Life Christian University's Distinguished Degree Holders Did Not Attend the School

Last week, self-styled Christian nation historian and and Donald Trump supporter David Barton crowed that he possessed an earned PhD. In a video posted to his YouTube account, Barton chastised “progressives” for saying he did not have a PhD.  In the video, Barton told viewers that he had an earned PhD but did not say where he got it. In the background, three diplomas were displayed but one of them was partially hidden behind honorary degrees from Ecclesia College and Pensacola Christian College. However, enough detail could be seen to identify the mystery degree as a diploma from Life Christian University, an unaccredited school based in Lutz, FL. The next day Barton took down the video without explanation.
Barton claimed the degree from LCU was earned. However, the definition of “earned” in the land of LCU appears to be at odds with the rest of academia. LCU’s website identifies 18 people (e.g., Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland) who are labeled “Distinguished Degree Holders.” They are described as follows:

The distinguished ministers shown on this page are some of the most renowned preachers and teachers in the world today. Many are recognized throughout the entire world, but all of them are famous in heaven.
It has been the privilege of Life Christian University to recognize their published works, along with their lifetime ministry achievements in consideration for earned degrees from LCU. Doctorates in Ministry, Missiology, Theology and Philosophy are all earned degrees, recognized for the highest level of academics and spirituality.
LCU is honored to be associated with God’s greatest ministry gifts given to the Body of Christ today.

It sounds like LCU simply conferred a degree without any actual work.
Earlier this year, LCU president Douglas Wingate told Jonathan Miller that the “big name” preachers didn’t even attend the school. Watch:

Transcript:

Wingate: Big name ministers? What we’ve done in their cases; they haven’t attended Life Christian University but we’ve, we were able to recognize all of their scholarly work, their published material, whether it’s print materials or things that they’ve put out in teaching CDs and everything. And so Dr. Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, the list goes on and on and on, and the Lord’s just given us grace and favor to be able to come along side. We use their books in the university, we use theirs as textbooks. So to us it’s an honor to be able to recognize their academic work and the things that they’ve done for the Kingdom of God and so the degrees that they have are earned degrees. So we stack everything up, you know, from all of their teaching, their former education, everything else, all the way through their doctorate degrees and issue those.
Now there are a number of them that haven’t published as much and whatever and so they have some honorary degrees, but we know they have the equivalent ministry education. But you can go on our website, that’s LCUS.edu and take a look at all of those distinguished degree holders that we have, that we’re so proud to be able to be associated with, and labor in the harvest with them.

LCU is exempt from Florida’s law governing independent education. However, even exempt schools must meet some standards, including one about degree duration (1005.06-1.f.4).

4. The duration of all degree programs offered by the institution is consistent with the standards of the commission.

The Florida Commission for Independent Education sets standards for the duration of earned degrees and not even being enrolled in the school isn’t consistent with those standards. Schools like LCU are permitted to award honorary degrees but they must be clearly labeled as honorary degrees. By any definition, the degrees given to people who didn’t attend the school cannot meet the standard for an earned degree.
As I will demonstrate in a future post, I think LCU may be in violation of additional facets of the rules governing exempt schools.
David Barton opened a can of worms last week with his proud video.

David Barton Made His PhD Video Private and Removed It from Facebook

That didn’t take long.

Yesterday, I posted a link to David Barton’s video defending himself against charges that he doesn’t have an earned doctorate. He never named the school from which he earned the degree. However, he pointed to three diplomas, one of which was partially hidden. That mystery degree is the one he told his audience he earned. I showed evidence which leads me to believe the degree is from unaccredited Life Christian University.

Today, he removed access to the YouTube video, took down the post from his Wallbuilders Facebook page, and according to one of his Twitter followers deleted the tweet pointing to the video.

BartonLcUSeal
This certainly looks like Life Christian University to me:
LCU reversed
LCU is really a church and lists an accrediting body which is not recognized by any credible registry of accrediting organizations. Because my post doesn’t make sense without the video, I posted it to another YouTube account.

LCU claims accreditation from an organization called Accrediting Commission International. ACI is not listed by either the U.S. Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as a recognized accrediting organization. LCU is not listed as an accredited school in either one of those data bases, nor is it listed in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System data base. In a future post, I will pull together what I have learned about LCU and ACI.

For now, it is enough to know that any degree “earned” from LCU should be scrutinized. At present Barton has provided no explanation for why one day Barton said he proved his critics wrong and the next day the self-described proof is missing.

The missing video:

Is Life Christian University the Source of David Barton’s PhD?

Today, religious right activist and self-styled historian, David Barton placed a video on his YouTube account where he claims to have two honorary doctorates and an earned PhD. About a year ago, he said he didn’t have a PhD. Now he says he does and has been hinting at this for weeks. The video appears to have three degrees in the background. The first one appears to be his honorary degree from Pensacola Christian College and the third appears to be from Ecclesia College. The mystery “earned degree” appears to be the one which is partially hidden in the background. Watch (UPDATE 9/8/16: Barton first set the video to private and then made it unavailable. However, I have it here:

Looking closer at it, I think it is a degree from the unaccredited prosperity gospel fave school Life Christian University (click for larger image).

Let’s recall that this is the same fellow who is reportedly a favorite historian of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. On September 13 & 14, he will be hosting legislators at his Washington DC pastors’ briefing and leading a tour of the Capitol, hosted by a member of Congress.Barton Life University Seal
Now look a little closer at the reflection on the glass case, what appears to be half of the crest which goes on the LCU degrees and the signatures. The title and format of Barton’s diploma are nearly identical to those elements on the diplomas displayed on the LCU website.
BartonLcUSeal
Here is the reflection of the school name reversed. It sure looks like Life Christian University to me.
LCU reversed

I can’t find a listing of faculty and the doctorates offered are in theology and ministry, not history and/or education. According to Guidestar, LCU is actually a church.

IRS Filing Requirement

This organization is not required to file an annual return with the IRS because it is a church.

That seems a little shady.

The requirements have no doubt been slipped for some of those distinguished graduates and may have been in Barton’s case. The requirements say that a student must first get a masters and DMin to go for the PhD. Did Barton do that? He has never said he had anything other than a BA from ORU. The school is not accredited by a regional accrediting body which is perhaps why he didn’t name it in his video. Here is what the LCU website says about “Distinguished Degree Holders:”

The distinguished ministers shown on this page are some of the most renowned preachers and teachers in the world today. Many are recognized throughout the entire world, but all of them are famous in heaven. It has been the privilege of Life Christian University to recognize their published works, along with their lifetime ministry achievements in consideration for earned degrees from LCU. The Doctor of Ministry, the Doctor of Missiology, the Doctor of Theology and the Doctor of Philosophy are all earned degrees, recognized for the highest level of academics and spirituality. LCU is honored to be associated with God’s greatest ministry gifts given to the Body of Christ today.

Sounds like their published words and ministry achievements were used “in consideration for earned degrees.” In other words, they didn’t take courses, they were given a degree because they were famous. Is this how Barton got his degree? He needs to clear this up.

Barton’s smug rebuke depends entirely on what degree he actually has. It appears his degree comes from the same school which awarded Joyce Meyers and Benny Hinn a PhD in theology. The school does not award degrees in history which Barton should have disclosed.

Barton’s video raised more questions than it answered. Mr. Barton, from where did you get your MA and PhD and what did you major in? Why did you hide part of the diploma in the middle? Why didn’t you just tell your audience in the video? These questions aren’t hard or unreasonable.

(ht/RWW)

UPDATES:

Life Christian University acknowledged giving David Barton a degree without any course work.

American Bible college opens Ugandan branch, discourages “gay culture in Africa”

In the FYI file:

A Life Christian University is starting up in Kampala this month and one its purposes will be to discourage gay culture.

From the Daily Monitor:

A US-based Life Christian University has opened up a branch in Kampala to teach ethics, evangelism and church management, its officials have said. The Academic Dean, Dr. Dennis Sempebwa said the university will apply the American syllabus of evangelism and discourage gay culture in Africa.

“To be a pastor, God calls you but you must be trained. They should have the knowledge on how to handle the church.” The campus director, Dr Steven Kawula said the university will open this month on Bombo Road.

“We developed the idea of expanding to Kampala to access evangelists so that we can save the growing born again churches from getting wasted. We shall also offer other courses to suit businessmen and other academicians,” Mr Sempebwa told journalists in Kampala last week.

A Dennis Sempebwa is also the pastor of Santuary of Life church in East Lenox, IL, near Chicago. I emailed the church to learn if this is the same man who is leading the Kampala campus. I suspect so given that SoL’s pastor is from Uganda. Life Christian University in Florida is the awarder of Dr. Sempebwa’s degree and I suspect the chartering school for the Kampala branch.