Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night

I debated for days whether I wanted to talk about this news story at all. I have made no secret I regret my decision to go to the Regent University School of Law. But I did, and if my health had in any feasible way allowed me to practice law, I would have done so as an overt alumni of Regent. I was then and am now a firm believer that the biggest problem with Christianity is the Christians, so I had no problem representing the idea behind the school. Indeed, I had good experiences with many faculty members, including the subject of the above indictment.

I am being careful not to name names here. The last thing I want is for someone to Goggle their way here and say that I am engaging in character assassination. Heaven knows, I have been honest about my feelings towards the narrow minded and spiritually dead attitudes of many classmates and not an insignificant number of faculty, but I not named names and I do not want to start impugning people now.

In fact, I liked said person a lot. He was my professor for two semesters and assistant dean of student affairs for at least my 3L year. As student affairs dean, he was literally a life saving nursemaid for sheltered kids farther away from mommy and daddy than they had ever been before. You went to him for everything from financial aide snafus to needing a library book you could not find to locating the Norfolk Krispy Kreme. He was one of the first to contact me after my mother died and the first to contact me after my colon ruptured. It was so soon after, I was still so dazed from morphine, he had to talk to my sister instead.

So, I am not reveling in the accusations. I am not gloating that my skepticism about the character of many attached to that school is suspect. I am not even going to argue it is evidence of such, as I have already seen some of conservative Christianity already have in recent days. I know the animosity Virginia has for the Pat Robertson and Jerry falwell ministries that have been established and, right or wrong, even innocent until proven guilty, he is going to face the brunt of the animosity.

Me? I am just saddened. As much as I have critiqued Regent, I accepted the place for what it was trying to do: be a place to train Christian leaders. I also accepted their were a great number of decent people who genuinely believed that is what they were doing and the world is better off for it. I have already said I would have happily practiced law as a Regent graduate, chalking up the negative experiences as a trial by fire. It would not be the first time I have had one of those. But this does not do much to help alleviate my cynicism about people in general, particularly those who espouse a strong moral ideal and by all outward appearances, strictly live by it. I have just suffered another, unexpected hit to my Regent experience.I could have done without it.