Toxic Theology Makes It Even Harder for LGBTQ Students at Christian Schools
By Sarahbeth Caplin, February 13, 2019

The toxic theology of Christian fundamentalists — the same theology that results in abuse scandals — also affects the treatment of LGBTQ students at evangelical colleges, according to writer Christopher Stroop.

Why do those students even attend such schools? The answers vary, but some are there because their parents are covering tuition. Some are practicing Christians who want to delve deeper in their faith. Some don’t realize how bad those environments actually are for LGBTQ people. But the damage becomes obvious before long.

In the 1990s and through the turn of the century, many fundamentalist and evangelical schools had a sort of “informant culture,” where LGBTQ students lived in fear of being outed to school authorities. As Carina Hilbert, who graduated from Mount Vernon Nazarene University in 1997, noted on Twitter, it was an atmosphere in which “You can’t trust very many, if any, of your friends”… At schools like the “fundamentalist flagship” Bob Jones University, former student Jeffrey Hoffman recalled, “the prevailing message” from then BJU President, Bob Jones III, was “that gay people should be put to death immediately.”

Christians of this branch say that all sins are equal — but their actions betray that belief. You don’t see nearly the same scandal, much less an “informant culture,” around sins such as gossiping or telling white lies.