PLAINVIEW, Texas (ABP) — A charge that Wayland Baptist University educates and ordains homosexual ministers is false, damaging and almost slanderous, the school's president said.
A listener to “Today's Issues,” a program broadcast on the American Family Radio Network, accused the university of “educating and ordaining ministers who [are] homosexuals and lesbians,” said Wayland President Paul Armes, who appeared on the radio show two days later to refute the charges.
The listener, who said she lives in Plainview, the Texas Panhandle town where the school is located, made the call during the July 21 program, Armes said. Later that day, Armes sent a letter denying the caller's remarks to Marvin Sanders, head of American Family Radio.
“Permit me to say passionately and unequivocally that such a statement is not only inaccurate and uninformed, it borders on being slanderous,” Armes wrote in his letter.
In the letter, Armes cited two specific reasons the comments are false, including the fact that the school does not endorse the homosexual lifestyle and that the university does not have the authority to ordain anyone.
Sanders of American Family Radio, based in Tupelo, Miss., said the incident was a misunderstanding and that the woman who called was confused with another institution.
“We had [Armes] on the air this morning and he talked about all the good things going on at Wayland and how this caller was misinformed,” Sanders said.
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