Author and professor Sophia Nelson is sounding the alarm on increasing intolerance against Christians, warning in a recent op-ed that “Christians are sick of being punished for their views in America.”
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Nelson recently told CBN’s “Faith vs. Culture” about her own battle with cancel culture last year, when she commented on DC Comics’ plan to create a new, bisexual superhero.
“On Oct. 11 last fall, [DC Comics] announced on National Coming Out Day … they were going to have a new superhero,” she said. “And that superhero was going to be Superman and Lois Lane’s son, who was a boy, and he was going to be bisexual and have a boyfriend.”
Nelson said she turned to social media to question how Christian parents might feel about inserting a same-sex theme in the comic book series.
“I said, ‘Oh, wait. Time out. What about Christian parents here? What if their kids are reading comic books and they don’t want them to be exposed to this?'” she said.
The precise language of the tweet read, “What if Christian parents of children reading comic books don’t want their kids exposed to bisexual characters? This is being pushed on kids. Then parents have to explain it. Most cannot!”
Nelson’s question, though, wasn’t well-received.
“It went downhill from there,” she said.
According to Nelson, who was at that point scholar-in-residence at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, a professor allegedly turned against her — and chaos ensued.
“An openly gay, bisexual professor on my campus took my private tweet that was on my feed … and she brought it into the university,” Nelson said. “I was protested, there was a petition to remove me, I ultimately lost my position.”
The author said she was saddened to hear students were upset. She apologized publicly to the kids, explaining she loves her students and, despite not believing her question was wrong, felt it was appropriate to apologize for upsetting the students.
Nelson sought to open dialogue and said her “intent wasn’t to hurt.” But she is disturbed by how the staff and adult peers handled the situation.
“I felt it was horrible that, in academia where we are supposed to be the textbook definition of academic freedom, open dialogue, discussion and debate, if we can’t talk about this on a college campus [it’s unfortunate],” she said. “It was ugly; it was hurtful, it did a lot of emotional distress.”
Nelson said it was particularly problematic, considering the university is public and not private. Sadly, students were deprived, she believes, of hearing and learning different perspectives and of seeing adults model the proper way to behave amid arduous circumstances.
“The university setting is important … you have mostly young people … and one of the things we want to do … is to prepare them for life,” she said, noting, instead, that faculty and students are being silenced if they don’t share particular opinions.
Nelson continued, “What we showed these young people … when you don’t like a point of view or if your feelings are hurt … we’ve taught them … you destroy them, you take their reputation, you take their job, and you remove them.”
Watch Nelson discuss these issues on “Faith vs. Culture”:
This dynamic, she said, deeply matters to America’s next generation — and her future.
“What kind of country are we going to be if this is what we’re teaching the next generation?” Nelson said. “We’ve failed them terribly in this instance.”
Despite the issues she’s faced, Nelson isn’t backing down. She said she plans to take action in defense of other Christian pastors who might face similar circumstances.
“This matter’s not over by a long shot. There will be legal repercussions here,” she said. “As a Christian, I’m going to put a stake in the ground on this one. I’m not going to let this go unaddressed. I never want another Christian professor anywhere to be abused like this.”
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