In my last article, “We Need More Meek (not Weak) People Today,” I argued that “Blessed are the Meek” is wrapped around a biblical view of power, the kind of power we see Jesus display throughout his ministry and especially in his sacrificial death on the cross. Jesus is willing to be weak, a “loser.” Indeed, the pharisee’s taunt him from the foot of the cross, “He saved others; he can’t save himself!”
Yet I believe that meekness is the most authentic, most Jesus-like counter-cultural behavior any Christian can offer a skeptical world today.
Ever since the Devil tempted Jesus with the power to have “all the kingdoms of the world” (Luke 4:5), thus denying any need for Jesus to die on the cross, God’s kingdom has preached rejecting earthly power.
Yet even a cursory study of Christian history convinces us that again and again Christians gladly use worldly, political power to gain spiritual, non-worldly results. Again and again, they fail. They lose the respect of the surrounding culture and, even more critical, they ultimately compromise their own identity as disciples of Jesus.
The recent resignation of Jerry Falwell, Jr. from Liberty University offers yet one more demonstration of this fundamental truth. Even though Falwell had generated billions in additional income, massive student growth and a host of new buildings, his most recent scandals (including a particularly tawdry story of a sexual relationship between his wife and Giancarlo Granda, who claims Mr. Falwell knew and sometimes watched) caused the school’s Board to finally say, “enough.”
For me, this was just another in a long and sad litany of morally-compromised, high-profile Christians leaders until I read an op-ed by one of Falwell’s own students, a recent 2016 graduate. What piqued my interest is that she now attends Dallas Theological Seminary, a highly regarded conservative seminary.
Her purpose is to seriously reflect, not to ridicule. She begins:
There is a long history in Christian education that focuses on the formation of the affections, alongside the training of the intellect. This reflects one of the religion’s foremost insights about human nature. Augustine famously wrote, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
That is, humans navigate our way through the world via the things we love — the stories about the world that captivate us, the desires that motivate us, the material or spiritual goods that attract us — and we need guidance to make sure that the things we love are ordered beneath our ultimate love of God.
Christians have often described sin as misdirected love — loving the wrong things or loving the right things in the wrong way.
Christian education, then, has historically focused not merely on delivering the right information, but also on giving students the tools — music, prayer, storytelling — to shape our loves.
Yet evangelicals — and Liberty, in particular — have often neglected this focus, falsely believing that if we know the right information, we will act rightly. What we’re seeing in Mr. Falwell now are the consequences of that neglect.
How does a man who knows all the right answers come to do so much wrong?
By underestimating the power of the loves in our lives — in this case, political power — to shape our actions and alter our moral commitments.
The ache in my heart for my fellow evangelicals has rarely been expressed with more precision and grace.
This student articulates the issue that many white evangelicals have sublimated today in their single-minded pursuit of political power at any cost. One can preach, teach, believe all the “right answers,” yet our actual lives are shaped by whatever (and wherever) we truly give our hearts.
At an all-school convocation one day after Falwell resigned, his own brother Jonathan (now occupying their famous father’s pulpit at Thomas Road Baptist Church), in what many understood to be a commentary on his brother, said this:
“So many times we see Christians that are more focused on building their own brand than they are about building the kingdom of God.”
The former Liberty student continues her reflection:
At Liberty, our minds may have been receiving correct content, but our hearts were being trained to love wrongly: to love political power, physical security and economic prosperity as higher goods than they are.
The leaders of the university may have believed that we could be immersed in the stories and values of the Republican Party while maintaining any theological truths incompatible with them, but the power of our affective education was stronger. The ethics we learned in a classroom were not nearly as powerful as the emotion and desire created in a stadium full of people singing, praying and hearing stirring messages about making America great again.
With each succeeding Falwell scandal, the failure of this approach becomes clearer. For Liberty University as a whole, and for Mr. Falwell as an individual leader, there’s compelling evidence that proximity to power is its own kind of education. It shapes who you are and what you desire in life.
A thirst for political power — and sometimes, obtaining that power — begets more than corruption: It often involves sexual immorality, degraded moral judgment and financial malpractice.
“Proximity to power shapes who you are and what you desire in life.”
Many evangelicals today have tied, not just their policy hopes for conservative judges, but their spiritual being itself to Donald Trump. They see him as their Savior (with a capital “S”). They are “all in. ” No moral failure, no ethical outrage, no leadership fiasco is a red line they are not willing to cross for the political power he promises them.
The Board at Liberty University, on the other hand, did draw a red line with Jerry Falwell, Jr. In spite of the billions of dollars, all the new buildings and all the political power and notoriety he generated, they did finally say, “Enough!”
Some Christians think meekness is for losers. If you agree, you might also agree with Tyler Lee, a graduate who worked closely with Jerry Falwell Jr. for several years, who said the school’s financial strength will last long into the future and is his greatest legacy. “That’s going to far outpace any scandal.”
Or, you might agree with the former Liberty student I’ve quoted liberally from above, whose final two sentences draw a much different conclusion about Falwell:
“…the miseducation of Liberty students should inspire reflection instead of ridicule. None of us are immune to the power of what our hearts have grown to love.”
We know where Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s heart-love led him.
Where will yours lead you? Or mine lead me?
