A Christian school decided that sharing the Gospel was not enough and embarked on an effort to appease radical-left LGBTQ activists. They ...
A Christian school decided that sharing the Gospel was not enough and embarked on an effort to appease radical-left LGBTQ activists. They paid a fatal financial price for this move.
Urban Christian Academy in Kansas City is a private, K-8 school which provides tuition-free education for low-income students.
The school had always preached inclusivity in accordance to the teachings of Jesus Christ. The first part of their mission statement correctly notes that Jesus welcomes everyone.
But last year they decided to go woke. The school’s administrators added language expressing how were an “affirming school” and “stand with LGBTQIA+ and believe in their holiness.”
The decision-makers believed this would not be problematic.
Immediately following the new language being added, multiple churches withdrew their support, cutting off 80% of the school’s funding.
Now they are no longer in operation.
ABC News reported:
Urban Christian Academy is a private, K-8 school with an enrollment of 100 that describes itself as providing “a tuition-free, high-quality, Christ-centered education for low-income students.”
The school’s mission statement has always stressed inclusivity in general terms, noting that following Jesus “opens up doors and makes room at the table.” But last year it added a paragraph to its website, which read in part, “We are an affirming school. We stand with the LGBTQIA+ community and believe in their holiness. We celebrate the diversity of God’s creation in all its varied and beautiful forms.”
According to the school, that update prompted donors to stop contributing, many of them citing their interpretation of Christianity as the reason. Now, UCA has announced it will close at the end of the school year due to the loss of financial support.
Kalie Callaway-George, UCA’s executive director and co-founder, said this new language “is kind of what started the backlash from our donor base, which we anticipated. It was just that we anticipated a 50% loss in funding and made adjustments for that. We had an 80% loss in funding and that was too much to overcome.”
The dramatic drop-off in donations came quickly. Soon after the new language appeared on the school’s website, eight churches withdrew their support. Although those institutions were responsible for just 2% of the school’s funding, church members were a donor base that gave much more.
“We lost our network” of donors, Callaway-George told ABC News. “In December of 2021, right before we publicly supported the LGBTQ community, we raised $333,985. One year later, after we had posted on our website and made a stance, [in] December of 2022 we raised $14,809.
Even though administrators expected negative reaction and some loss of resources, they believed an explicit show of support for this community was necessary because of an influx of teenage students and changes in society.
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