Jerry Falwell Jr. and the Consequences of Trump - An Open Letter

To Mr. Falwell,

I'm writing this letter publicly to call out a pattern of repeated, blatant abuses of your position as president of Liberty University, and express my extreme concern regarding your blind faith in and advocacy for Donald Trump. I can only attempt to put into words my disappointment in you as a person, as a role model for tens of thousands of Christian youth, and as a Christ-follower.

I am a graduate of the Liberty University School of Law (LUSOL), class of 2017. I spent three years at your school, working to become licensed in the practice of law, in order to use my abilities to serve others, impact the world, and glorify my Savior. As a lawyer yourself, I'm sure you can appreciate that. My experiences, the classmates and friends I met, and the Biblical truths I learned are vastly different than the behavior you exhibit by glorifying and defending Donald Trump and the corruption he espouses. Your behavior, and that of the president you support, are opposed to the behaviors and rules you require students at Liberty to abide by.

You surprised the entire country by endorsing Donald Trump in 2016, the spring of my 2L year. The same Donald Trump who publicly swears in campaign speeches, boasts about sexual misconduct, and has had multiple affairs as a married man, among many, many other things I could mention. (See my blog article, Donald Trump, MS-13, and Imago Dei for more on that.)

In that same spring 2016 semester, I was involved in an altercation at the LUSOL law library, in which one student attacked myself and another student. I stepped in between the attacker and my friend and swore once at the attacker as part of an attempt to distract him and allow my friend to get away. The result of my actions: I was required by school administration to attend "anger-management" counseling for my use of language, while the attacker was allowed to miss two days of classes and return, with no consequences to his class participation. My friend had a panic attack and couldn't look at the attacker for weeks; the attacker is out, practicing law today - as a graduate from LUSOL. I could use this as an opportunity to talk about both your and Donald Trump's consistent devaluation of victims and defense of accused attackers and rapists - Brett Kavanaugh, even Donald Trump himself, in addition to your support for rollback of Title IX protections for victims of sexual assault on college campuses, but my point is to show the disparity between what you require of students and the behavior of the man you called the "dream president" for evangelicals. Or the disparity between what you expect of Liberty students and your own behavior.

In response to David Platt, pastor of McLean Bible Church, explaining to his congregation his thought process behind praying publicly for Donald Trump on a Sunday Morning service, you unnecessarily and crudely attacked him on Twitter:

(Even you must have realized the unseemliness of your actions, as you later deleted this tweet.) According to the Liberty Way, "all members of the Liberty community are expected to treat everyone with a spirit of Christian love, mutual respect, and individual dignity." I fail to see how your statements could possibly match up to or even come close to that standard.

Even more distressing for you, a lawyer of over thirty years, is the blatant disrespect and disregard for the rule of law, when you tweeted THIS idea:

The 22nd Amendment is the constitutional law on point here, in case you were wondering. I find that ironic, given Liberty's campus theme recently has been "We the Champions," an allusion to the Constitution. And before you say this was "just a joke," think about what the concept of reparations really is: making right a pattern of enslaving, discriminating, abusing, and marginalizing a massive group of people, just because their skin doesn't look like yours or mine. People who make up over one in every ten students at your school.

Not only does this issue concern your behavior vs. the behavior you expect of Liberty students, but it concerns the heart of what Liberty stands for - the part of Liberty I love and still look back on positively - being trained as a champion for Christ. According to Liberty's website, the current mission statement of Liberty is as follows:

According to the Liberty Way, students - and I assume faculty, staff, and school presidents - “should avoid any activity, on or off campus, which would contradict the university’s mission or purpose, compromise the testimony or reputation of the university.” Your behaviors have violated or endorsed violation of multiple aspects of the mission statement of Liberty University.

• Developing Values: By zealously supporting Donald Trump in the manner which you have chosen, you have both degraded your own values and espoused the values of a corrupt man. These values include things such as dehumanizing and devaluing women, racial minorities, immigrants, etc., or obfuscating the truth - be it in Liberty's school newspaper, The Liberty Champion, or in the Mueller Investigation.

• Developing Knowledge: Rather than encourage free thought and the careful analysis I would expect of a lawyer, you suggest that Christians should blindly follow leaders like Donald Trump. In an interview with the Washington Post, you claimed that you couldn't possibly imagine Donald Trump doing something that isn't good for America. (link to the interview) You even suggested that it may be immoral for Christians like your students to NOT support Donald Trump. This behavior is the opposite of developing knowledge; it's endorsing irrational and blind dogmatism. 

• Developing Skills: If by skills, you include blindly attaching yourself and your beliefs to whoever you believe can give you the greatest opportunity for power, regardless of the personal cost to reputation or testimony, then I concede that you teach your students how to develop skills. 

• Fulfilling the Great Commission: Here's the Great Commission text - 
  

Here's the problem, though: your behavior neither observes all that Jesus commanded us nor teaches Liberty students to observe all Jesus commanded us. Your behavior is calculated to make disciples of Donald Trump and political power, not disciples of Jesus Christ. I scrolled through your Twitter feed; roughly every other post is some political support for Donald Trump or an attack on various liberal positions. I know you're a lawyer, not a minister. But you don't get a free pass to act in a way that is counter to Jesus' love just because you're a lawyer; I should know.

Your behavior teaches Liberty students to observe the political spectacle that is Donald Trump, not Jesus' commands. I know this, because Donald Trump spoke not once, but twice at Liberty while I was in law school, including at my Commencement. The Liberty Way states, " We, the students, faculty and staff of Liberty University have a responsibility to uphold the moral and ethical standards of this institution and personally confront those who do not."

As an alumni of Liberty University, I take part in that responsibility, and I am following through on it by confronting you, Jerry Falwell Jr., for failing to uphold the moral and ethical standards of Liberty University. Everything you do and say, regardless of whether it's in your private life or in your public role as Liberty's president, reflects on the values and principles of Liberty University. Your behavior does not represent what Liberty is or who its students, faculty and staff should aspire to be. As such, I call on you to either publicly apologize for your continued pattern of behavior in violation of the Liberty Way, or step down as Liberty's president and allow someone who will uphold the mission and purpose of Liberty to lead the school.

Finally, I know that my words can only go so far. 1 John 3:18 says, "Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." As part of loving in deed and in truth, I am choosing to return my Liberty University diploma with this letter. I recognize that I can't return my degree, and I value what that degree means for my ability to practice law, so returning my diploma must serve as a symbolic act; a repudiation of what your deeds and 'truth' say about Liberty University.

In Christ, Donald Joseph Whittemore