Wheaton College rebuked for removing post congratulating alum in Trump admin: 'Caving to the mob'
Wheaton College, a private Evangelical college in Wheaton, Illinois, has faced a torrent of criticism in recent days for removing a social media post last week that congratulated alumnus Russell Vought for his appointment in the Trump administration.
"Wheaton College congratulates and prays for 1998 graduate Russell Vought regarding his senatorial confirmation to serve as the White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget!" the since-deleted Friday post said.
Wheaton, which boasts John Piper, the late Rev. Billy Graham and famous martyr Jim Elliot among its alumni, pulled the post following online backlash from some alumni who alleged Vought doesn't reflect the values of the institution.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"The recognition and prayer is something we would typically do for any graduate who reached that level of government," Wheaton said in a statement on Saturday explaining the post's removal. "However, the political situation surrounding [Vought’s] appointment led to a significant concern expressed online. It was not our intention to embroil the College in a political discussion or dispute."
"Our institutional and theological commitments are clear that the College, as a non-profit institution, does not make political endorsements. Wheaton College’s focus is on Christ and His Kingdom," the school added.
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Wheaton referred The Christian Post to their Saturday statement and said they have nothing more to add.
Vought, who has been accused of supporting Christian nationalism and has claimed the Left tries to scare Christians from being engaged in the political process, responded to the controversy by tweeting simply: "SAD!"
— Russ Vought (@russvought) February 8, 2025
Wheaton's removal of the post prompted an eruption of backlash from those who claimed the college has been capitulating to liberalism for years.
"Russ Vought is a highly accomplished alumni who should be celebrated. It’s absurd that the smallest minority of detractors come away victorious yet again," Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said in a post on X.
"If Wheaton bends the knee in response to intolerant mobs of the left on something like *encouraging prayer for a prominent alum*, you have to wonder how well they're preparing students for a hostile world that hates the Gospel," wrote Mollie Hemingway, a journalist who serves as editor-in-chief of The Federalist.
Christian author Eric Metaxas suggested Wheaton has been exhibiting cowardice masquerading as kindness, a trend he claims has weakened the American church and opened the door to destructive political leaders.
"For years now Wheaton has led the way in the false 'nice' Christianity that feminized the churches and let the Dems destroy our country. Wheaton and Christianity Today and churches that don't stand clearly against evil are the fig tree that Jesus cursed," wrote Metaxas, who has written multiple books laying out what he sees as the sobering parallels between the passivity of the American church today and the German church before the rise of Nazism.
For years now Wheaton has led the way in the false "nice" Christianity that feminized the churches and let the Dems destroy our country. Wheaton and Christianity Today and churches that don't stand clearly against evil are the fig tree that Jesus cursed. https://t.co/R2ltlSZovw
— Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) February 9, 2025
Edie Guy and Gabriela Szostak, two alumni who graduated from Wheaton in 2019 and 2021 respectively, condemned their alma mater in a Tuesday op-ed for The Federalist, accusing the school of cowardice and a "leftward lurch."
"While Wheaton defended its reason for retracting the post as an effort to avoid politics, caving to the mob is exactly what made this political," Guy and Szostak wrote.
"If anything, Wheaton should be unequivocally proud of having an alumnus at the White House, one who will use his position to do good in a world that needs it. And it should not be controversial to pray for him as he takes on a position which can be used to advance the cause of Christ and His kingdom," they added.
The two noted other Wheaton controversies in recent years that made headlines and raised eyebrows among some of its alumni. They mentioned a campus-wide email that condemned a pro-life activist for making students feel "unsafe," the hiring of a critical race theorist to its faculty in 2018, and the sponsoring of a speaker who gave a profanity-laden, sexually explicit talk on race.
They also noted how, in 2021, the school removed and reworded a plaque in the school's chapel that commemorated the martyrdom of alumni Jim Elliot and Ed McCully, both of whom were murdered by members of the Auca tribe in Ecuador when they attempted to evangelize them in 1956.
After some students expressed offense at the plaque's description of Elliot and McCully's murderers as "savage Indians," the school's Senior Administrative Cabinet appointed a task force to re-evaluate the plaque, which the class of 1949 gifted to the school in 1957 to honor their slain classmates.
Last year, Wheaton College President Philip Ryken — the former senior pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia — pushed back against a Fox News op-ed by alumnus Tim Scheiderer, who accused the school of going "woke."
"[T]he school in the leafy suburb west of Chicago has begun to mimic Harvard's wokeness," Scheiderer wrote.
The op-ed claimed that Wheaton began straying from its "orthodox, Christian moorings" by "banning biblical words, teaching critical race theory, and psychologizing gender identity issues."
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
