A guest post from Karen Swallow Prior
This week, I wanted to write a reflection on the disastrous events at Liberty University, events that have played out in front of all of us on the national media and have created anger among evangelicals like myself who are engaged in Christian higher education, and ridicule from those outside of the Christian faith. Then I read Karen Swallow Prior’s blog post and decided that she said what I wanted to say far better than I could. Hence I share Karen’s post with you.
Karen is a scholar of Literature who taught English literature for over 20 years at Liberty University. Hence, she writes as one who has been affected by the seven-year struggle at LU that finally led this week to the ouster of Jerry Falwell, Jr. She writes not only about LU, but about its larger impact on American evangelicalism. I know you will appreciate her work.
I especially appreciated these words:
“As a conservative evangelical (and one who recently left Liberty University after 21 years of teaching there), I understand the conflicted, ambivalent relationship evangelicalism has and has had for 300 years with institutional authority. Evangelicals establish institutions with as much experience and finesse as a seventh-grade boy at a school dance.
“But this is not a drill. Churches, schools, universities, all Christian ministries steward in the name of Christ the most precious things in all of creation: human bodies and souls.
“That’s a lot of power. It’s even more responsibility. When power goes unchecked, all hell breaks loose.”
Here is the link to her excellent post where you can read the whole thing.
Only Visiting this Planet 