Christian college bashes pro-life speech by guy conceived by rape
An Evangelical Christian college in Illinois denounced pro-life comments made by a speaker who was conceived through rape.
Wheaton College’s student government and the school’s executive vice president of community diversity, Sammie Shields, criticized a pro-life speaker’s comments after a talk on race and abortion, according to The Wheaton Record.
The Wheaton College Republicans invited pro-life nonprofit Radiance Foundation founder Ryan Bomberger, who is a pro-life African-American man conceived through rape and subsequently adopted into a large multi-racial family.
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Bomberger gave a talk on abortion titled, “Black Lives Matter, In and Out of the Womb,” which also focused on what Bomberger perceives as the hypocrisy of the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) movement. He claimed the movement cooperates with and actively support Planned Parenthood, which, according to Bomberger’s piece in Life News, is the “leading killer in the black community.”
He then pointed out Black Lives Matter platform positions that he found concerning, claiming that the group negated the role of fathers and did not support racial reconciliation.
In response to the controversial presentation, Wheaton’s student government and Shields penned and sent out a campus-wide email denouncing Bomberger’s remarks and presentation.
“His comments, surrounding the topic of race, made many students, staff, and faculty of color feel unheard, underrepresented, and unsafe on our campus,” the student government and executive vice president said.
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They then state that the presentation opposed the university’s mission, which “pursues unity, embraces ethnic diversity, and practices racial reconciliation so that it will contribute to the education of whole persons.”
The student government and Shields reaffirm their “call to pursue unity and embrace ethnic diversity as part of God’s design for humanity” and end the email by informing the community that there will be spaces provided in the following weeks for more discussion.
“You mention several ‘offensive’ comments that I’ve made without ever articulating what those comments were,” Bomberger said in an email of his own. “As a Christian University, it is important to challenge students’ thinking with a theologically-sound worldview, which is the same regardless of our pigmentation.”
“It would be a disservice to the students if I, as an African-American, were only allowed to express a particular (and decidedly secular) perspective on culture-shifting issues,” the speaker continued. “I am a person of color, a clarifying fact which you conveniently left out of your letter of denouncement....For anyone -- student, faculty, or staff -- to claim that they were ‘unheard’ or ‘underrepresented’ obviously didn’t stay for the 25 minutes of Q&A that followed or the additional 30 minutes that I stayed and responded to more thoughtful questions....Are students at Wheaton taught to fear or taught to think?”
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He ends his statement by claiming that the Wheaton student government/executive vice president email “teeters on the edge of slander and libel,” and that he is considering taking legal action.
It is unfortunate that Bomberger “is having a difference of opinion with some students,” a Wheaton spokesman told Campus Reform. “The fact is, college students are exposed to a variety of ideas, and sometimes they disagree and keep talking to each other about what they’ve heard- that’s a big part of education, in and out of the classroom.”
Hours later, Campus Reform received a follow-up email stating, “we took the extra step of checking with the students last night. Given that Mr. Bomberger has threatened to sue the three college students in question, they are choosing not to speak with the media at this time.”
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