By now, most of the nation knows that Donald Trump is a con man. That’s the only thing you can conclude from his approval ratings, which are the worst on record for any president after his first 100 days. As of May 1, Gallup pegged Trump’s weekly average approval rating at 41 percent–the lowest for any president at this point since Gallup began tracking presidents’ 100-day ratings in 1953.
But Trump is lucky to have ratings even that high. In all likelihood, the only thing keeping him above the political Mendoza Line is his support among white evangelicals. Depending on the source, anywhere from 73 to 78 percent of white evangelicals approve of Trump’s job performance. Much of that support, in turn, comes from Trump-worshiping pastors telling their followers that those who oppose Trump are doing so under the influence of witchcraft, demons, and the devil himself.
Well, it turns out that these pastors are pulling a con only slightly smaller than the one that the Con Man-in-Chief is pulling on the nation. Many of them tout doctorates that have been granted by so-called universities that are nothing more than diploma mills.
One of Trump’s earliest and loudest religious right supporters, Lance Wallnau, frequently touts his “Doctorate in Ministry” from Phoenix University of Theology International. This school, founded in 2001 by Presbyterian educator Richard Drake, claims to give men and women in full-time ministry a chance to earn degrees when they don’t have the time or money to go to a regular university. To that end, it gives full-time ministers course credit for “life experience,” taking the line that “one’s gifting, their faith, their presence, and their presentation of God’s call and purpose in their life” is just as good as actual coursework. With enough life experience and $4,800 for a bachelor’s or master’s degree or $5,800 for a doctorate, you can easily earn a degree from PUT.
That piqued the interest of Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College, a small but prominent Christian school north of Pittsburgh. Throckmorton is best known for helping expose David Barton’s New York Times bestseller, “The Jefferson Lies,” as a steaming pile of bollocks. Back in February, Throckmorton noted that PUT appears to award degrees without requiring “students” to do any actual work.
Throckmorton’s spidey senses really went off when one of his readers visited the Phoenix office park listed on PUT’s Website, and couldn’t find it listed on the directory. When Throckmorton asked school officials about this, they didn’t respond. Even more suspicious, the address listed on the school’s incorporation papers is a private residence.
An email exchange with PUT president Karen Drake, who took over as president upon her husband Richard’s death in 2011, revealed even more red flags. She confirmed that there are no set class requirements. Rather, all degree programs are “tailored specifically for the education goals of the student,” with prior learning and life experience taken into account. When Throckmorton asked about PUT’s faculty, she noted that all PUT graduates become professors.
Ultimately, Throckmorton concluded that PUT meets the federal definition of a diploma mill. Not only does it charge for a degree without any set coursework requirements, but it isn’t accredited by any legitimate accrediting agency–meaning that a PUT degree is essentially worthless.
For more signs that a school is actually a diploma mill, watch here.
Wallnau isn’t the only pro-Trump fundie touting a degree he didn’t really earn. Throckmorton noticed that a number of prominent pro-Trump pastors and personalities claim to have doctorates from Life Christian University, a similarly sketchy “university” outside Tampa. Barton, the religious right’s favorite pseudo-historian, claims a Ph.D. from LCU. So does Jerry Boykin, the religious right’s favorite soldier. However, school president Douglas Wingate openly admits that neither they, nor any of LCU’s other “distinguished degree holders,” actually attended the school.
I sweated blood to earn my bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina. My girlfriend worked long hours to get her master’s degree, and many of my friends worked hard to get their degrees. By touting degrees they didn’t really earn, these so-called Christian leaders are cheapening that work. And as a Christian, it borders on blasphemy.
I’d wondered how the religious right convinced its followers that a man who disregards his most basic duties as a husband and father, is a chest-beating misogynist, and who considers peddling fake news and threatening private citizens to be acceptable behavior for public officials was a true man of God. Quite easily, as it turns out–by trotting out pastors and Christian leaders who claim to have degrees they didn’t really earn.
(featured image courtesy Wallnau’s Facebook)
