Back in the eighties, New York State's King's College (not to be confused with King's in Wilkes-Barre or Cambridge, nor King in Tennessee) invited Dad to consider serving as its president. Dad declined the kind invitation and since then I've kept an eye on King's.
In the early nineties, King's went through bankruptcy. Later at the turn of the millenium, Campus Crusade for Christ International (recently rebranded as "Cru") infused cash into King's and moved it to the Empire State Building. They brought Marvin Olasky in as Provost and a couple years ago a newly-minted Ph.D. from Clearnote Church, Bloomington saw these beginnings as auspicious and took a position on King's faculty.
Then came a sad day. King's drank the Kool-Aid and hired one of the more high profile self-promoters among American civic religionists, Dinesh D'Souza, as their president. Declares the New York Times, it was a "canny choice."
Most moths don't live to tell you that bright lights burn. We'll all wait to see if King's College survives the Klieg lights it chose.
Two days ago, World reported the married D'Souza has been out on the Evangelical conference circuit accompanied by a 29 year old woman he introduces as his "fiancé." Speaking at First Baptist North Church in Spartanburg, SC, alongside Cru's Josh McDowel...
l a month ago, conference organizers were scandalized by D'Souza's immoral conduct and spoke to him about it. Still married to his wife of twenty years, D'Souza saw nothing wrong with travelling with a woman not his wife, introducing her as the woman he is engaged to marry and checking in and out of the same hotel with her at his side.
When World reported this scandal, D'Souza resigned from King's and issued a vicious attack on World and Marvin Olasky.
As D'Souza sees it, he's justified travelling with a woman other than his wife because his wife refused to accompany him when he moved to take King's presidency, he informed the chairman of King's board of trustees of the separation two years ago when he took on King's presidency, he began work on divorce papers two weeks ago, and so on.
As he resigned, D'Souza put on pitch-perfect New Yorker chutzpah, whining, "Denise and I were trying to do the right thing. I had no idea that it is considered wrong in Christian circles to be engaged prior to being divorced...." (Denise is D'Souza's fiancé.)
For many years D'Souza was a Roman Catholic so we can assume he knows Jesus said:
...whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery. - Matthew 19:9
Cru hired him, so we can assume D'Souza knows the Biblical command:
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved. - 1Corinthians 10:31-33
Abstain from all appearance of evil. - 1Thessalonians 5:22
The Biblical clarity of God's Moral Law of marriage has prevailed from before the Fall in the perfection of the Garden of Eden down to this very day. But here is the president of a Cru-funded Christian college, Dinesh D'Souza, sniveling that he had "no idea that it is considered wrong in Christian circles [for a married man] to be engaged" to a woman other than his wife.
This is a bald-faced lie and it's almost worse than D'Souza's public immorality because it indicates the depths to which we Evangelicals have sunk in our serial-monogamy polygamous world. D'Souza resigned, but look at his public self-justification and it's clear he's no dummy about what plays in Peoria. If you doubt it, google the story and take a look at the many comments defending D'Souza and attacking World for running the story.
Few unbelievers would talk as if it's acceptable to have lunch alone, ride in a car alone, and travel alone with a woman they introduce as their "fiancé" while they're married to another woman. Such conduct is shameful even among men claiming no Christian faith! Many unbelievers work hard to honor their marriage vows and protect their marriage. And if the business they work for requires them to eat and travel and stay at a hotel alone with a woman, they would find a way around or complain about such compromising situations, or they would begin to look for another job.
And this would be true for men who have absolutely no romantic interest in the woman they're eating and travelling and hoteling with.
Yet here we have a married man who claims Evangelical Christian faith, is the president of a Cru college, and proudly declares this woman his "fiancé."
Imagine the damage to the Glorious Name of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ had the good folks at World not reported this scandal. Riding the wave of his quite-successful documentary screed attacking President Barack Obama, 2016: Obama's America, D'Souza would continue to preach to the Evangelical choir as president of Cru's King's College while unbelievers watched his immorality and made snide remarks about the shameful rutting of Evangelical celebrities.
It's Focus on the Family/Family Research Council's 1999 Gary Bauer scandal all over again, only this time it's even more bodacious and salacious.
D'Souza is defending his immorality by accusing World of "libel." Puffing his chest way out, he declares he and his fiancé "were not having an affair."
Ruminate on that one for a while. He's married, he's travelling alone with her, she's his fiancé, but they're not having an affair! Could anyone other than an Evangelical believe such a lie?
The razor D'Souza's parsing this thing with is cutting a line no one could find with a microscope. It boggles the mind. It turns the face pink. It produces catcalls and guffaws.
Marvin Olasky was no fool. When D'Souza was hired, he saw the flame, knew it was hot and would burn, so he left King's and moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where he continued his main gig as editor in chief at World. Two years later, the trustees of King's College would do well to plead with him to come back to New York City and lead King's College until it has some Christian gravitas, some track record of feet-anchored-firmly-to-the-ground Christian wisdom in its hires, and certainly a new chairman of the board of trustees who knows enough to move on to another candidate when the chosen one confesses that he and his wife have broken their vows.
For D'Souza to blame the scandal on World and accuse my good friend Marvin Olasky of exposing the sin simply out of personal spite is disgusting. Marvin is faithfully married to the love of his life, Susan; he's demonstrated great humility and meekness under many vicious public attacks over the decades; I've privately watched him through several of those attacks and it's been clear to me that jealousy and spite are foreign to his character.
All of us should speak up in defense of World and Marvin Olasky.
They have honored the Name of Christ by this courageous action. They knew full well they would be attacked for it, yet they did their duty and have defended the honor of our Lord and His Church.
May God have mercy on Dinesh and Dixie D'Souza, and D'Sousa's ex-fiancé, Denise.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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