Charisma Peoples is an ambassador for Project 21, a conservative black leadership network, and a student at Howard University Divinity School.
She tells AFN she has been a Masters in Divinity Student at the Washington, D.C., campus.
“And it has been a disaster. I came here looking for just support as a black conservative, just to be in a black space, but what I found myself being a part of was a black liberal group instead. All of my professors are black progressives. So, I’m like, ‘oh my goodness, what is going on here?’"
She said she has faced immense pushback for her conservative views.
“Long story short, targeted, isolated, and even persecuted for just holding conservative biblical Christian beliefs as a black student."
Peoples said they are "twisting scripture" at Howard University.
"So in order to push their progressive beliefs, they are compromising what scripture is saying. These are ordained ministers as well in the (United Church of Christ) UCC and so forth, even in the Baptist Church, and so they openly teach that Jesus Christ is not the exclusive path to God, which directly contradicts John 14:6.”
She said she also has an audio recording of an exchange she had with a professor, in which the professor said Jezebel is a Liberator.
Some progressive and feminist scholars view Queen Jezebel not as a villain but as a strong, politically astute, and courageous woman who challenged patriarchal norms and religious orthodoxy in her time.
They argue that the biblical portrayal of Jezebel as a wicked and seductive figure may reflect the biases of the Deuteronomist writers, who sought to promote monotheism and condemn polytheism.
“But we know as Christians that Jezebel was not a Liberator. So, that is one of the things that I had to wrestle with a recent professor,” Peoples said.
It's not only professors who are drawing concern from conservative students.
“It’s also the Dean. Dean Kenyatta Gilbert in his opening convocation of 2023, he boasted about having his third eye aligned, which this language is rooting in New Age mysticism and eastern spirituality. So basically, what is happening at this school is a lot of syncretism. So, they claim to be Christians. They're ordained ministers within their proper denomination, but it's a whole lot of mixing, which we know that that violates the First Commandment in scripture."
Let the people see
She added the school "definitely needs to be exposed" for what they are teaching “because a lot of people are deceived. Black students come here looking for a black theological education, but they are getting a compromise viewpoint of scripture. What these professors are doing is they're using the black struggle of slavery and racism and the past as a Trojan horse to get people on their side, but these are not Christians.”
Peoples said we have to watch what the Bible warns us about that in later times, people will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits.
“… and things taught by demons, and that's First Timothy 4 and 1."
