Liberty University students protest association with Trump
In the months since Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him, Donald Trump has been inexorably associated with Liberty University. We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him.
A majority of Liberty students, faculty, and staff feel as we do. Donald Trump received a pitiful 90 votes from Liberty students in Virginia’s primary election, a colossal rejection of his campaign. Nevertheless, President Falwell eagerly uses his national platform to advocate for Donald Trump. While he occasionally clarifies that supporting Trump is not the official position of Liberty University, he knows it is his title of president of the largest Christian university in the world that gives him political credentials.
Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose.
A recently uncovered tape revealed his comments bragging about sexually assaulting women. Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense – taking the name “Liberty University” with him. “We’re all sinners,” Falwell told the media, as if sexual assault is a shoulder-shrugging issue rather than an atrocity which plagues college campuses across America, including our own.
It is not enough to criticize these kinds of comments. We must make clear to the world that while everyone is a sinner and everyone can be forgiven, a man who constantly and proudly speaks evil does not deserve our support for the nation’s highest office.
Jesus tells a story in the Bible about a man who tries to remove a speck of dust from his brother’s eye, while he has a log stuck in his own. “You hypocrite,” Jesus says, “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
We Liberty students are often told to support Donald Trump because the other leading candidate is a bad option. Perhaps this is true. But the only candidate who is directly associated with Liberty University is Donald Trump.
Because our president has led the world to believe that Liberty University supports Donald Trump, we students must take it upon ourselves to make clear that Donald Trump is absolutely opposed to what we believe, and does not have our support.
We are not proclaiming our opposition to Donald Trump out of bitterness, but out of a desire to regain the integrity of our school. While our president Jerry Falwell Jr. tours the country championing the log in his eye, we want the world to know how many students oppose him. We don’t want to champion Donald Trump; we want only to be champions for Christ.
will Hillary also have the Senate… Will she also have the House?
Imagine Hillary with unchecked power!
Now hopefully this gets the attention of the trustees. Useful idiots Trump enablers need to be examined to see whether they are indeed worth keeping in their offices.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Here’s Falwell Jr.’s response:
Jerry Falwell Jr.’s response:
“I am proud of these few students for speaking their minds but I’m afraid the statement is incoherent and false. I am not ‘touring the country’ or associating Liberty University with any candidate. I am only fulfilling my obligation as a citizen to ‘render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’ by expressing my personal opinion about who I believe is best suited to lead our nation in a time of crisis. This student statement seems to ignore the teachings of Jesus not to judge others but they are young and still learning.”
Can you say “condescension”? I knew you could.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
Falwell wrote:
This student statement seems to ignore the teachings of Jesus not to judge others but they are young and still learning
The man is truly behaving like a complete fool. His statement is idiotic and Biblically illiterate. I especially appreciate his post-modern interpretation of Matt 7:1.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Joe, I’m flattered, but lacking an earned doctorate, I don’t think there’s much of a chance of that for me. Maybe with God’s blessing I can influence others a little bit towards real education.
Besides, logic doesn’t answer everything—it only works on what you start with, the premises. But in this case, those premises are those used by Jerry Falwell when he founded Liberty—that character counts, and the leader represents his institution. Obviously in this case, I believe the younger Falwell is not applying these premises in a consistent manner, and in doing so, he nudged the nomination to an utterly corrupt man.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Uh, folks, did any of you notice the inconvenient fact that WaPo buried in its delighted report? The petition was signed by about 1,300 students, alumni, and staff. No breakdown of students vs. alumni, so it may be more alumni than students. Regardless, it’s a ridiculously small minority, in light of Liberty’s current enrollment of over 15,000 residential students and over 94,000 online students, plus alumni in the six figures. This is a man bites dog story and some of you are chortling over it. Given that the petition itself (falsely) claims to be the majority view, it’s not worth much.
I don’t care about the petition. I care about Falwell’s moronic comments.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Dmyers, keep in mind that the petition has gotten 1300 signers since Wednesday in a community where 85% of particpants really don’t have contact with one another except through their professors. It is certainly too quickly to have gotten much traction among the alumni, so I’m guessing most of those signers are among the on campus students. It’s not as if you can “send to all” when you’re off campus or alumni, after all.
If that logic holds, we’re talking about 9% of on campus students signed it within a day, which is actually really good in terms of response.
Plus, what Tyler notes. They’ve pushed the president of the U. to use some really horrendous rhetoric in defense of his frankly indefensible positions. What ever happened to “character matters” and all that?
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
A further response from Falwell: “The group of students now speaking out against Trump represents a very small percentage of the Liberty student body of 15,000 resident students and 90,000 online students. The group (led by a never Trump activist, I am told) claims to have between 200 and 1200 signatures on a petition but admits that many of these signatories are not Liberty students.”
So the 9% calculation is completely wrong for more reasons than that the 1,300 number includes an undisclosed number of alumni. Still no explanation for why the petitioners blatantly lied about being in the majority.
How much of this willingness here to uncritically accept the WaPo article and the squishy-thinking petition stems from long-standing personal opposition to Liberty and Jerry Falwell and, by association, the current Falwell?
You asked:
How much of this willingness here to uncritically accept the WaPo article and the squishy-thinking petition stems from long-standing personal opposition to Liberty and Jerry Falwell and, by association, the current Falwell?
I never thought of Liberty at all until Falwell endorsed Trump. Then I began to suspect the man was a fool. The Playboy picture, and his recent comments have confirmed these suspicions. Falwell is either (a) a pragmatist or (b) a fool or (c) both. I have no respect for him.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Fair enough. Not familiar with the Playboy picture. I didn’t agree with Falwell’s early endorsement of Trump, particularly when we had better candidates available in the primary, and I did not support Trump in the primary and didn’t want him at all. But now that Trump is the only non-symbolic option to Hillary (largely due to the complete ineptitude of the Republican party and the incumbent Republicans in Congress), it is not mere pragmatism (i.e., in the sense of a violation of biblical principles or ends justify the means, which is how I assume you’re using the term) to vote for him rather than to vote for Hillary or to not vote (which includes a vote for any other candidate at this point). You’re pretty free with the use of the word fool to describe a brother in Christ with whose personal political decision you disagree. I strongly disagree with what I assume is your decision as a Christian not to vote for Trump, and I’d say you’re naive or unwise in the circumstances, but I wouldn’t call you a fool.
My description of Falwell as a “fool” has nothing to do with how he intends to vote. It has to do with the fact that he is President of the largest Christian university in the world, and yet (a) he continues to publicly and enthusiastically support Trump, and (b) his response to the petition was Biblically illiterate.
Consider his words:
………….
“It is not up to me to forgive anybody,” Falwell said. “I’m not, I’m not Jesus Christ. It is only Jesus who can forgive. And he can forgive anybody. All of us, we’re all redeemable. And like I said, Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners when he was here on Earth. And it is not up to us to forgive. It is up to us to decide who would be the best president of the United States, who would take the right position on the issues to make America great again.”
Falwell has acted foolishly. He has a position of great visibility. He has a name which is recognized. He has a platform which means something. He has used that name, that platform and that position to lend enthusiastic support to a man whose life and fruit are completely opposed to everything the Gospel is designed to save sinners from. Yes, Falwell is a fool.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Dmyers, please forgive me, but I’m not going to accept Jerry Falwell Jr.’s comments on the petition at face value without a source. Sorry. Not as self-serving as his statements are. He needs to grow up and realize that, given limited opportunities for communication, 1300 signatures in a day is pretty good. There are presumably some non-campus students, but the fact of the matter is that outside of parents, the email addresses of alumni and off campus students are generally not known to students. It might not be 9%, but it’s going to be close.
Moreover, the majority of on campus Liberty students DID support someone besides the Combover; 77% of the votes cast were for Rubio and Cruz, vs. only 7-8% for Trump.
So the statements by Falwell are generally speaking false, and those of the students are generally speaking true. Oh, and that Playboy Picture? Linked at the Babylon Bee, of course. Given that Falwell appears to be unaware that character matters (as his father spins in his grave) and that leadership represents the institution, I’ve got to say that a significant portion of Liberty students have better sense than the university president.
The big thing I regret here is that these students got their petition together now, as opposed to this spring when it might have done some good.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion