Intern here at frc also a student of Oklahoma University. And i have the privilege of welcome withing todays speaker. The president of Oklahoma Wesley University dr. Everett parttimer what im home i have the honor 6 watching hirings massive dogs when hes giving these lectures so which is always fun. [laughter] and his 14 years of president of the university dr. Piper hass become moan for his passionate defense of intellectual friday. He advocates for cultural courage grounded in conservation of time tested truth. His commentary on religion, education, and politics challenges the symbol rangs of todays academic community. At oklahoma west lane he teaches students to follow four basic, the jesus christ the priority of scripture, pursuit of truth, and the practice of wisdom. Dr. Piper on eds routinely featured local and National News outlets an he serves as a regular guest on talk radio across the nation. His most well known oped this is not a day care is a university has since gone viral an now basis for his new book. A native of hills dale, michigan and marci along with their two sons, seth and cobby as served as first families since august of 2002. Dr. Pipinger actively participates in the community and the Westland Church and serves on a variety of counsels and boards relating to christian leadership, public policy, and community leadership. So please help me welcome u up dr. Everett piper. [applause] delighted to join you today ian ill tell your mother and father you did a good job. [laughter] lets start. You should know your audience and i would suggest the audience should know their speaker. So let me clarify a couple of things. Trigger warning, i do not issue trigger warnings. [laughter] i dont believe in safe spaces and cs lewis said that hes not safe but hes good i would argue that the great lion of the academy of the ivory tower of the university of american and western universities and colleges should not be safe but indeed they are good. I dont believe that my feelings or yours are final measuring rod of whats right or wrong. I believe education should be more about facts than feelings. Feelings lead to fashionism and facts lead to freedom. Remember the basic fact that jesus told us you shall know the truth, the fact and it shall set you free. I believe in ideas and i believe in words. I believe when we lost cruise of our words we lose control of our ideas and we lose control of the debate, to when we lose control of the debate we ultimately lose control of our freedom. For example, when we dumb down the definition of words like hate to nothing more than disagreement, we make hate meaningless. And disagreement dangerous. Words matter. Ideas have consequences. And one last word before i get into my lecture life isnt about you. Education is not about you. It is not about me. George mcdonald, a writer from the turn of the 1800s to the 1900s a writer that led to the convention of cs lewis if you will. Have this to say the core principle of hell is i am my own. I am my own king. I am the center. I am the october and i am the i could my judgment says the faultless rule of all things. The claim that we can define and redefine everything from marriage to morality, from male to female everything from what it means to be gods and what it means to be bad this claim of godlike diety can only lead to thingly hell of making. I believe as only repentance and con that will rescue us from this fate. So im the guy. Im the guy that wrote this oped titled this is a university its not a day care. Let me give you a little bit of a context and then were going to launch into a little bit of a script and ill ad lib as we with go along too. It was just before thanksgiving 2015, Oklahoma Wesley University sill required chapels every wednesday and friday and i received a phone call from a Vice President who was the chapel speaker on this particular date i didnt go to chapel that day i had Something Else to do and he wanted to call me and let me know there could be a problem and he said dr. Pipy students one with of our students after chapel came to me and basically played victimization is card. He told me that i had offended him that i had singled him out and i had singled his peers out and he didnt like it. He didnt like my chapel speech. My sermon. And i said so him what did you speak on, and he said you wont believe this im a monster quote unquote first kringt i cans 13. Now for those of you who dont know first corinthians read at many weddings love it patient, love is kind well i asked this particular vp i said give me a copy of your sermon because i know he speaks from a text he rarely ad libs if i read it i knew i would get what he said so i read through the sermon it was a simple and brief. No political humor, no sarcasm. Nothing whatsoever that could be deemed offensive other than first corinthians 13. So i was incredulous i myself an university that is as bold and clear and our marketing and promotion about who we are and why you should come there you cannot enroll without mowing who we are. You know we stand for the pursuit of truth and the practice, the wisdom you know we have a center on capitalism. Free interns and constitutional liberty because we think those thins are good not bad. You know that we stand for prolife and that we actually promote through our Nursing Program and our premed program that god defines life, you dont. Oklahoma wesley cant be confused when you choose to pay to go there, youre buying product thats very is well defined. But yet inspite of that in my chapel at the chapel we have a student saying he Department Like first corinthians 13 so i want to share with you what my response was. This is the oped. I actually published it on the website, the website and i also published it in the local newspaper which i have the routine of doing. And ive been doing that for a decade or so. I said to this young man, you know that feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon it is called your conscience and a littler call is supposed to make you feeled baa and a some degree of guilt goal of a sermon to get you to confess your sin and not coddle you in selfishness but the church and Christian Faith is your con possession not your actualization so if you want to be told youre a victims and not need virtue this may not be the university youre looking for or campaign about a sermon that makes you peel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place. If youre more interest masters degree playing the hater card than you are in con it ising your own hate if you want to it arrogantly lecture rather than humbly learn and dont want to feel guilt when youre guilty of sin and enable rather than confronted theres universities across the land in missouri and elsewhere that will give you exactly what you want. But Oklahoma University is not one of them at oakley we teach you to be selfless rather than selfcentered but more interested in you practice aring personal forgiveness than political revenge we want you to model reconciliation instead of personal conflict we believe in the con tengt of your character and more important than the color of your skin. We dont believe youve been victimized every time you feel o guilty. And we dont issue trigger warnings before alter calls. Oklahoma is not a safe place. But rather a place to learn. To learn that life isnt about you. But about others but that bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon yeah it is called guilt. And that way to address it to repengt of everything thats wrong with you rather than blame others for everything thats wrong with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up. This is not a day care. This is a university. Well, this caused a bit of a grass fire an before i knew it fox and friends and glenn beck and nbc today and Stewart Varney and limbaugh and cbs, and cbn National Review and washington with times and Washington Post and New York Times and chronicle of Higher Education and newspaper and great britain, and the far east all of a sudden interested apparently many wanted to hear what i had to say. Apparently i said something many were waiting for. Apparently the simple and brief response struck a cord. Many who even openly disagreed with what they called my religion and my politics wrote me to say, thank you. This is long overu due. Please carry on. Side bar we have 3. 5 million views in about twoweek period 97 of the comments were positive. 97 . There were dozens upon dozens not hundreds of people that wrote in texted emailed, snail mailed called, and said i dont like your religion ive checked you out. I dont like your politics i read your website. But its about time somebody said it. Thank you. So why . Why . Well, i believe its because we intuitively recognize as rational human beings who are made in image of god that theres great power in what, ideas. Ideas and that at the end of the day civilizations are built and cultures are concurred not so much by armies and navy. But by speeches, and lectures. And blogs and books, by the power of ideas much more so than that of bullets. You guys know this youve been taught this. 1948, Richard Weaver told us ideas have consequences was the title of his book. You hardly even need to read the book read the title. Ideas have consequences. Ideas matter. Few years after that, excuse me a few years earlier than 1948 hitler said let me control the text bock and i will control the state. And one said, we warn of where education can be used as a means of total power and control ideas clearly do have consequences. Go ahead and evil people have recognized this. Good ideas lead to good culture and Good Behavior and church and good corporations and good kids. Bad ideas lead to the opposite. Like your grandmother told you, garbage in garbage out. She was right. Ideas hear the. Matter and i would argue today that education is in a total mess colleges and universities are are in crisis. The contemporary university is no longer known for pursuing truth but rather for celebrating tolerance and in the name of tolerance im told that my intolerance is intolerable this is nonsense it is ideological i hate you hate hadful people im sure of nothing sure. Im absolutely confident there are no absolutes and i know, nothing can be then. This is humorous this is funny if it werent so sad it is like watching a dog chase its tail. At a every turn well the result of this nonsense is tradition of good teaching has become the dark flag of tyranny almost overnight. What was Academic Freedom just yesterday as idiolodge fascism today instead of liberty liberals demand conformity rather than become university and campuses in colleges have become speech codes rather than bull work of free speech. Faculty and students alike are more interested in trigger warnings than they are in pursuing an across the land become in camps much more so than campuses of open inquiry are. Prop began did and power now rule where there used to be a pursuit of truth our track record is horrible it doesnt matter what you believe as long as work percent you if you ever say that, shame on you. It doesnt matter what you believe, as long as it works for you. Weve taught you that all morality is relative that good and evil are merely subjective social contracts year after year we preach pastor and priests are stupid that liberation theology is only good religion day in and day out we have class resentment and racial an mouse and dmshed excellence while extolling entitlement. Why are we spewed as a result our lead verse lost their courage, our congress has lost its soul. Our kisdz kids lost their conscience and their character. Our culture is without a conscience ideas have consequence and lousy ideas that weve been teaching in our colleges and in our universities for the fast several decades are bearing themselves o out daily before our eyes. But o. C. Im bemowning problem i think theres a solution. And i think its found its found in the historic, liberal arts side bar my first book, which you can find at not a day care. Com. If you care as well as any subsequent writings my first book titled why im a liberal and other conservative ideas what was my point . A bold conservative who believes in conserving things iemg a conservationist i believe many conserving environment and being a good steward of the water and the air and the forest and the whale and the owl. Im a conservationist but i believe in conserving other things that are tieing, tested truth and more important and more enduring, truth. Those ideas that have been tested by time and confirmed by reason and validated by experience and given to us by revelation theyll selfevident truths endowed to us by who . Somebody bigger and better than you or me. The permanency of those things that should be qrved as a conservative ironically today im more classically liberal than my left of center counterpart. Because i believe in a good Robust Exchange of ideas. I believe in the power of the debate. I believe that theres a right and wrong answer at the end of the hour at the end of the lecture at the end of the argument and i think that truth is the judge not you. Not me, not power, not politics not the pundit not the professor not the protest and not the pastor. I believe truth is the judge of the debate and that liberates me. To engage rather than confines me. Im more liberal than those that often disagree with me. Because i believe in liberty and liberation and freedom and justice. I believe that if you go become a thousand years to the birthplace to cradle oxford lets just say some 1,000 years ago that the university was established to liberate us to educate a free man and a free woman, culture, a free society. To give us a sense of liberty and liberation thus the word liberal. So why . Why do you believe people were so interested in what i had to say . Why were 3. 5 million and it is still being valid and posted the there. Youre here today to hear about it some two years later was far become as moses and later from jefferson we were told that only by trusting in the paradox of liberty and law can we hope to protect our rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and thereby be a people with purpose. Not hapless but happy. Not purposeless. But with purpose. And octave goal a measure hadding right outside of those things being measured. Evident truths that are endowed from outside not constructed from inside. It was those senses around freedom that chester to know told us that you can have is no liberty without law. And you can have no freedom without senses. That how we become a free people and a free country. You see freedom trust and principle rather than people, power, politics, or pundits freedom honors debate because it knows theres an answer, a true north or a cs lewis a measuring rod outside of those things being measured. Again chesterton he told whos you get rid of the big laws this is good stuff this was worth the price are of administration when with you get rid of the big laws, you dont get liberty. You get thousands and thousands of laws that rush in if fill in the value you mean you cant live by ten simple law thats all we needed thats all we needed. Ten simple laws weve refused to live by big laws jesus narrowed it down to two we cant live by ten or two so what happens . Ream upon reames upon reames of little laws rushing in to fill the vac yule you see it theyre being produce masters degree this city telling us how to do everything down to which bathroom to use. When you get rid of big laws you dont get liberty but thousands upon thousands of little laws to fill in the vacuum Academic Freedom has never been found in the rules of government. The power of rouserses or temper tantrums of students rather in few and simple law of nature and naimps god. Theres a reason that dozens of universities were once with the model motto what concern you shall know the truth. And parking and the truth shallu free. Theres no liberty without law and theres no freedom if you stop teaching truth. The solution to this monosense can be found in common sense. Sense that is common. In selfevident truths that are endowed to us by our creator rather than selfcenteredness in the arrogant and callrks s human heart and in the nature god truth of god is written on every human heart. For example, if you wanted to dispute that, do we know that rape is wrong . Do we . Do we know that slavery is a bad thing . We hold these truths to be what . Selfnot socially constructed why . Because theres a creator and its not you. And its not me. The solution to this nonsense is return to teaching the laws that make sense. We need to have confidence had in the laws that bring liberty and stop is teaching lies. Natural law leads to freedom. Manmade laws bring nothing but more restrictions, more government, more division, more control, more fashionism and less liberty. It may seem a bit redundant but i would like to leave you as i get ready to wrap this up with a very simple and clear message. Culture is about ideas. And ideas are defined by whatsome words. Words, words mean something. Side bar, always remember that he who defines the words wins the debate. Education is about words. Politics is about words. Culture is about words. Words mean something. Guess what, they have definitions. Words like marriage. Green, and gay, and left, and right, change and choice and right and wrong, and up and down and goods and evil. Male and female, moral and immoral, all words have meaning. And as thinking human beings and thoughtful moral agents, we do know what the definition of is is and we also know Something Else very important, changing and manipulating meaning of words is called something. It is called lying. We also know that deceit does bring consequences. As were told by the prophet isaiah calls evil and good evil bittersweet and darkness light and light darkness. Lying about words and worth with words turning them upside down is always wrong. Selfevident as it is it should be clear to all of us. But what im trying to challenge you with right now words mean something. Take this couple of examples here. Many who stand against going to say us those of white house care for religious freedom many of who stand againsts us many our stand for religious freedom do so in tolerance, a word. But their objection seems to be anything but tolerant, right . Is it again they say i cant tolerate your tolerance and i hate you people i know nothing can be known and im absolutely confident there are no absolutes. They dont seem to recognize that everything they