SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: David Chen leaving King’s for City Council race is why I hate politics

Sep 15, 2019, 8:34 AM

I’ve talked a lot recently about the hate that Christians are receiving in the hundreds of vicious comments on the Seattle Times article about teachers leaving King’s Schools in Shoreline due to the school’s Bible-inspired views on LGBTQ relationships. Now the controversy has spilled over into the political world.

If you know anything about me, you know that I hate politics. I think that maybe 3 percent of politicians are sincere, and the rest are power-hungry, egotistical, money-grubbing, soulless people. I honestly do believe that.

I wouldn’t normally talk about a Shoreline City Council race, but it illustrates the flip-flopping and lying and soul-selling to get elected that we’re seeing in politics, whether at Thursday night’s Democratic Debate or the state attorney general’s office or the City of Seattle. It’s prevalent at every level of politics.

David Chen, who is running for the Shoreline City  Council, was the vice president and general counsel of CRISTA Ministries, which oversees King’s Schools. He has had that job since 2011. Presumably he understood what King’s was all about — that it sees the Bible as the inspired word of God, and expects its teachers to uphold biblical doctrine.

Dori: No moral difference between homeless encampment drug dealers, Seattle politicians

At 7 a.m. Thursday, David Chen resigned. Why, after working for this Christian organization for eight years, would he do such a thing? He was apparently fine with the school’s message — including its views on marriage — for nearly a decade.

On Wednesday night, the 32nd Legislative District Democrats (whose district includes Shoreline) voted to censure David Chen, and requested that all Democrats in power who have endorsed him (including Dow Constantine) take back their endorsements. This was, of course, because of Chen’s work with CRISTA Ministries.

A few hours after finding out about this, Chen resigned from CRISTA. The Democrat mob backed off.

He collected a paycheck from a Christian organization for many years and presumably believed what CRISTA believed. Did he suddenly change his entire way of thinking? Unlikely — it sounds to me like this guy had to choose between his faith or his career as a Shoreline City Council member.

Now he’s saying he doesn’t want King’s to tell kids how to live their lives — but ironically, he just abandoned his job because Democrats are telling him how to live and think. He’s OK with Democrats being dogmatic, but he’s not okay with a private Christian school being dogmatic.

It sounds to me like this guy has no foundation and no guiding principles, and that politics is more important to him than his faith. But that is true of pretty much everyone in politics. Politics becomes their religion, and that’s why politics is soulless.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Associated Press

Philadelphia police officer killed, another injured after responding to reports of man with a gun

A Philadelphia police officer was shot and killed and another officer was injured Saturday after responding to a report of a man with a gun, police said. Shane Seiber, 40, was killed early Saturday morning in west Philadelphia, according to Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel. Seiber, a 10-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, and the […]

3 hours ago

The East Potomac Park Golf Course is seen from the Washington Monument, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in...

Associated Press

Park service could remove more than 500 trees at historic golf course Trump wants to redesign

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Park Service has begun a new round of tree-cutting at a historic golf course near the National Mall as the Trump administration proceeds with a plan to renovate the East Potomac Golf Links into a championship-level course. More than 500 trees “that do not contribute to the historic landscape will […]

3 hours ago

Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks at the OpenAI DevDay 2026 conference, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, in San...

Associated Press

A timeline of developments in AI safety since the attack on Hugging Face

In one alarming announcement after another, artificial intelligence companies in recent months have shared examples of their technology acting in ways that appeared to evade instructions from humans. The episodes have highlighted the vulnerabilities in AI security and raised questions over how the fast-growing technology can be developed safely as its usage becomes more widespread […]

5 hours ago

Associated Press

9 dead after shooting in northern Pennsylvania

Nine people were killed Friday in a shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro said Saturday. Police said the suspected shooter was also dead. “I have not seen anything like this in my 28-plus years,” Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah told a local news station. “I’m not sure that the city of Erie has ever […]

6 hours ago

Luke Ihnen, attorney for Christa Pike, speaks during a news conference after a judge ruled the Tenn...

Associated Press

Christa Pike, who survived an execution attempt, is discharged from hospital, attorney says

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been moved back to prison, according to a statement released by her attorneys. Pike, 50, was discharged from the hospital and is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for […]

6 hours ago

This image from video obtained and verified by AP shows thick black smoke and flames rising from a ...

Associated Press

The airport in the Saudi capital has been attacked again, officials say

CAIRO (AP) — The airport in the Saudi capital was attacked again Saturday and was evacuated, two regional officials said, two days after three Saudi citizens including a pilot were killed there as the kingdom faces an extraordinary series of assaults in the new front in the Iran war. One official said air traffic to […]

8 hours ago

Dori: David Chen leaving King’s for City Council race is why I hate politics