It’s bad enough when public school parents have to fight against the woke indoctrination happening in those schools, but when Christian institutions are threatened with the same agenda, it’s time for dissenting voices such as Dr. Schulz to step up and alert the Church. Hopefully the good professor can not only keep his job but will cause positive change at Concordia because of his bold stand.
Dr. Gregory P. Schulz is a tenured professor at Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW), a Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod institution. He teaches philosophy and is a Lutheran pastor with over 40 years of experience in ministry either in a local parish or in higher education.
When Dr. Schulz published an article on February 14 critical of CUW’s “woke-ness” in its search for a new university president for the 8,000-student institution, he was immediately suspended from his teaching duties until he publicly recants.
And for good measure, Dr. Schulz was immediately barred from campus. The callous swiftness of the administration’s retaliation was stunning. He had hit a nerve.
“Woke Dysphoria at Concordia,” the title of Schulz’ February 14 article in The Christian News, complained that CUW was “coming under the influence of Woke-ism,” which he described as “a potent cocktail of Progressivism, Neo-Pragmatism, and Marxism.” Instead of searching for a new president from a list of 11 candidates given to the university’s Board of Regents by the Synod – a list which included Dr. Schulz as a qualified candidate – the Board decided to ignore the Synod and start a new search for a candidate with social justice credentials.
Those credentials include a president who exhibits a “demonstrated belief in and commitment to equity and inclusion” and promotes racialized “diversity in all its myriad forms.”
“These are aggressive-progressive Woke mantras,” Schulz warned in his article. What the university is really looking for, he said, is someone “who would thus be radically different from spiritual and educational leadership as authoritatively described in the Scriptures.”