Laura Cheifetz is Assistant Dean of Admissions, Vocation, and Student Life at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. She attracted online notoriety this week by tweeting the “f” word directed at student applicants who do not like the school’s vaccine requirement:
“F*** that person who emailed this morning to say they couldn’t go to school here due to the vaccine mandate, absolutely so f*** yourself.
The tweet was later deleted. But it still reflects on the seminary official, an ordained cleric in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and on the school itself that would hire this person for a position of responsibility. Vanderbilt, although very liberal for many decades, is still supposed to be a training school for ministers of the Gospel.
Vanderbilt Divinity School’s dean, Emilie Townes, on the school’s website explains that the school aims to offer a “lively context to help clergy and laity not only prepare for Christian ministry, but to re-envision ministry to meet the needs of our times by combining spiritual and intellectual growth with a sense of social justice and the formation of a new generation of scholars.”
Founded in 1873 with money from philanthropist Cornelius Vanderbilt, the university was for over 40 years under the authority of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. But the school chaffed under church control and, after winning litigation, asserted its autonomy. The 1914 Methodist Episcopal Church, South General Conference officially severed ties to the school, founding Southern Methodist University in Dallas while also enhancing Emory University in Atlanta.
But the United Methodist Church still authorizes Vanderbilt Divinity School to train aspiring United Methodist clergy, even as most conservative evangelical schools are not authorized. Rev. Cheifetz has admissions authority over United Methodist seminarians and students from various denominations. As her seminary biography notes, she is partnered with a woman:
Laura and her partner, Jessica Vazquez Torres, the National Program Manager for Crossroads Antiracism Organizing & Training, live in Nashville, Tenn. with two rescued Shih Tzus. They enjoy all their nieces and nephews, and hope to be such fabulous aunties that the kids smuggle good booze to them in their retirement home. In their free time, Jessica bakes and Laura delivers the baked goods to friends and neighbors.
Cheifetz’s twitter account no longer exists, but one of her tweets is still accessible: “Trans kids are awesome and their existence glorifies God. They are beloved.” Her professional background seems to be mostly in social justice advocacy. A Vanderbilt Divinity School biography upon her arrival there in 2019 notes:
Laura is currently the Campaign Manager for “Flint: The Poisoning of an American City,” a feature-length documentary, and adjunct staff for Montreat Conference Center’s 2019 Women’s Connection conference.
She served as the Deputy Director of Systems & Sustainability of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, a national organization whose work in immigrant rights, economic justice, and reproductive rights & health is done through a reproductive justice framework, and was responsible for development, grants administration, operations, and human resources, including spinning off from a fiscal sponsor and becoming an independent non-profit organization.
And:
Laura served as Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Forum for Theological Exploration (formerly the Fund for Theological Education) in Atlanta, GA, working with new pastors and partner institutions and organizations committed to developing the next generation of Christian leadership. Before that, she was director of the Common Ground Project (formerly the Asian American Discipleship for Vocational Exploration, Nurture, and Transformation Project, or AADVENT Project), expanding a program for Asian Pacific American young adult Christians and pastors to include Latinx and black/African American young adults and pastors in engaging vocational discernment and mentoring for the next generation of diverse Christian leadership. She also served at a bilingual urban church (Mission Presbyterian Church) in San Francisco, and as an intern at the Presbyterian United Nations Office, coordinated the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s participation in the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Intolerance, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance.
And regarding Cheifetz’s publications:
She is a contributing editor to Inheritance, a magazine amplifying the stories of Asian American and Pacific Islander Christian faith. She is the co-author and editor of “Church on Purpose: Reinventing Discipleship, Community, & Justice” (Judson Press) and contributor to “Race in a Post Obama America: The Church Responds” (Westminster John Knox Press), “Leading Wisdom: Asian and Asian North American Women Leaders” (WJK), “Here I Am: Faith Stories of Korean American Clergywomen” (Judson), and “Streams Run Uphill: Conversations with Young Clergywomen of Color” (Judson). She is co-author of the “Forming Asian Leaders for North American Churches” entry in the “Religious Leadership” reference handbook (SAGE Publishing). An occasional contributor to various blogs, her piece “Race Gives Me Poetry” for “Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice” won the Associated Church Press 2016 Award of Excellence – Reporting and Writing: Personal Experience/1st Person Account (long format).
In 2019 Cheifetz preached this message in a sermon right before coming to Vanderbilt, which in the seminary’s eyes, perhaps enhanced her qualifications:
Most Christians are unable to have thoughtful mature conversations about human sexuality. And let us not talk about colonialism, enslavement, and capitalism, relative to our endowments and our buildings.
Because it’s not nice, right? It’s not nice to speak of politics at the Thanksgiving table. It’s not nice to bring up religion with an acquaintance. It’s not nice to ask your conservative auntie to quit sharing transphobic memes on Facebook. It’s not nice to ask if people with means are totally okay with removing their own know-how and energy and caring from underprivileged under-resourced public school systems because they don’t have the time to make structural change on the backs of their own children at the expense of other people’s children. It’s not nice to talk about how white teenagers from a wealthy private school who travel to DC to speak out against the agency and health care of pregnant people are not innocent, but are willing participants in and beneficiaries of centuries of white supremacy and colonialism. Or how one city’s failure to adequately plan for transportation infrastructure is doing a good job of reinforcing poverty and damaging the planet, and making it difficult for people struggling to make ends meet to get around. It’s definitely not nice to point out that being a legacy admitted to a prestigious school is a way that primarily whites continue to benefit from the legacies of slavery, genocide, and centuries of discrimination.
Cheifetz seems to embody all the conventional pieties of contemporary liberal USA Protestantism focusing on deconstruction and societal liberation through the lens of race, gender and sexuality. The traditional Gospel of salvation from sin plays little to no role. Her role at Vanderbilt Divinity as Assistant Dean of Admissions, Vocation, and Student Life presumably empowers her to recruit new students who share her focus and to guide existing students in that direction.
Deploying profanity in public social media is bad form for the official of a Christian seminary. But far more troubling is the core perspective of that official and her seminary, which seemingly sidelines the traditional Gospel in favor of other politicized activist gospels aligned with the cultural fads of today.
Comment by John Kenyon on September 28, 2022 at 6:17 pm
It never ceases to amaze me how Evangelicals will make a major issue, and now a denominational issue (holier and better than thou), over the use of low diction in public and walk on by the horrendous global pain and suffering. Guess The Beaver confines his use of low diction to his private life.
Comment by MJ on September 28, 2022 at 9:42 pm
John, can you substantiate your holier-and-better-than-thou claim that Evangelicals walk on by global pain and suffering?
Comment by Amber on September 29, 2022 at 3:41 am
Foul language aside, I’m baffled by people who insist that a woman has a medical right to kill her offspring but not a right to make her own decision on the risks of myocarditis and sterilization versus getting a bad cold.
Comment by Ain't it Amazin' on September 29, 2022 at 8:47 am
Mr. Kenyon,
It is truly amazing that as a clergy person who is offended by Ms./Professor/Rev. (?) Cheifetz’s language, sexual practice, and horrible leftist political beliefs I supposedly cannot see anything else bad in the world. It is quite humbling to know that you know how my inadequate my faith is and how limited my vision is about the world even though we haven’t met.
I see many horrible things in the world, many of them done by radical leftists that Cheifetz supports and believes in. But then I am not one of the enlightened ones like you are Mr. Kenyon . To put it bluntly, people like you and Cheifetz are the problem Mr. Kenyon, and your lack of understanding of the faith is truly sad and pitiful.
Frankly, I grow tired of people like Cheifetz and her enablers, who take a blow torch to the Church and Western Civilization by their words and actions, and then righteously complain about those who do not follow their enlightened opinions about how to live out their faith.
Comment by Candice on September 29, 2022 at 6:31 pm
Profanity is not a fruit of the spirit. Just sayin’. Neither is anger (that tweet is angry) Galatians 5:22-23
Matthew 7:15-17
John 13:35
And could not agree with you more @Amber. Hypocrisy is not a fruit of the spirit either and our government is slathered in hypocrisy.
Comment by P. Miller on September 30, 2022 at 5:38 am
Mr. Kenyon, are you trying to excuse her bad behavior by pointing to other’s bad behavior?
Wouldn’t it make more sense (and be way more effective) to say, “Yes, she should be gone. Her actions are a distraction from the serious work of that needs to get done?”
Comment by scott Sanderson on September 30, 2022 at 5:11 pm
I have personally noticed a correlation between those who profess progressive values and, think that they are enlightened, and the cavalier use of profanities. It seems that using foul language shows how sophisticated they are–(er, presume to be). It reveals their elitism and contempt for ordinary folks who do not see the world as they do.
Comment by Tom on September 30, 2022 at 5:33 pm
For John Kenyon, I think that Laura is violating that commandment, “Love one another” that the liberals always like to throw out. But maybe yelling the F word at people really is loving them in crazyspeak. It’s hard to keep up these days.
Comment by Ted on October 1, 2022 at 10:22 pm
It’s quite obvious that Mr. Kenyon & Rev. Cheifetz are about as far away from Christianity as you can get and still exist on Mother Earth…….any further to the left and they will be in the black hole of empty space.
Comment by Donald on October 2, 2022 at 8:02 am
Reminds me of six-year-olds who find out they can shock grown-ups by using a curse word. A bar of soap in the mouth applied with unrelenting strong hands usually solves that problem.
Comment by Lee Jenkins on October 2, 2022 at 9:06 am
The problem here is not that unusual, unfortunately. Mr. Kenyon & Rev. Cheifetz both are trying to form God in an image that confirms to THEIR way of thinking instead of listening to Him and striving to do His will. They cloak their desire to define evil things as good by citing the injustices in the world, as if that somehow conveys truth to what THEY desire to be true. It doesn’t work like that. A simple reading of the Bible quickly shows that God has established absolute boundaries within which He expects man to operate. God does not bend to suit the will of people who desire to live outside of what He defines as Godly living. Quite the opposite, despite what Mr. Kenyon & Rev. Cheifetz want Him to do.
Comment by Kay Allen on October 3, 2022 at 11:21 am
Matthew 12:36 states, “But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.”
Comment by Matthew Ray on December 22, 2022 at 3:28 am
Mark, with all due respect, I believe we have a case of “missing the forest for the trees” here. As a friend of Dr. Chiefetz (and a fellow Presbyterian), I understand where she is coming from. Schools and churches have been inundated with people who have tried to pressure us to change our vaccine requirements, mask requirements, and other precautions that were taken during different parts of the Pandemic. As an elder in my church, I know that people left my congregation during the pandemic, either because we were too strict or to lax in our policies (at different points), and several were quite frustrating to deal with, personally, threatening the employment of our staff, and threatening our elders and pastors, even as we had their health and safety in mind. We had to deal with this on a nearly daily basis for nearly three years. This, while it wouldn’t be my first choice to use the F bomb in reference to students or others complaining about a policy on vaccines, I understand the feeling well. People are over being ridiculed or maligned because some of us chose to side with safety and caution, over the complaints of a few.