Trump Fever Shouldn’t Trump the Prophetic Voice at Liberty U

By Joshua Charles Published on January 21, 2016

The bestowing of an Honorary Doctorate of Business on Donald Trump by Liberty University represents perhaps another disturbing development in the interaction between evangelical leaders and institutions with right-wing politics.

But before I discuss why, know in advance that I in no way object to Liberty hosting “the Donald.” As a Christian institution, it should support a vigorous exchange of ideas from a variety of viewpoints. That being said, the additional gratuitous step of awarding the Doctorate is what greatly concerns me.

This was the outline given by Jerry Falwell, Jr. for the reasons Liberty University saw fit to recognize “Dr. Trump”:

In recognition of Donald J. Trump’s unwavering public commitment to our nation’s founding principles of limited government, individual liberties and the free enterprise system, and in further recognition of his iconic status as one of America’s most successful visionaries and entrepreneurs, with the power invested in me by the Liberty University Board of Trustees, the Doctorate of Business is now conferred with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto.

Though there is room for disagreement (given the fact that he inherited so much from his father, and his business track record is somewhat checkered), I accept Trump as a successful entrepreneur. Fair enough.

But “unwavering public commitment to our nation’s founding principles of limited government, individual liberties and the free enterprise system”? They must be joking. This can only be an exceptionally bad joke, or a carelessly adopted lie. This is simply not the case.

Prior to this past summer, Trump was not even a Republican, let alone a conservative (which would no doubt be a constituent element in Falwell’s definition of a modern supporter of “founding principles”). In a now infamous video clip of his interview with Tim Russert from 1999, Trump claims an adherence to the “New York values” now made famous by Ted Cruz. As far as we can tell, he still supports some form of nationalized health insurance, and has at various points in his career been pro-abortion, and given substantial amounts of money to liberal Democrats.

There are only a limited number of explanations for how Falwell could have described such a man as possessing an “unwavering commitment to our nation’s founding principles.” The least charitable explanation is that Falwell was consciously dissembling. I hope and pray this first explanation is not the case, and suspect it isn’t. A second explanation is that Falwell was simply unaware of Trump’s track record. That is the more charitable explanation, but hardly flattering. It means the president of a Christian university rushed to bestow an Honorary Doctorate on a man without first doing his homework. Even this best-case scenario exhibits a disastrous lapse in judgment on the part of a prominent Christian leader and the institution he represents.

Regardless of motives or intents, however, this incident is yet another example of why some of us are increasingly concerned (and indeed have been for a long time) that the political/commercial/financial/PR connections between politics and the Church (and its associated institutions) have become way too cozy. Our prophetic voice has been so compromised that some of the most prominent Christian leaders and universities in the world are apparently willing to utter soothing lies like this in the heat of the very political moment.

Far be it from me to say that the Church and its members should not engage in politics. When the prophet Nathan declared, “Thou art the man!” to King David, he was clearly engaging in politics. But when it comes to the political powers that be, it is next to impossible to be ready and willing to say “Thou art the man” when your hands are in their pockets, and theirs in yours. When there is a symbiotic and mutually beneficial structure of influence in place, the prophetic circuit is compromised.

Hence the great danger of politicians using religion in such overt ways to garner political support, or Christian institutions and leaders surrendering their voices to a particular party or candidate based on the merely temporary exigencies of the moment. And let there be no doubt: The only possible basis for such an Honorary Doctorate are merely present happenings, for Trump has zero record of any unwavering commitment to our founding principles, for which he was supposedly honored. He has given some distorted lip service the past few months, but that is it.

If that isn’t problematic enough, the evidence strongly suggests that Trump may be simply wearing the cloak of Christianity for his own political purposes. A man who has never asked God for forgiveness (by his own admission) cannot, by definition, be a Christian. Indeed, Jerry Falwell, Jr. gave Trump a Doctorate, and Trump, in return, gave a reading of what Trump referred to as “Two Corinthians.” Need I say more?

If King David, the man after God’s own heart, had cause to shudder when he was in the presence of a prophetic man of God, how much more so should the same be true of every candidate of every party, particularly one like Donald Trump? Instead, Falwell provided religious and moral cover for a man whose blatant use of Christianity for his own purposes is obvious, and who has shown no interest in those things for which he was honored. And there can be only one word for the attitude of a man who believes Christians are that easy to hoodwink, and that is contempt.

The prophetic voice of the church is of infinitely greater importance than awarding faux honors to undeserving, disreputable men whose only interest in so-called founding principles and Christianity happened to coincide with their quest for political power.

The Church can, and must, do better than that.

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