An interaction between a professor and a student turned viral video has been making waves recently. A student questioned Texas A&M professor Melissa McCoul about the inclusion of Jude Saves the World in the curriculum due to the book’s treatment of LGBTQ+ themes. The video of the classroom interaction went viral after Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison posted it on social media on September 7th, 2025. By September 8th, McCoul was dismissed, and English Department Head Emily Johansen and Dean of Arts and Sciences Mark Zoran were removed from their leadership roles. Mark A. Welsh III, the Texas A&M President, resigned just ten days later.
This controversy is bigger than a single classroom. It speaks to an educational and political system incapable of sustaining a cohesive vision of morality and character. While Christians may appreciate the current political action pressuring so-called “woke” agendas, we need to recognize that replacing one ideology with another is, at best, a provisional win. Even ideologies that we might describe as “moral” will not acknowledge Jesus as Lord. Recognizing Jesus as Lord is central to Christian mission because the church seeks to imitate Christ while pointing the world toward acknowledging Him.
So, what do we do when the classroom becomes an ideological battlefield? As Christians, how do we respond when we see people dismissed from their positions or pressured to resign? Do we celebrate a win in a cultural war? I think not. We need to (1) remind the world of God’s authority, (2) affirm activities that recognize truth, goodness, and beauty, and (3) point beyond the true, good, and beautiful to the Triune God who determines truth, goodness, and beauty. Our ultimate goal is not to make the world more just or moral, though we may fight for justice and morality along the way. Instead, our goal is to point the world toward Christ in the hopes that we “might save some” (1 Cor 9:22).
Reminding the World of God’s Authority
Scholars are right to push the limits of conventional knowledge with new ideas and discoveries. But they also need to work within limits because scholars serve the societies they inhabit. The line between breakthroughs and transgressions is often blurry, so we should allow some room for scholars to explore and test new theories. Still, there are limits—it just isn’t always clear where they are.
At Texas A&M, cultural and political pressures created an impetus for change. If we assume that’s a good thing, we must still recognize that some of the people involved do not recognize Christ’s authority. Dismissals and resignations can certainly be warranted. They can even serve as a necessary corrective leading toward justice. Yet, dismissals and resignations don’t fulfill the church’s mission. Christians are the only people capable of reminding the world of God’s authority—of pointing to and glorifying the Triune God.
Why does this matter? First, Christians can’t settle for a provisional order when we know a permanent order is coming. Making the world more moral is not enough because leaving the world less lost is not our mission. Our task is to proclaim Christ’s authority, call others to submit to it, and teach them to live under it (Matt 28:18-21).
Second, Christians cannot assume that political and cultural institutions will glorify God with their judgments. What we tend to find is a celebration of cultural and political actors and actions. We don’t find humility and compassion, but bravado and chest-thumping. Christians must resist the sort of moral superiority that often accompanies cultural “wins.” We are not after coerced compliance but sincere conversion.
Reminding the world of God’s authority isn’t simply a matter of pointing out the world’s shortcomings. It is a matter of living under Christ’s authority ourselves—loving the world on God’s terms, not ours. Our reactions to situations like the one at Texas A&M can either showcase our commitment to accepting the way of Christ or betray our tendency to make our own rules. The latter echoes the world and its logic. The former honors Christ and marks out God’s people as being the right kind of strange.
Affirming Activities That Align with Reality
Christians must critique the world, but we also need to affirm decisions that are more closely aligned with God’s order—even if they do so imperfectly. Think of hanging a curtain rod. The brackets holding the rod need to be sufficiently aligned so that the rod hangs straight. We normally work within a certain set of tolerances—one bracket can be off by a few centimeters, but not by a few inches. Likewise, some worldly judgements are more “level” than others.
In the Texas A&M situation, what we might affirm is murky. Welsh’s dismissal of McCoul seems to have been driven by political duress rather than any sort of moral clarity. Still, we can discern actions that are more aligned with reality than certain alternatives. Affirming those limited alignments allows us to bear witness to God’s order.
We affirm those decisions not to venerate those who make them, but to highlight the way God works in, among, and through us. Our affirmation is not about celebrating a political win or cultural outcome, but about delighting in God’s work. In this way, affirmation allows us to point to and glorify the Triune God.
Pointing Beyond the True, Good, and Beautiful
It may seem strange to suggest that Christians point beyond the true, good, and beautiful until we remember that the Triune God is their source. When Paul describes those who “exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom 1:25), he is describing those who ignore what God has made clear in creation (1:20). Instead of hating what God has made, they opt to love it on their terms apart from Him. In doing so, they miss the fact that what they are enjoying came from a benevolent Creator. Christians don’t want those who are lost to recognize goodness, truth, and beauty, but to recognize goodness, truth, and beauty as being grounded in God’s very being and reflections of His nature.
We can see the problem when we look at the rhetoric surrounding Texas A&M. Consider the words of Rep. Brian Harrison: “This is just the start…I hope this puts the fear of God into every university president and chancellor in Texas.” At the risk of splitting hairs, it doesn’t seem like Harrison wants higher education leaders to fear God, but the politicians and those they represent. One of his later X posts seems to make this clearer: “WE DID IT! TEXAS A&M PRESIDENT IS OUT!! Another MASSIVE victory for the LIBERTY BOTS against the Austin Swamp rats! As the first elected official to call for him to be fired, this news is welcome, although overdue. Now…END ALL DEI AND LGBTQ INDOCTRINATION IN TEXAS!!”
Such celebrations keep the conversation at ground level. They do not lift our eyes to the Triune God. They encourage us to applaud political wins over opponents rather than to seek and save the lost. If Christians join in these celebrations, we risk diluting or marginalizing Christ’s victory by focusing on political wins. Gloating and glorifying God, it would seem, are mutually exclusive.
Christians honor God by refusing to get sucked into the thought world of those fighting a culture war. We are a people set apart. Our position affords us the opportunity to witness—to point to and glorify the Triune God. Adopting a mindset rooted in a cultural or political imagination will, at best, distort our testimony. If the church adopts the cultural and political logics of the day, the world will miss out on the theo-logic that only the body of Christ can provide. We do not simply need to think differently—we need to think theologically as we learn to love the world on God’s terms.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Wesley Hitt/Contributor
