Dear Lee University and the Church of God

Dear Lee University and the Church of God,

I remember once in my early twenties having a flashing suicidal thought while going through a rough time. That was the only time in my life, until earlier this year. I haven’t said much about leaving Lee University. However, I do believe some things need to be said.

On January 31st, I was notified of an adverse decision from the Lee University Board of Trustees about my tenure application. Over the next several months, I applied for more than 80 positions across five academic disciplines. After conducting eight interviews with representatives from five institutions across three different disciplines, I received an offer. It was the week after my last paycheck from Lee and one week before I had to report to the new job. There is much that is exciting about the new position, from fantastic facilities to a new scholarship program that is unparalleled in the United States. I take over as chair next year, and we have the opportunity to continue building something truly special.

However, God’s faithfulness to me does not negate the harm that Lee University and the Church of God are causing with their godless approach to faith (if God is love, then an approach to faith that is devoid of love is truly godless). I’ve spent most of my teaching career at Christian institutions, and my takeaway is that they, in large part, are more concerned with institutional obedience than faithfulness.

One day in April, after learning that I didn’t get a particular job, I broke. I lay in bed for hours, in tears, and wrote the note below (which has been lightly edited). I thought about sending it to the faculty and staff at the university. But honestly, I was afraid of retaliation and, after tears had partially cleansed my despair, I thought the letter sounded slightly suicidal. So, I held off. People, however, need to know the pain and real harm being caused. When I met with the University’s president two weeks later, I referenced Proverbs 17:13, “Evil will not depart from the house of one who returns evil for good.” People need to be aware of the evil that is being done in the name of Christ. Below is my cry into the void on April 14th.

I don’t see the point.

I’ve spent my life working hard and striving to be faithful. But all the greatest pain in my life has come at the hands of Christians.

I started my teaching career at an unhealthy Christian college, which is an understatement. I stood up against the corrupt administration because I was in my 30s, and figured I could recover, whereas my colleagues in their 50s probably couldn’t. But I paid a price. My relationship with that school ended with a restraining order against it and all its agents. But it takes a lawsuit to get a restraining order, and it is hard to get another academic job when the national academic media reports that you sued your employer. The cause or outcome doesn’t matter.

I took that opportunity to go back to school for a second terminal degree and add a PhD to my MFA.

It was 8 years before I got another full-time academic job. I applied for a studio art position at Lee that required an MFA, according to the ad. Fortunately, the President knew about the situation at my previous employer and told my search committee that I did the right thing.

When I got the job, I was homeless. I cannot go there again. It is a long story, but it boils down to vindictive siblings. Just to give a sense of it, during my first semester at Lee, my sister in California called Child Protective Services here in Cleveland to falsely report that I was raping my daughters. Fortunately, the investigation exonerated me. But that was rough. My Dad passed away during my second year here. That same sister ran through a huge portion of my Dad’s trust. It took 3 years and $25,000 just to get the receipts. We did, last summer, reach a settlement in my favor, but it has been tough.

I had always been Baptist before coming to Lee. In the new faculty orientation, the president said that Lee just wanted us to follow Jesus. They didn’t care if we were “Baptist, Church of God, or Episcopalian.” So, when looking for a church, we ended up trying St. Luke’s. We found faithful Biblical preaching when so many other places we had recently attended had let the Culture Wars distract them from the Gospel. I figured that, since I’d normally been slightly less conservative than the conservative churches I attended, it wouldn’t be bad to be slightly more conservative than my church.

It has broken my heart to see Lee change directions and force religion faculty to leave St. Luke’s and to force Music faculty to choose between their job and their church. I personally refrained from serving in front of the church or teaching Sunday School because I was trying to be very careful not to violate Lee’s new rules.

This was my year to go up for tenure. I wasn’t worried. I’ve worked hard and been the core of the art program for the last few years as the program coordinator, and with other art faculty having reduced schedules for various reasons. My student evaluations have been higher than those of my department, the university, and tenured faculty. My CV is over twenty pages with national and international achievements. Plus, I have an elite MFA from the 7th-ranked art school in the world. My PhD is a hiccup. It has taken me longer than I hoped. But the plan is to defend this summer, and my appointment is as a studio art professor, so my terminal degree in art, not religious studies, should be what is important. Plus, I found out that part of why I had been struggling was because of undiagnosed ADHD. Once I got diagnosed and medicated, I filed for accommodations from my PhD institution, which got me back in good standing. I have maintained good standing and made considerable progress. I never filed with Lee for “reasonable accommodations” because I was never told that a PhD was required. In fact, my Third-Year Review affirmed that I had the appropriate terminal degree, the job announcement required an MFA, and the faculty handbook lists the MFA as the appropriate degree.

I was shocked when I was notified that I would not be granted tenure and even more so that I would not even be given a terminal contract. My dean and chair, who had given me strong endorsements, were also shocked. It was clear that this was a continuation of the St. Luke’s purge. I said as much in a meeting with the VPAA.

The greatest shock came when I met with the president. Suddenly, two weeks later, the narrative was that this was because I hadn’t finished my PhD. There is this thing I call “The Christian Lie.” It is when people say things that are true but are designed to lead away from the truth. That tactic was used in spades. “The narrative I was given was that this is because of the PhD” is just one example. It was never said that this was because of the PhD. That would be ridiculous. There was also vague wording about my not having a PhD, causing accreditation concerns. We had the same sort of Christian lie wording with this. I replaced a faculty member of 20+ years who had no terminal degree, and I not only have an elite degree but am on the verge of a second terminal degree. This is absolutely not a concern for SACSCOC. But in supporting the narrative that was given, the university went so far as to post a job listing asking for a PhD in studio art, a degree that does not even exist in the United States. Oh, also, I was notified about my denial of tenure after the deadline in the faculty constitution, so the board retroactively changed the rules without following mandated procedures.

I’d be shocked if anyone is still reading. I’ve reached that place in my time at Lee where many avoid eye contact. Why then read the ramblings of a broken man? I get it. Your family can still eat. You aren’t worried about your two disabled adult children. You aren’t desperately spitting into the wind trying to find another job at the very end of the academic cycle.

I’ve been fortunate to get interviews, but nothing has worked out. Getting an academic job in my field is like a winning lottery ticket… just one that keeps you poor. What is the point?

All this from an institution that claims to be a family, an institution that loudly declares Christ as King. I can work hard-ask the security officers how late I work. The students can love me, like I love them. It has been heartening to have multiple parents tell me about how their child was sobbing when they told their parent about what was happening to me. How can Lee claim that Christ is King and toss people aside? Faith without works is dead. It isn’t just me. Last year, Lee tossed aside 10 faculty, some with tenure, rather than stop an accelerated payment schedule on building loans. If this is a family, it is an abusive one.

What is the point? I’ve done nothing but good for Lee, and they repay it with evil. They toss me aside as they have done to others before. They righteously violate their own rules to enforce rules that do not exist. They love their buildings while forgetting that Christ loves His people. They see a faculty member struggling under the weight of family issues, disabled children, a newly diagnosed disability, and rather than extending the love they tout to students, who they are trying to convince to attend Lee, they toss him aside. They sell Christ to potential students while failing to exhibit Him in their actions.

I have modeled academic and artistic excellence for my students at Lee. I have modeled hard work. Just last week, a former student said to me, “Who are students going to talk to at 11 at night once you are gone?” I have modeled deep faith, not trite platitudes. I have modeled love for my students. But that does not matter. God desires mercy, not sacrifice, yet I am sacrificed. Excellence and faith are not enough.

Attending St. Luke’s is unthinkable, but forgetting love is…

It is typical for those cast aside to go gently into the post-Lee night. Some, however, should rage against the dying of the light.

Christ’s burden may be light, but Lee’s is heavy, and I cannot bear it.

Goodbye Lee.

As I mentioned earlier, I have landed in an exciting professional position and am doing much better personally. I am incredibly thankful for that. But my family is paying a price. I now live 1,000 miles away from my wife and children. I got the job a week before it started and a week before my youngest daughter’s senior year of high school began. We also have two disabled adult children, both of whom rely on state programs, and one of whom is waiting on a court determination. Leaving Tennessee would be difficult for our disabled children on several fronts, and we did not want to force my daughter to relocate right before her senior year. There also wasn’t time to uproot everyone.

While God has been faithful to me professionally, there has been real harm, both financially and to my family. I’ve missed two birthdays this year when I had never missed a birthday before. We struggle financially because I have to rent an apartment in my new town, and we had to buy an additional car so my wife could work and our daughter could get to school, college, and work. The job both saved us and raised our expenses by about $2,000 a month. In time, we will recover financially. Eventually, we will figure out the situation with our disabled children, even if they have to live 1,000 miles away from us, so that they can stay on the programs that help them.

The top of Lee University’s website proclaims, “Expect something GREAT.” Lee’s advertising campaign over the last few years has been “A Top-Tier, Christ-Centered Experience.” I can’t speak for students, but as a faculty member, I expected something great but found something very different. It was neither top-tiered nor Christ-centered.

The Church of God is a Pentecostal denomination. They believe in the gifts of the Spirit, prophesy, tongues, and other great works. I’ve had numerous opportunities over the last few months to reflect on the relationship between the Church of God’s theological focus and actions with respect to two specific passages in Scripture.

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-2)

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you who behave lawlessly.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

And let me add one more that I learned in song as a child in Sunday School, but which may have had a greater impact on me than any other passage in the Bible.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

I fear that too often the Church of God and Lee University are repaying evil for good, as Proverbs warns against. Further, there is a profound lack of love that endangers the denomination, and the university of becoming lawless, clanging gongs turned away by God. As Jesus said in Matthew, all the law hangs on our love for our fellow humans and God. According to John, without love, we do not know God. I am not talking about the loud professions of love that are often made by religious folk when fruit is shockingly absent. I am talking about a love that is patient and kind; not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. A love that does not insist on its own way, is not irritable, keeps no record of wrongs, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but does rejoice in the truth. A love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

A Christ-honoring love does not discard image bearers of God so that it can maintain an accelerated loan payment schedule. A Christ-honoring love does not target a specific faculty member, forcing them to choose between the university they have loved and served for thirty years and the church they have loved and served for eighteen years. A Christ-honoring love does not stalk broadcasts of church services to make lists of faculty to target. A Christ-honoring love does not institute rules that force a husband and wife to worship in different churches. A Christ-honoring love does not violate its own rules to target a faithful faculty member.

We are called to love as Christ loved. A love that laid down its life for others. A love that emptied itself of power rather than pursuing it. A love rooted in mercy, not judgment.

The Art Senior Capstone, “Art & Christian Faith,” is one of my favorite classes that I have ever taught. In that course, we would discuss the beauty and tensions inherent in a life of faith and a life in the arts. Judging by the evaluations, students also loved the class. In fact, one student reached out to me several years after she graduated because she and a friend had a conversation about which professors had had the most impact on them during their college years. She told me how, several years later, she still frequently thought about the discussions we had in that class. Other students have told me the same.

In my tenure documents, I shared three quotes from student reflections in the Art & Christian Faith class. I think they are relevant here.

“These past two semesters at Lee I’ve learned to be still and listen to God’s voice. I don’t think it was the courses but more about the professors. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without them.”

“[T]he professors all had a sense of forced looseness that they had learned along the many stressful, tense years they had already been through and survived. That is by far one of the most consistently used lesson I use in daily life, and it wasn’t even taught in the classroom but rather by example in and outside of the classrooms. For example, one of my professors is dealing with a family scandal… I would have never known because he does not wear his stress on his sleeve but instead the joy of the Lord.”

I felt connected to God at this time, but it never fully felt genuine, there were so many unanswered questions because I was too afraid to ask someone. I was led to believe somehow that if I had questions that meant I had doubts and if I had doubts that meant I was not a Christian (in more explicit terms “going to hell”). I had no idea that asking questions could strengthen a relationship with God and a better understanding.”

In those documents, I also wrote about another student.

“Maybe the most meaningful story for me was told by a student in class. He recounted a conversation he had with me during my freshman 2-D Design class. What I didn’t know at the time was that he was dealing with a serious family issue that was causing him to question many things. He recalled that the other conversations he had were unsatisfactory. Then he told the class that without that conversation in 2-D Design, he doesn’t think he would be in the Church today.”

I will miss that class. I will miss those students. But God has granted me new students with whom I am enjoying working. What I will not miss is a form of godliness that denies its power. I pray that this folly becomes plain to all.

Image: Pamela Reynoso

About Post Author

Rondall Reynoso

Rondall is an artist, scholar, educator, and Executive Editor of Faith on View. He holds an MFA in Painting and an MS in Art History from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Art and Religions from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.

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