncture, I would come out of the closet, so to speak, and self-identify. And it happened to be, we were covering a controversial issue, like what topic isn't controversial in an ethics class. But we were talking about human sexuality. And I gave another viewpoint in addition to the textbook. And I happened to have a student in the class that semester, who was a former pastor who had turned gay and charged me with creating a suicidal environment. And so Alliance Defending Freedom came in to take my case pro bono, and I was helped by two of my atheist students who took my defense against the university. And I was exonerated. Wow. Well, that's... Yeah, that's insane. How did he even make that argument?

As Carl Truman calls this age, the age of virtuous victimology. So if you can claim victim status, if you can make things up and claim that you are oppressed somehow, that a professor is hateful and preempting possible harm after class, he made the case that he was afraid for his life, that other students. students might haze him or jump him or something like that after class and he no longer felt safe and so it wasn't a safe zone and the university was not even going to give me a chance until my two atheist students who record all of my lectures took it upon themselves to take the flash drive and force the university to listen otherwise they were threatening to transfer to a different university because they said this is not free-thinking. Even though they didn't believe what I believe about God or human sexuality, they at least understood the telos, the purpose and nature of what the university is supposed to be at its best. Yeah. Was there anything else you'd like to add about what ratio Christie is doing on campuses right now, what you're looking at in the future?

Yes, so we establish clubs on campus that focus intently on apologetics evangelism. We say we have two ears in one mouth for a reason so that we listen more. If someone needs a hug, we give them a hug, but if they need an argument, we're the ministry on campus to give them an argument. But we also have a professor's ministry, and part of that entails what is now called the Malik Academic Fellowship. As we get grants coming in, we continue to fund Christian Ph.D. students to enter back through the pipeline at the highest-level universities in order to have a Christian

presence there. We've seen it happen once before with scientific naturalism taking over the universities. It's happening right now again before our eyes, the second revolution, and it's high time that we have our own little revolution and put good Christian, thoughtful Christian representatives back in academia. Thank you so much, Corey. Can you tell the people where to follow you? rachiochristi.org, R-A-T-I-O-C-R-I-S-T-I-D-R-I-S-T-I-D-R. Go to our website and join the movement. Thanks again for being with me. Thank you.

Always a pleasure. And that'll do it for today's podcast episode. Thank you so much for listening to my interview with Corey Miller. And if you like what you hear here, please feel free to leave us a five-star rating and review. We read all of your feedback. Be sure to join this podcast this afternoon for our top news edition where we give you the top news the day in digestible sound bites for your commute heading home. That comes out at about 5 p.m. Eastern. Thanks so much for joining us.

Have a great Wednesday. And we look forward to having you join us. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Shrinco. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geiney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.