Trinity Academy in Wichita, Kansas, a private, Christian prep school, requires applicants to sign a statement acknowledging that school administrators reserve the right to expel any student if they or anyone in their family is LGBT or an LGBT ally. My name is Morgan Douglas Faulkner, and I graduated from Trinity Academy in 2013. I witnessed firsthand what fundamentalist indoctrination can do to the human psyche, and I am committed to doing what I can to help LGBTQ and ally students find support in a hostile environment…. Last week, I leaked Trinity’s “Statement of Understanding,” a contract that all students and parents must sign before admission…. My colleague and I released this information because we firmly believe that subjecting minors to this kind of toxic environment is objectively wrong. We’ve seen the psychological and emotional consequences of fundamentalism up close - I’ve experienced them personally as a closeted bisexual up to this moment - and any good that might come from being brought up in this environment is vastly overshadowed by the way it robs an individual of their personality and self-worth.
In America, each citizen is free to believe in whatever fairy tale/moral construct/supreme being gets them through the night. Freedom of religion is a cherished right of free sheeple people enshrined by the Founding Fathers in our Constitution. I know this in part because the American Taliban is forever volubly holding forth about “religious freedom”- THEIRS, not yours.
While religious freedom is most certainly a thing and worthy of respect, what isn’t so worthy is the way so many hyper-religious zealots use their faith as a club with which to keep other, lesser mortals in line. I’m fairly certain that Jesus never taught that being LGBT was a sin and that only that good, God-fearing, missionary-position-loving, Christian patriots were worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. Listen to people like those who run Trinity Academy, though, and you might think being a Christian is about blind, unquestioning obedience and loyalty to a cantankerous, mean-spirited God who’d happily smite your ass.
I don’t believe in God (by whatever name), but I understand the role faith can play in the lives of those so inclined. While there’s certainly a place for faith-based education in America, too often “education” is akin to (and indistinguishable from) “indoctrination,” meaning children are expected to reflexively obey without question the “faith” they’re taught. There’s no room for examining or questioning that faith. Christian authoritarians fear- not without good reason- that when children begin to think critically and make their own decisions, they may well veer away from established doctrinal orthodoxy. ‘Course, that’s just a $10 phrase meaning “they might just decide that the religion they’re being taught doesn’t mesh with their goals and aspirations and start thinking for themselves.”
Christian authoritarians fear critical thinking and fact-based decision-making…because when people begin to think for themselves, they sometimes turn away from the majority religion, thus eroding the authority of those who believe themselves to be superior moral beings. No institution predicated on blind, unblinking obedience can long survive when those it controls begin to question the accepted version of reality.
That’s what happen when people start thinking for themselves.
Blind obedience and unconditional deference to authority are core components of Trinity’s internal culture, and the implementation of these values leaves students woefully unprepared for the culture shock they experience after graduating or leaving. Simply put, this is a school that enforces a culture of shame.
There’s no justification to be found in Scripture for establishing and/or enforcing a culture of shame. That’s about Trinity’s unstated mission of coercing and controlling students by indoctrinating them into blindly accepting and obeying an authoritarian dogma that has little to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
The idea that Trinity’s “Statement of Understanding” has any basis at all in Christianity is ludicrous. It’s about creating and enforcing a culture of shame, teaching students that being different and/or thinking for themselves and making their own decisions is wrong. Never mind that Jesus was all about love, tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion- THESE Christians are the true representatives of the faith.
I fully acknowledge that Trinity is a private institution and has every legal right to have these policies and implement them at the administration’s discretion. I understand that there is nothing anyone can do to stop religious fundamentalists from sending their children, LGBTQ or not, to this institution. I have no interest in attempting to change the opinions of these individuals, but I sympathize with their children who would be more comfortable with a secular education and have no choice in the matter. The fact that Trinity’s administration and board is deciding to double down on these issues instead of altering their position clearly demonstrates that their dogma has worn out its welcome. They are doing everything they can to preserve their isolated echo-chamber until it collapses in on itself.
Trinity, as a private institution, has the right to implement the policies and curriculum it deems appropriate. That said, if Trinity is going to call itself a “Christian school,” it can’t claim to be surprised when it gets called out for passing off its false authoritarian theology as The One, True, and ONLY Faith ©. The historical defintion of Christianity is that it’s a “belief system based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.”
A truly “Christian” school wouldn’t teach hatred, bigotry, and exclusion. It wouldn’t advance an authoritarian agenda based on blind obedience to temporal, self-interested leaders. It wouldn’t conflate homophobia and intolerance with the teachings of Jesus Christ. I wonder what Jesus (if He actually existed) would have to say about an institution willing to bastardize His teachings in order that they might indoctrinate children in a theology steeped in hatred, bigotry, and exclusion?
I’m going to hazard a guess that the good, God-fearing patriots who run Trinity wouldn’t like the answer to that question. Not one bit.