In June 20, 2017, Grace College and Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana fired three white employees after they posed for a racially insensitive mock rap album cover. The photo of the “album cover” was posted on Facebook. Read more about that incident here.
Evan Kilgore, the college’s special projects director at the time, was one of the employees fired. You can find him on the left of the image below with “Thug Life” written on his fingers:
Kilgore appears to have parlayed his firing at Grace into a career as a right-wing commentator. He was a former ambassador for Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization. (His TPUSA bio says he was “‘canceled’ from his marketing job by the woke outrage mob” and has been “retweeted by President Trump multiple times.”) Now he appears to be an independent political commentator with 79,200 X (Twitter) followers.
Here are some of his recent tweets:
He is a fan of white supremacist commentator Nick Fuentes:
In June, he will speak at Fuentes’s America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC) in Detroit:
He also appears to be a Christian nationalist:
Back in October, Kilgore turned his sights on Matthew Warner, a first year communications professor at Grace.
Here is Kilgore’s Facebook post:
I don’t want this post to come off in tone as a disgruntled ex-employee who is seeking some sort of retribution, an attack on any individual personally, nor am I seeking to destroy the reputation of Grace College‘s adherence to Biblical integrity (they did that a long time ago) in the hiring process, public relations, or conflict resolution with concerned alumni.
I’ve distanced myself from this increasingly “woke” institution emotionally, mentally, financially, and in almost all regards and highly debated even sharing this. However, I am writing this post, after much consideration, as a concerned alumnus, who knows I have a platform and voice that those in my network may respect when I speak on these things.
If anything with this post, I want my friends, who may still support Grace financially, to understand what their donations may go toward funding in the classroom.
Grace recently hired a new Professor to teach in the Freshman Foundations courses and Communication program. To say he has, at the very least, some concerning and hostile ideological views that do not quite align with Scripture or Biblical theology, would be a fair assessment.
I will share some screenshots of content from the Twitter (now known as X) account of this employee.
I urge you to take a look at the rhetoric, ideology, and stances being supported and held. There is quite a bit of concerning ideological views here, and these screenshots are only a small tip of the iceberg. I implore you to do your own research as well. These screenshots do not do the extent of concern justice.
Many of the posts here, in my opinion, represent a highly radicalized, ignorant, and flat out incorrect view and regurgitation of the false, virtue-signaling, fear-mongering, race-baiting and deceptive talking points from Left-Wing pundits criticizing not only “Conservative,” “traditional,” and “Right-Wing” sociopolitical views, but also Biblical ones as well.
From proudly supporting gay marriage, to identifying as “he/they,” to criticizing nearly every Republican candidate and unjustly labeling them as “fascist” (he clearly has never lived under true fascist rule, nor understands the definition of the term), to being upset that sexually explicit content is being banned in classrooms across the U.S., to the degradation/demeaning/identification of “white” people he disagrees with based on their gender and skin color, to believing Right-Wingers are essentially synonymous with Nazi’s, to liking posts that say Capitalism is fascist, to being upset that many Republicans were outraged with Target’s transgender clothing lined targeted at children… there is so, so, much to “deconstruct” here. Again, this is the very tip of the iceberg.
All I say is this…
Ask yourself, do these views align with the integrity of Biblical principles you’d like potentially taught to your young, impressionable child? Will these views be implicitly, or explicitly taught in the classroom? Are these the views you believe Grace College should bolster and platform? Can a professor with this strong of a clearly radicalized ideological hatred of Right-Wing political views truly be an unbiased voice of Christian theology in a young person’s life? Is this the heritage and legacy you believe Grace should be known for? At what point does exposing young individuals to those whom hold these harsh views clash with the mission of the institution? Is this the type of rhetoric you’d like to see spoken by those teaching young Christians, fresh out of their parent’s nest, and digesting new worldviews? There are many questions to be asked.
I truly want to express that this is not a personal attack on the professor, nor do I want (or believe) it should be. I encourage you to tag your friends to bring attention to this and discuss with them any concerns you may have in loving and respectful ways.
I’d finally like to make it clear, as well, that I’m not personally calling for this individual to be terminated. It would be unfair, and hypocritical, of me to expect Biblical due diligence in the way that I was treated years ago (although I was not extended it), and then not extend the branches of grace, compassion, and understanding to resolve these concerns in the most God-honoring way.
If you feel so concerned, or compelled, about the content you are seeing, please email President Drew Flamm at Drew.Flamm@grace.edu to express those concerns more in depth and the resolutions or conversations you’d like to see come from that.
With glowing performance reviews and above-average student evaluations, by most measures Matthew Warner’s first year as a communications professor at Grace College was a triumph.
But he spent most of that first year knowing it could be his last. After four months on the job, Warner was informed by the school’s president, Drew Flamm, that the board had “come to the conclusion that we don’t think it works out to move forward,” according to a recording obtained by Religion News Service.
Warner’s termination is the latest in a string professor terminations at Christian colleges seemingly tied to clashes over narrowing and often unspoken political and theological criteria. While Flamm didn’t specify the reasons for Warner’s dismissal, it was preceded by an online termination campaign clear about its goals. Launched by conservative influencers and Grace College stakeholders, the campaign demanded Warner’s removal due to his social media posts about LGBTQ rights, Black Lives Matter and critiques of the GOP. Almost all the posts predated Warner’s employment at the college.
The post includes 62 Warner tweets.
Kathryn Post has the full story at Religion News Service. Here is a taste:
With glowing performance reviews and above-average student evaluations, by most measures Matthew Warner’s first year as a communications professor at Grace College was a triumph.
But he spent most of that first year knowing it could be his last. After four months on the job, Warner was informed by the school’s president, Drew Flamm, that the board had “come to the conclusion that we don’t think it works out to move forward,” according to a recording obtained by Religion News Service.
Warner’s termination is the latest in a string professor terminations at Christian colleges seemingly tied to clashes over narrowing and often unspoken political and theological criteria. While Flamm didn’t specify the reasons for Warner’s dismissal, it was preceded by an online termination campaign clear about its goals. Launched by conservative influencers and Grace College stakeholders, the campaign demanded Warner’s removal due to his social media posts about LGBTQ rights, Black Lives Matter and critiques of the GOP. Almost all the posts predated Warner’s employment at the college. Â
Grace College declined to answer questions about Warner, saying it was a personnel matter. “Dr. Matt Warner fulfilled his agreement for the year. Grace College wishes Dr. Warner well in his future endeavors,” Norm Bakhit, Grace College’s chief officer of human resources, told RNS in a statement. Flamm did not offer further comment.Â
Warner and his wife said they both left behind jobs and sold their home in metro Detroit to move with their three kids to Warsaw, Indiana, for Warner’s job at Grace. It was his dream position, they said, and noted that they gave up 60% of their income for him to take it. Warner was eager to work with colleagues he described as “world class,” and quickly became known for his interactive teaching style and enthusiastic participation in department events, according to student evaluations and interviews with faculty. Early on, administrators tapped him to be a faculty mentor to first-year students. Â
Then, in October, Warner learned there was a group of local moms calling for him to be fired. Warner traced the outcry back to a Facebook post by Evan Kilgore, a Grace alum and onetime employee who captured screenshots of Warner’s past tweets, which included such phrases as “I support gay marriage,” “My pronouns are he/they,” “Tucker Carlson is fascist” and “When Christendom is conservative it ceases to be transformative.”
A former Turning Point USA ambassador and now faith-based political commentator, Kilgore told RNS he posted because “parents might want to be aware of somebody who has influence over their child with these beliefs.”
Kilgore said he was originally tipped off about Warner’s posts by Monica Boyer, a Grace College parent and local political organizer. While Kilgore’s post clarified that he was not calling for Warner’s termination, Boyer took a different approach.
“I am OFFICIALLY calling on Grace College to fire this professor IMMEDIATELY,” Boyer wrote on Facebook. “The devil probably shouldn’t mess with moms who fight for their kids,” she wrote the same day, adding that moms were driving around campus, praying.
Warner proactively met with supervisors as Boyer’s repeated demands gained traction among her nearly 8,000 Facebook followers. But initial conversations weren’t reassuring. Flamm and Bakhit, the chief human resources officer, told Warner he wasn’t yet a faculty member because the board hadn’t ratified him. Now, the board was considering voting against Warner’s ratification, a move that would end his employment.
Warner, who distinguishes between his support of people’s civil rights and his theological convictions, said he had no qualms with the school’s faith standards or lifestyle commitments. Affiliated with Charis Fellowship, a theologically conservative network of churches with roots in German pietism, Grace College requires all faculty to sign a lifestyle commitment that affirms marriage as between one man and one woman and bans homosexual behavior.
“They’ve created a caricature of me based on taking a very small number of social media posts out of context,” Warner said. “I was treated from the beginning as a threat or liability. And nobody at any time had a conversation with me about what I believe, or what I’m willing to do to support the college.”
The news that he wasn’t already a faculty member also came as a shock.
“Most faculty here seemed very surprised to learn that two months after they moved here and started their jobs, they technically were still not employees,” one faculty member, who requested not to be named, told RNS.
In mid-October, Flamm offered Warner the option to voluntarily resign, and, alternatively, outlined a “potential pathway forward” that involved meeting regularly with Flamm and other administrators to restore trust before the board’s ratification vote.
But the “path forward” never materialized, according to Warner, who had emailed Bakhit asking for a breakdown of the process. Bakhit told him there were no specific steps. Warner met with some administrators, but not with Flamm.
Read the rest here.
Monica Boyer, who is mentioned in Post’s article, is a conservative activist who wrote a book about her experience with the Tea Party movement.
Several thoughts about this mess:
I know a little bit about Grace College. It is pretty conservative. Evan Kilgore’s claim that Grace is “woke” says more about Kilgore than it does about Grace. For people like Kilgore, who have ties to white supremacist movements, any and all good-faith attempts to deal with racial issues on college campuses are perceived as “woke.” Don’t get me wrong, there are many colleges and universities who have fallen into the trap of what Adolph Reed has called “race reductionism,” but I don’t think Grace College is one of them.
Matt Warner is an interesting figure in all of this. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in communication studies from Liberty University. That comes with a lot of baggage–stuff he appears to have wrestled with in public via Twitter. I am surprised that folks did not bring up the tenor and tone of his tweets at the time he was hired. This is also a cautionary tale about writing politically-charged tweets. Warner, of course, is free to express his opinions, but in this case those tweets came back to bite him. Twitter is not a place for nuanced and contextual arguments.
Take, for example, Warner’s gay marriage tweet:
I think I understand what Warner is saying here. He is arguing for civil rights for gay couples. One can believe that marriage is between one man and one woman (which Warner would have to affirm to teach at Grace) and still believe that gay marriage should be legal in a pluralist society. Unfortunately, the tweet does not help Warner’s cause. I doubt he would have led with “I support gay marriage” and used the term “bigotry” if he knew that he would one day be teaching at Grace College. The same can be said of some of the other Warner pre-Grace tweets Evan Kilgore gathered in his Facebook post.
Finally, I am disgusted by the way the Christian Right–Kilgore, Boyer, Grace Moms, etc.–targeted Warner and sabotaged his career at Grace. I am even more disgusted by the way the Grace administration appears to have folded under these right-wing attacks. I don’t know the full story, but they seem to have made little effort to help Warner “move forward” in the wake of these attacks. Granted, Warner’s pre-Grace tweets were pretty angry (we were all pretty angry about what was happening to evangelicalism in the Trump and immediate post-Trump years), but I am not sure they merited his firing.
It is also worth noting that Grace College historian Mark Norris, who I know from his days working with me in the history department at Messiah College, is no longer the Dean of Grace’s School of Arts and Sciences. I have not spoken to Mark, but I know that he was a champion of free speech on campus. Just a coincidence?
The only other question I have is this: Was Warner hired on a one-year contract or was he on the tenure track?
It looks like Warner will now pursue a career as a business consultant with He/Him pronouns.