Liberty University

Liberty University is described by the Washington Post as "the world's largest evangelical university" (2 June 2010). LU is located in Lynchburg, Virginia and was founded in 1971 by the late Reverend Jerry Falwell. He was chancellor until his death in 2007, and he was succeeded by his son, Jerry Falwell Jr.

Falwell Sr.'s purpose was to promote the intellectual and spiritual development of Christian students, to create an academic community apart from mainstream universities -- which he included in his denunciations of breeding grounds for atheism, secularism, and humanism.

The universities that Falwell Sr. disdained were part of a centuries-old academic tradition in which some ideas rose in prominence and other ideas declined. Great universities in the English speaking world like Oxford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton have changed from being bound to any particular church ideology. But Liberty University wants to buck that trend while offering students a respectable intellectual standard that supports a fundamentalist Christian agenda. It offers this agenda alongside training for a variety of professions in the real world of work: business, nursing, psychology, the law. It offers associate, bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees.

Open inquiry at Liberty University is an open question. The famous anthropologist Hershel Shanks said, "If you want certainty, go into mathematics. Don’t go into ancient history." Archaeology benefits from an approach that begins without religious presuppositions. Biblical study benefits from a literary analysis free also of presuppositions, as does the field of biology and evolution. But Falwell founded his university on certainties about the ancient past. He was certain that the writings in the Bible were inerrant.

Notre Dame, like Liberty University, has some connection to its Christian roots. It is Catholic, founded by Catholic missionary priests. Every residence hall contains a chapel. It ranks 18th academically according to the London Times. Liberty does not rank in the top 200. It has its anthropology department. It's history department is respected as is its department of geological sciences. But Falwell was no fan of the worldliness of the Catholic Church. Church intellectuals delve with mental toughness into the history of philosophy and they delve into the contemporary science of genetics and evolutionary biology, while Liberty University professors are obliged to hold to the view that Evolution is a false doctrine.

One might wonder how welcome at Liberty are challenges to Creationist Theory or the archeology that questions old assumptions. One might wonder whether students can give a simple descriptive overview of Charles Lyell's work in 19th century in geology or whether they grasp the basic philosophical differences that have been contended in the market place of ideas since the ancient Greeks.

Falwell's purpose to defend his view of Christianity gives the university an intellectual and political bias that cannot be denied. The university identifies itself as politically conservative. Every year the university offers a commencement speaker. In 2006 it was John McCain, who in 2001 denounced Falwell Sr. as one of the country's "agents of intolerance." But people change, and Christians are a forgiving lot.

In 2007 the commencement speaker was Newt Gingrich (before his conversion to Catholicism). Gingrich has a Ph.D. from Tulane University, New Orleans, and his approach to history is not limited to empirical evidence as to what people have said and done. As does Liberty, he goes beyond the empirical.

In 2008, Liberty's keynote speaker was an outspoken conservative Christian actor, Chuck Norris. That year, Norris was supporting for president that same candidate as Chancellor Jerry Falwell Junior: Mike Huckabee. Falwell said,

I can’t imagine any profession where it is more difficult to remain true to your conservative Christian values than the entertainment field. There are so few conservative Christians in Hollywood, I believe we need to recognize, honor and hear from those who have been successful in swimming against the tide.

The commencement speaker of 2009 was another entertainment celebrity, actor, game show host and Republican: Ben Stein. He is an advocate of intelligent design and has denounced "Darwinism" as "a painful, bloody chapter in the history of ideologies" and as the inspiration for the Holocaust. (documentation)

The commencement speaker in May 2010 was Glenn Beck. Chancellor Falwell Jr. told the student newspaper that "Beck is one of the few courageous voices in the national media standing up for the principles upon which this nation was founded."