Liberty College in Turmoil as College students Revolt Towards Persevering with Relationship With Trump: Report
According to a report by Politico, Liberty University is becoming ground zero in the struggle between a segment of evangelical Christians who want to distance themselves from former President Donald Trump and those who want to mix his combative conservatism with Christianity.
While Trump-backing Jerry Falwell Jr. was ousted from university after a sex scandal involving a former pool attendant and Falwell’s wife, some of the school’s trustees are still in the Trump camp, and that has some school administrators and students in the arms driven.
“Now, 14 years after the death of Jerry Falwell Sr. and nine months after Jerry Jr. was ousted by scandal, Liberty is caught up in a debate that could have profound implications for the nation’s religious rights,” added Maggie Severns of Politico added, “The ultimate Liberty Path will affect the larger evangelical world, which has its own reckoning with the Republican Party after Trump. With more than 100,000 students, Liberty has long been one of a small handful of top cultural institutions for evangelicals whose board is made up of famous pastors and movement leaders. Observers believe that even a small change in direction in Liberty could signal a turn in one of the most important Republican blocs. “
While the university’s curators are considering handing the reins to another Falwell, Jonathan, who doesn’t have the close ties to the year-long president, some curators are still Trump’s corner.
In interviews with students and the school’s curators, it is said: “The members of the Executive Committee are all elderly Conservatives who are themselves rather enthusiastic Trump supporters. In the absence of Jerry Jr., the board made several important decisions that helped bring Liberty into line with the GOP while nurturing leaders with the strong religious focus that Jerry Jr. lacked. “
“In April, the Trustees replaced their incumbent chairman Allen McFarland, the first black man to serve as chairman of the Liberty board of directors with an interest in increasing tolerance and diversity in Liberty. He has been replaced by Tim Lee, a pugnacious pro-Trump pastor, ”said Severns. “But as Lee and others increasingly took control of the school, a growing chorus of campus critics are urging the trustees to make major reforms, and they seem to be listening. A week before they took their strongest move ever to distance themselves from Jerry Jr. and sued him for failing to uncover the alleged blackmail scheme, they appointed Jonathan Falwell as campus pastor. “
Secular politics must take a backseat to religious teachings, according to a student willing to stand up against the trustees.
Matt Morris explained that the school needs to be a place where “the focus is not necessarily on the conservative values, but more on the biblical values that are part of the school.”
Morris added, “The politics of stuffing the throat is not the way Falwell Sr. approached it.”
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