"Good night, you stupid people!"

Jerry Falwell’s Zipper Has Been Down for Years https://t.co/2YPI0ECE1n via @BulwarkOnline

— Mona Charen (@monacharenEPPC) August 8, 2020

Funny it's not the racism of Falwell, Sr. that's poisoning "Liberty University" (I apply the term advisedly to that institution), but his son's boorish behavior.

Never saw the value of the school in the first place.  Being the largest evangelical school in the world always struck me as akin to being the largest nursery school.  What's the point of reaching such a pinnacle?  No offense to Calum Best, who writes the article and claims to be an alumnus of the school, but I really don't see how it has any value, academically or otherwise.  Mostly it's a monument to Daddy Falwell's racism.

Take this passage as an example:

Money and power, by the way, are the two things Falwell really cares about. He constantly brags about his access to President Trump, Kanye West, and others. You should see what he thinks of poor people. In his pursuit of status and material well-being, Falwell has done catastrophic damage to my school’s image. People are starting to notice: It’s now not uncommon, despite a culture of fear that is still present at the school, to see students, faculty, and in one case, a group of 30-plus black alumni leaders—including pastors—speak out against Falwell. This is good and necessary.

The acorn really doesn't fall far from the tree.  I can't remember Daddy Falwell ever expressing any real concern for the poor, or being interested in anything but his status and material well-being.  That he used a pulpit to acquire that power and prestige doesn't mean he was more of a spiritual leader than his namesake son.  It just means Daddy was better at glossing over his lack of Christian morals with an acceptable cultural Christian mask.

I mean, this just strikes me as painfully, if not willfully, naive:

Until now, board members have stayed largely silent, apparently thinking that Falwell Jr. is the right person to carry out the vision his father had in founding the university. Student leaders, who get special treatment (parking passes, perks from athletics) and perceive themselves as having access and influence as a result of their proximity to administration officials, also rationalize their silence about Falwell. (As a student government leader for four years, I did, too, for a while.) And disturbingly, the school’s spiritual leaders, many of them privately opposed to Falwell, persuade students that their moral convictions aren’t worth pursuing—a worrying indicator of how Falwell’s presence is having a chilling effect on the moral formation of Liberty’s students. Mounting a sincere defense of Falwell is virtually impossible, so the culture that supports him is constructed with layers of flimsy, culturally accepted truths about faith, politics, media bias, and loyalty that make Falwell out to be the hero, the victim, and an unassailable authority figure all rolled into one.

Does Mr. Best not remember the "Moral Majority"?  It's possible he doesn't, actually.*  Jerry Falwell started his public career promoting white flight after Brown v. Board began to finally take hold across the country in the '70's, and he never let up his pursuit of power behind "layers of flimsy, culturally accepted truths about faith, politics, media bias, and loyalty that make Falwell out to be the hero, the victim, and an unassailable authority figure all rolled into one."  The only difference was Daddy was more political than Jr.; he knew to make it seem he was the face of oppressed white people with money to give him (universities don't build themselves!).  Jr. is doing what Daddy taught him; Jr. just failed to learn the most important lesson:  never let 'em hear you on a hot mike while the credits are rolling.

It was Jr. who posted the picture that brought him down.  He almost immediately regretted it and pulled it, but the internet is forever.  First the excuse was it was taken out of context.  Then it was that the woman in the photo was his wife's assistant and she couldn't fasten her shorts because she's pregnant.  If she is, it doesn't show in the picture.  And of course the liquid in the glass is a "prop."  He could have just said it was a Coke, but no, it's a "prop."  Dead giveaway, dude.

To my fellow members of the Liberty community: If anyone tries to downplay this latest incident to you (and they will; take my word for it), you should gently remind them that Falwell’s recent public indecency isn’t just a one-off parody but part of a long pattern. According to Falwell, his Instagram post was embarrassing to the young woman he was pictured with, but not to Falwell himself. And why would he be embarrassed? After all, Falwell’s zipper has been down for a long time. We’ve seen everything, and it’s too disturbing to stay quiet.

The only reason Liberty University has to downplay anything Falwell, Jr. does is because he didn't learn that one lesson from the old man:  there's always a hot mike.  Pastors learn to be moral exemplars in public, even if they are racist monsters in private.  Their children sometimes learn half that lesson, but not taking up Daddy's profession, they fail to learn the other half.  But everything Daddy built is built on the foundation of that basic hypocrisy.  Kinda like Trump hugging the flag, Falwell Jr. thinks he just has to stand near a cross.  What's really sad is how many people don't see how deep the rot goes, and think it's always just a personal problem.


*The biographical information at the bottom of the article says Mr. Best graduated from Liberty University in May of this year.  Falwell Sr. died in 2007, so it is indeed doubtful Mr. Best has any personal knowledge of Daddy's public career.