[A nondenominational Catholic president of a nondenominational Christian college with both a nondenominational Christian wife and a nondenominational Christian fiancee?]
Christian College President Under Review Over Relationship
Inside Higher Ed
October 17, 2012
Dinesh D’Souza, president of the King’s College, the evangelical Christian college in the Empire State Building, is under review by the college’s board of trustees after a Christian magazine reported that he spent the night at a book signing event with a woman he referred to as his “fiancée” — not his wife of 20 years. World magazine [ www.worldmag.com/2012/10/king_s_crisis ] reported that D’Souza and the woman shared a hotel room; at the time, he hadn’t yet filed for divorce from his wife. D’Souza later told the magazine, in a text message, that he’d broken off the engagement.
In a statement, the college’s board of trustees said it had been aware of some of the trouble in D’Souza’s marriage, but not of all of the details, and when the board learned of the magazine’s report, members immediately met with D’Souza in a special session. The board is still investigating the situation and will have a statement soon, college spokesman Matthias Clock told Inside Higher Ed.
“We take seriously our charge to teach a compelling worldview rooted in the Bible and expect all of our leaders to model Christian character and integrity in their public and private lives,” the board said in its statement.
D’Souza, the author of The Roots of Obama’s Rage, which posits that the president is motivated by “anti-colonial ideology,” is a prominent figure in campus conservative movements. As a student at Dartmouth College, he helped found the conservative Dartmouth Review and later wrote Illiberal Education, a critique of what he viewed as too much political correctness in higher education.
What a shame. I wondered what caused him to change from Catholic to “Evangelical”. Maybe the desire to divirce and remarry had something to do with it.
… Dinesh D’Souza leaves Catholic Church …
October 16, 2012
By Carl E. Olson
www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/1668/then_dinesh_dsouza_leaves_catholic_church_now_he_leaves_wife.aspx
Dinesh D’Souza has been a busy man these past few years, writing several books, debating leading atheists, and appearing regularly on FOX and other television networks. As World magazine notes, “He broke into the Christian conference and megachurch market in 2007 with the release of a book that year, What’s So Great About Christianity.” In a 2009 interview, D’Souza spoke of being raised in a Catholic home in Bombay, but described the faith of his youth as “crayon Christianity” and lacking maturity. He also said:
In 2010, to the surprise of many, including myself, D’Souza took the position of President of King’s College in New York City, a Protestant school with Calvinist heritage (its founder, Percy Bartimus Crawford, was a Presbyterian minister). In a Christianity Today piece, D’Souza was quoted as saying he was “quite happy to acknowledge my Catholic background; at the same time, I’m very comfortable with Reformation theology. … I’m comfortable with the evangelical world. In a sense, I’m part of it.” The piece also reported:
At that point, I began to wonder, “What, exactly, is D’Souza trying to accomplish?” He spoke of “mere Christianity”, but he was not an Anglo-Catholic with serious theological chops (along the lines of C.S. Lewis, author of Mere Christianity, Dorothy Sayers, etc.); rather, he seemed to be more of a theistic opportunist whose exact creed and doctrinal home could morph and move according to the needs of the market and the angle of the spotlight (D’Souza reportedly makes $10,000 per speech).
* * *
Dinesh D’Souza resigns as Christian college chief in face of questions about marriage
By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor
10/18/12
religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/18/dinesh-dsouza-resigns-as-christian-college-chief-in-face-of-questions-about-marriage/
(CNN) – Conservative writer and activist Dinesh D’Souza, who attracted wide attention with his recent anti-Obama film “2016: Obama’s America,” resigned Thursday as president of a Christian college in New York after questions were raised about his marriage.
D’Souza had led The King’s College, a small but prestigious evangelical school in Manhattan, for the past two years.
His departure appeared to be set in motion by an article on the website of the evangelical magazine World that accused D’Souza, who is married, of sharing a hotel room with a woman whom he allegedly referred to as his “fiancé” at a Christian conference.
D’Souza has denied the allegations in the article, published Tuesday, and said he has been separated from his wife for two years and is in the process of getting a divorce.
“I am grateful for the past two years that I have spent as president of The King’s College. But now it is time to move on,” D’Souza said in a statement Thursday. “My resignation will enable The King’s College to go forward without distraction.
“And it will also enable me to address personal matters in my life as well as to pursue new opportunities made possible by success of my recent book and film,” said the statement, which was posted on his personal website.
D’Souza issued an in-depth rebuttal of the World article on the Fox News website on Wednesday. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
“I met Denise three months ago,” D’Souza wrote in his rebuttal, referring to the woman mentioned in the World article. “We are not and have not been having an affair. Nor did we share a hotel room in Charlotte.”
On Thursday, The King’s College board issued a statement about accepting D’Souza’s resignation.
“After careful consultation with the Board and with Dinesh, we have accepted his resignation to allow him to attend to his personal and family needs,” the college said in a letter to alumni.
“We thank him for his service and significant contribution to the College over the last two years.”
The D’Souza flap has pitted two high-profile evangelical institutions – The King’s College and World magazine – against each other
King’s prides itself on being a new intellectual and urban face of evangelicalism, training Christians for careers in media, government and business and regularly attracting high-profile speakers like Mike Huckabee and the conservative editor Adam Bellow.
World is an intellectual bastion of American evangelicalism, edited by former George W. Bush adviser Marvin Olasky, who is also the former provost at The King’s College.
In his rebuttal, D’Souza said Olasky “vehemently opposed” his appointment as president at King’s and was using World magazine to “continue his vendetta.”
“Ultimately this is not just about Olasky or even World magazine,” D’Souza wrote. “It is also about how we Christians are supposed to behave with one another. And the secular world is watching.
“If my conduct was improper, wouldn’t it be the decent and charitable thing to approach me about it?” he continued. “Instead, here is a clear attempt to destroy my career and my ministry.”
Olasky did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. World magazine said on its website that its board of directors inserted prayers for King’s and for D’Souza into the minutes of its meeting on Thursday.
“All-too-frequent reports of the sinful failing of our accomplished leaders bring us no joy,” the prayer said, in part. “Instead, the searching light of your Holy Word illumines our hearts and minds to our own flaws and failures.”
[Never or ex-mistress--or still fiancee? He says that he "suspended" not terminated the engagement; I guess "until the storm blows over" or his (or their) divorce(s) is/are finalized]
Big Love at King’s College: D’Souza’s Mistress Was Also Married
Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on Thursday, 10/18/2012
www.rightwingwatch.org/content/big-love-king-s-college-dsouzas-mistress-was-also-married
On the heels of a sex scandal, Dinesh D’Souza announced his resignation today as president of King’s College in New York. D’Souza, star of the nonsensical anti-Obama film 2016: Obama’s America and defender of traditional marriage, was recently caught cavorting with a much younger woman while still married to his wife. And now to make matters worse, it appears that his mistress was also married.
Last week, D’Souza blasted President Obama for undermining traditional values. Now we know D’Souza is so traditional that his love life comes straight out of the Old Testament.
D’Souza, who told Christianity Today that “he did not know that Christians generally do not approve of engagements prior to divorces being finalized,” is engaged to Denise Odie Joseph II (sic) and married to his wife. What’s good for the gander is good for the goose, apparently.
Denise Odie Joseph II was known as Denise Odie back in 2010 when she was in law school. She created a new Facebook account on December 30, 2011 under the name Denise Odie Joseph II and said she got married that day:
Two days later, she posted a photo of herself with her husband:
On her blog – entitled “I, Denise, Lust After…” – she described herself in April as Mrs. Odie Joseph. The following month she wrote, “I was already going to vote for Romney because my husband told me to.”
In the “about me” section, she called herself a “conservative bloggette” who believes that “women should be the moral guardians of their homes.” She also called herself a “strong believer in the concept of Republican Motherhood.”
She also posted a photo of herself sitting at her desk, which features her wedding photo:
As others have noted, one of the things that she lusted after on her “I, Denise, Lust After…” blog was D’Souza, one of her “favorite conservative activist philosophers.” And as Brian noted on Tuesday, she shares D’Souza’s right-wing views and has strong words for liberals about marriage, divorce, adultery and cohabitation.
D’Souza may have lost his ridiculous 7-figure King’s College salary, but at least now he has a mate who shares his deeply held hypocrisy and fluid, self-serving morality. This could be the start of something big….