A dissenting voice on Instagram (PLNU Transparency) is seeking to alert parents and donors to the leftward drift of a university in California that still presents itself as Christian. Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) in San Diego invited gay-identifying Irish poet Pádraig ?" Tuama to its annual February writing symposium, whose “past guest writers have included Cornel West,” a proponent of critical race theory (CRT). This appears to be only the latest in an extended series of questionable actions on the part of the university.

In a poem titled “Jesus Fantasizes,” ?" Tuama writes in the first person, as if he were Jesus, complaining about his “desexing” and confessing to sexual arousal and “some lust.” When asked about the allegedly blasphemous nature of the poem on the “Milkweed” podcast, ?" Tuama responded, “I will be the blasphemer with great joy.” He added that “It’s partly me fantasizing about how Jesus would speak about his own sexuality.”

The poem uses sexual themes to provoke, but its primary theological offense is to portray Jesus as a sinful human being who regretted his crucifixion. Jesus taught that “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). If Jesus lusted, he would by these words be condemning himself.

?" Tuama continues in the poem (still presuming to speak for Jesus, “I … thought that much could be achieved if people made more love more often,” which sends a far different message than Jesus’s actual words, “there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (Matthew 19:12).

The poem adds, “I would like to age and watch my children grow,” showing an apparent rejection of Jesus’s sacrificial mission on the cross. Ironically, Jesus’s death did bring him offspring, but not in the natural way ?" Tuama envisions. Isaiah writes of the suffering servant, “when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days” (Isaiah 53:10).

In a separate work, ?" Tuama imagined Jesus traveling through Hell, where he meets Persephone, the Greek goddess of the underworld. “There is an erotic component to the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and Persephone,” the poet described. “In fact, I shouldn’t even call him Jesus of Nazareth, he’s more like Hell Jesus because he has been fundamentally changed. He’s not from anywhere now, and they each know that they’re gods. He, for the first time, it seems, or certainly the way I’ve constructed it, has met an equal.”

This poet, who seems to relish mocking the Christian faith, has been kindly invited to speak at Point Loma’s writing symposium. PLNU describes itself as “a confessing Christian community of learning in which women and men are shaped in Christ-like character, preparing them personally, relationally, and vocationally for lives of service.” It professes “the lordship of Jesus Christ”; a “commitment to the core tenets of the historic Christian faith,” especially the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, and Chalcedonian Confession; and to “embrace the Holy Scriptures as witness to the saving work of God in Jesus Christ and the primary authority for all matters of Christian faith and practice.”

Unfortunately, like many schools established by Christians to propagate the gospel, PLNU seems to be drifting far from its original purpose.

PLNU Transparency has also drawn attention to the fact that the university essentially adopted an LGBT student organization and now runs it out of the Student Care & Counseling Office. Voices of Love (VOL) was “PLNU’s first LGBTQ+ safe-space group,” recognized by a campus newspaper in April 2016 for launching a book club discussion of “Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gay vs. Christian Debate.” According to the Loma Beat, VOL was only “approved recently,” but it had “already received support from more than 30 professors and faculty members.”

Recently, VOL became a “recognized affinity group within the [PLNU] Student Care & Counseling Office that works alongside Student Care & Counseling staff as well as other appointed university staff.” The university advertised a $1,500 stipend for a year-long student internship position “in charge of administration, logistics, budget, group accountability, execution, and internal communication” for the LGBT club.

In September 2025, PLNU President Kerry Fulcher seemed to reference VOL’s new status in an email to a PLNU parent, “You mentioned having a club for LGBTQ students, but we don’t actually have that. We have a student support group for those students who identify as LGBTQ or their allies. This is housed within our Wellness office and overseen by Wellness staff.” Fulcher himself was hired as PLNU president in July 2024 over the objections of LGBT activists.

The timing of that September 2025 email was significant, as it came in the days following the assassination of conservative activist and Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk. After Kirk was killed while (and for) engaging in the free exchange of ideas on campus, many conservative students across the nation sought to join or establish TPUSA chapters to follow his example. But PLNU refused to recognize a TPUSA chapter, and students who organized a vigil for Kirk were banned from advertising it or inviting outside community members. Even “informal memorial items such as flowers and photographs were removed, they said.”

The date is also significant because it suggests that PLNU assumed responsibility for the VOL student club around the time or shortly after it hired Dr. Jason Cha as Dean of Students in March 2025.

Less than two years earlier, Cha completed his dissertation at Azusa Pacific University, another Christian school in California that has drifted to the left. The dissertation was titled “Raging Waters of Whiteness: Addressing White Evangelical Racism in Higher Education” and used “critical race theory” as a primary method of analysis, years after other academics had begun to forsake the term for less controversial ones.

The main theme of the dissertation appeared to be concern that Christian schools are full of white people doing white things, and that their very existence is disturbing to non-white people. Cha presents colorblindness as a problem and insists that Christians of all colors should be more race-conscious.

Cha reportedly doubled down on this theme this year during a February panel at the Student Congress on Racial Reconciliation (SCORR). According to PLNU Transparency, he argued, “There’s a liberation that comes in reconstructing a white consciousness, a white racial identity that is more healthy.”

The group also alleges that Cha even interpreted these ideas in ways that threatened the gospel message itself, noting, “Students reported Jason Cha saying if their identity is ‘in Christ alone,’ they ‘have white privilege’ during the Fall 2025 student leadership training.”

When reached for comment by The College Fix, Cha declined to comment on the allegations, and a university spokesperson did not address them specifically, beyond suggesting they had been “removed from their broader context.”

If someone were to suggest that finding one’s identity in Christ alone constituted white privilege, it would only betray an ignorance of the rich, vibrant Christianity that is bearing 100-fold fruit in the good soil of other parts of the world.

For instance, Africans have adapted the traditional hymn “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” into their own Swahili reggae version, “Cha kutumaini sina (Kwake Yesu nasimama).” These precious saints, with no claim to or even concept of “white privilege,” joyfully sing out, “Here on Christ the rock I will stand, other ground is sinking sand.”

Again, the Africa Statement on the Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Theology affirms, “Jesus’s death on the cross secures for us all the blessings that conform to our salvation here and hereafter. We affirm that the design of the atonement is such that through repentance and faith we are united to Christ and enjoy the blessings of justification, sanctification, and future glorification.” The document has been signed by 927 Christian leaders from 51 countries, with a majority coming from Kenya and Nigeria.

However, PLNU spokeswoman Lora Fleming denied any allegations of heterodoxy by Dr. Cha, arguing that his views fit perfectly into a Christian education. “Dr. Jason Cha’s academic scholarship has engaged questions of race and racism as part of his work in Christian higher education,” she said. “We do not believe that selected quotations or academic concepts, removed from their broader context, provide a fair characterization of Dr. Cha.” Fleming asserted that the university’s responsibility was to “confront racism, love our neighbors, and seek justice,” and that this “is not separate from our Christian discipleship. It flows from it.”

Here the African church may have wisdom that American Christians ought to heed. “In every generation, the church of Jesus Christ faces many dangers. Some of these arise from without (Acts 20:29). However, the most dangerous of them are those which arise from within (Acts 20:30),” states the Preface to the Africa Statement. “The authors of the Bible were wise to these dangers when they warned about deceptive false teachings and dangerous false teachers. Other warnings abound calling upon the church to be vigilant and discerning in order to safeguard the precious deposit of the ‘faith that was delivered to the saints once for all’ (Jude 3 CSB). So strong are the apostolic admonitions that all those who preach another gospel are declared as ‘accursed’ (Gal[ations] 1:8 NASB).”

Christian universities should embrace the free exchange of ideas, but they should also “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). When Christian universities begin to countenance ideas that run contrary to the teaching of Scripture — whether on ethical issues like marriage and gender, social issues like racism, or theological issues like the sinlessness and divinity of Christ — it is fair to ask if that university is still moored to its Christian foundation.

“In Christ alone” is the Christian’s identity, as Paul proclaimed, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).