Liberty University held its commencement address yesterday. South Carolina Senator and former presidential candidate Tim Scott was the speaker.
The Standing for Freedom Center, which serves as the office that advances Liberty’s culture war activities, posted this on X:
Earlier in the month, the director of the Standing for Freedom Center posted this:
Of course the references here are to the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and other universities across the country.
As I read these tweets, I was reminded of a piece I wrote about Liberty back in February 2020. It was titled “What is the Difference Between Liberty University and Messiah College.” My essential argument in that piece was that not all Christian colleges are the same. Christian colleges tend to privilege ideas, beliefs, and initiatives rooted in the religious tradition of the school’s founding. For example, at Messiah University we have:
- A center for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan studies that promotes issues related to peace, reconciliation, heart-felt conversion, and personal and social holiness.”
- A Center for Public Humanities with a mission to promote the study of the humanities and “partner with our broader community in meaningful inquiry, conversation, and action.”
- A center devoted to the work and legacy of former U.S. Commissioner of Education and Messiah graduate Ernest L. Boyer. The Boyer Center “advances educational renewal for the common good.”
- A center called The Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research. This center has a mission to “foster justice, empower the poor, promote peace and care for the earth through applications of our academic and professional disciplines.”
Liberty University, of course, was founded as a culture war institution. It exists, and always has, at the unhealthy intersection of evangelical faith and Republican politics. So it should not surprise us that the Standing for Freedom Center, the organization responsible for promoting Liberty’s Christian Right mission, used the university’s 2024 graduation ceremony to score points in the culture war. At Liberty, that’s what they do. It is in the school’s DNA. Even the most sacred moments in the university calendar–such as commencement–must be used to attack political opponents.
UPDATE: It’s not just the Standing for Freedom Center. It’s the university chancellor as well:
Not only are these campus gatherings at Liberty normal and often compulsory, and therefore would have taken place regardless of whether there was campus unrest elsewhere, they seem to have forgotten that pride is a sin, and disparaging entire people groups by casting them as agents of darkness is an imitation of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable who beat his chest and declared in his prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11). We cannot accomplish the Great Commission if we don’t fully embrace the Great Commandment to love God with all our being and love ourneighbor as ourselves.