‘This isn’t going to blow over’
Two alumni of Wheaton College who have been outspoken about the Evangelical school’s alleged leftward drift explained earlier this week that their alma mater has increasingly gone woke and needs new leadership.
Alumni Eric Teetsel and Daniel Davis spent 45 minutes with the Center for Baptist Leadership Executive Director William Wolfe on Tuesday, discussing their concerns that came to a head earlier this month when the college deleted a Facebook post congratulating and urging prayer for 1998 alumnus Russell Vought for his appointment in the Trump administration.
Has Wheaton Gone Woke? The Russ Vought Controversy and Fallout (ft. Daniel Davis & Eric Teetsel) https://t.co/c3ozGrrLGW
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— Center for Baptist Leadership (@BaptistLeaders) February 25, 2025
After some alumni complained, the school removed the post and apologized, claiming “the political situation surrounding [Vought’s] appointment led to a significant concern expressed online,” and that “it was not our intention to embroil the College in a political discussion or dispute.”
Davis, who graduated from Wheaton in 2014 and penned an article for First Things this month, titled “God and Man at Wheaton,” told Wolfe he believes the school’s handling of the Vought incident “really encapsulated, I think, the rot in the leadership at Wheaton that I have seen since my time on campus 10 to 15 years ago, which has only born more and more bad fruit in recent years.”
“This has been years in the making,” he said. “I’ve been out of college for over 10 years, but since I’ve left Wheaton, I’ve met more and more recent alums who have had experiences on campus that just confirmed the drift.”
Davis recalled that “conversations on race started to take an identitarian turn” while he was a student. He noted in his article for First Things that during his tenure, there was “a sweeping DEI regime at Wheaton, couched in the Christianese of ‘kingdom diversity.'” He remembered a segregated graduation ceremony held for students of color.
Teetsel, a member of Wheaton’s class of 2006 who is the CEO at The Center for Renewing America, recently spoke to The Christian Post about his role in drafting the letter to Wheaton’s board of trustees advocating for leadership change.
More than 1,200 alumni have signed the letter as of Thursday morning.
Teetsel alleged to Wolfe that Wheaton’s faculty is replete with professors who deliberately flout the school’s Statement of Faith and promulgate unbiblical teachings.
“The problem is people who intentionally undermine orthodox Christian teachings as affirmed in Wheaton College’s Statement of Faith, which every faculty member, staff member and student is required to sign,” he said.
“Those are guerrilla warriors for a progressive agenda. They are knowingly and intentionally and willfully undermining the Statement of Faith in their classrooms, and they tend to close the door just before they do it, because they know they’re doing it.”
Their subversive attitude seeps into their views and teaching on sexuality, gender identity, race and even the nature of God Himself, Teetsel said.
Both Davis and Teetsel agreed that Wheaton’s trajectory over the past decade indicates that new leadership is needed, and that Ryken may not be adequately equipped to guide a school that is under spiritual attack.
Davis said he believes Ryken “is a good man who is personally orthodox and sound.”
“But I think what we’ve seen over the last 15 years is that being personally orthodox is very different from being able to lead and protect an entire institution in its orthodoxy,” he said. “And he’s just proved to be a peacemaker, and he has not expelled the bad actors from campus. In fact, he’s appeased them.”
Echoing Davis, Teetsel said of Ryken, “It’s not to say he’s not a good person, and it’s not to say that, in some context, he’s not a good leader.”
“But there are certain leaders who are needed for certain periods of time, and this is a time when institutions of higher education are at the front lines of what is a spiritual battle: for the soul of the church, for the soul of the country and for individual souls.”
Teetsel warned that given its historical reputation as a stalwart Christian establishment, it could become “a weapon in Satan’s arsenal” if it ends up sending young Christians into the world filled with “these unbiblical ideas [that] have been baptized and sanctioned by this institution.”
“The Bible teaches us that Satan is prowling around like a lion looking for something to devour,” he added. “We have to be vigilant about that reality and we haven’t been. It requires a certain kind of leader to recognize that, and there’s no evidence that Phil Ryken is that kind of leader.”
Teetsel said he heard that the Wheaton administration’s initial response to the swell of incensed alumni was that “there is nothing to see here” and that “this will blow over,” but he believes this time is different.
“I can see why they would think that because things have happened in the past and they have blown over. They don’t understand that this isn’t going to blow over. Enough is enough, and we are not going to let off the gas until we see sufficient response,” he said.
Teetsel acknowledged that “maybe Wheaton will die” like many other historically Christian institutions that have fallen away, but he maintains some hope for his alma mater.
“God doesn’t need Wheaton, but I know that He would like to have Wheaton be a part of advancing His kingdom,” he said. “And if there’s one thing that I, as someone who has been saved through the redemptive power of His grace, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that redemption is real and that it’s never too late.”
