Dinesh D'Souza Resigns as President of The King's College
Dinesh D'Souza Resigns as President of The King's College
Dinesh D'Souza has resigned as the president of The King's College (TKC), the Manhattan school's board of trustees announced Thursday.
The decision comes after World magazine reported Tuesday that D'Souza was engaged to Denise Odie Joseph II while still legally married to his wife of 20 years, Dixie, and that the couple had allegedly checked into a hotel room together during a Christian conference last month.
"I am grateful for the past two years that I have spent as president of The King's College," he said on his website this afternoon. "But now it is time to move on. My resignation will enable The King's College to go forward without distraction. And it will also enable me to address personal matters in my life as well as to pursue new opportunities made possible by success of my recent book and film."
D'Souza's statement made no reference to the controversy over his relationship, but an earlier post on his site called World's report "a clear attempt to destroy my career and my ministry. This is viciousness masquerading as righteousness. And this is the behavior that is truly worthy of Christian condemnation."
Board chairman Andy Mills will serve as interim president of the Manhattan school.
"After careful consultation with the Board and with Dinesh, we have accepted his resignation to allow him to attend to his personal and family needs," Mills said in a press release. "We thank him for his service and significant contribution to the College over the last two years."*
The college's student newspaper posted quotes on Twitter from the school-wide meeting this afternoon.
"God has a mighty future for Dinesh, but there are some things he has to go through first," Mills told students, according to the paper. "The success or failure of an institution is not based on a man. It's based on what God does. ... I have to admit, I got a little over-enamored with [D'Souza]."
According to the student newspaper, Mills also suggested that the college may move away from its efforts to brand itself as emphasizing both Christianity and political conservatism. "The King's College is a Christian college. Period," the paper reported Mills saying. "We want to find someone who shares our vision."
David Dockery, president of Union University in Tennessee, says the incident is a warning sign for administrators at other Christian colleges.
"We have to be reminded that our calling is to serve the Kingdom of God and the church through Christian higher education, first and foremost," he said. "Secondly, trust that we have opportunities to engage the wider culture. When the focus is only in the cultural sphere, we run the risk of missing our calling."
Stan Guthrie, who previously served as editor for D'Souza's work, said the author and creator of the political documentary 2016 was a man of high integrity—"not only engaged in the intellectual defense of the faith but also lived it out in his personal life"—and that is why the news is so disappointing.
"We want to see congruence with our intellectual professions of faith and also our personal confessions of faith," he said. "We don't want to see a huge dichotomy there."
Carl Trueman, professor of historical theology and church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, says he was initially "perplexed" at D'Souza's appointment at an evangelical school because of D'Souza's identification as Roman Catholic.
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Claire Guest
Grace, as you already know, I have done the very opposite of what you say - we've discussed that elsewhere. Any predictions FotF may have made have nothing to do with me, so your false accusation of "you people" means nothing. And there is no reason to assume they have anything to do with what D'Souza has said. You have an axe to grind, but it's not with me. Since you disagree with D'Souza, you can contact him about that. You've made it abundantly clear that you've rejected the God of the Bible, which is your prerogative. There's no point in us engaging in fruitless argument, as our respective standards of truth are so disparate. The best we can do is to agree to disagree.
Grace Duplessis
Claire, My question is clear: Do you recall Focus on the Family's 2008 dire predictions of an Obama world in 2012? If not, look it up. All the predictions are false. None have come to pass. How is this "Biblical" to predict the future or what they call "False prophesy" in the Bible? Has Focus on the Family admitted to these false predictions? Apologized to their followers? Nope. This is exactly what makes you people look pathetic in the eyes of others. I used to work at a Christian group (CWA) and let me tell you, they will not let ethics get in the way of scaring and manipulating the minds of people like you. I have not rejected God. Far from it. But the truth is most Christians pick and choose from the Bible. You cannot even argue against the fact that God used the Israelites to commit genocide. Why are you silent on this issue? Just read Deuteromony chps 2, 3, 7, 20. There are countless other verses. I'll list them more if you need some help.
Claire Guest
Grace, since you have rejected God and His Word, your perspective is distinctly different from that of Bible-believing Christians who post here. A lot of people (both Christian and nonChristians) believe that a lot of Americans would support the devil himself if he dressed in a spiffy suit, spoke with a silver tongue, and promised to take care of people who don't want to work but live off others who do. Some people who've posted here think Obama is a Christian, yet he takes unBiblical stands on virtually every issue, which makes him a hypocrite, right? I don't hold out much hope of you actually hearing or believing what I say, but, no, I do not WANT to believe what is revealed in 2016 - I'd LOVE to believe just the opposite. Sad to say, I have NO REASON to believe just the opposite. D'Souza may have committed immorality, but that in itself does not disqualify what he has researched and learned about Obama. We ignore such pertinent information to our own peril.