Responding to changing demographics, beliefs, and norms, US religious colleges must reflect what's popular and profitable: Christian evangelism, prosperity theology, contemporary technology, and international outreach. Like other areas of higher education, Christian higher education must focus on the realities of revenues, expenses, and politics, as well as religious dogma.
While a number of Christian colleges and seminaries close each year, and many more face lower enrollment and financial woes, one conservative Christian university stands out for robust enrollment, stellar finances, and political pull: Liberty University. There are other older schools, particularly Catholic schools with more wealth and prestige, but that's changing. And it could be argued that those schools are religious in a historical sense rather than a contemporary sense.
Two Liberties
Liberty University is an educational behemoth, and has the advantage of being a nonprofit school that uses proprietary marketing strategies. The brick-and-mortar school, with an enrollment of less than 20,000 students, is predominantly straight, white, and middle-class. The school also has a strict honor code called the Liberty Way, which prohibits activity that may be counter to conservative Christian beliefs.
The growing campus includes a successful law school that serves as a pipeline to Christian businesses and conservative government. The Jesse Helms School of Government and the ban of a Young Democrats club reflect its conservative principles. Liberty also houses the Center for Creation Studies and Creation Hall, with a museum to promote a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, to include the stories of God and the beginning of time, Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, and Moses and the Ten Commandments.
Liberty University Online (LUO), an international Christian robocollege with about 100,000 students, is more diverse in terms of age, race/ethnicity, nationality, and social class. The online school is thriving financially, and excess funds from the operation help fund the university's growing infrastructure, amenities, and institutional wealth. Liberty spends millions on marketing and advertising online, using its campus as a backdrop. And those efforts result in manifold profits.
Liberty History
Liberty University was founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell Sr., a visionary in Christian marketing and promotion, who used technology the technology of the time--television--to gain adherents and funders. Fawell's vision was not to create a new seminary, but to educate evangelical Christians to be part of the fabric of professional society, as lawyers, doctors, teachers, and engineers.
Responding to the political and cultural winds, Falwell Sr. moved away from his segregationist roots as he built his church Liberty University. It was not easy going for Liberty in the early years, which had to rely on controversial supporters. The minister also used the abortion question, the homosexual question, and conservative Christian evangelism in Latin America and Africa to energize his flock and to create important political alliances during the Ronald Reagan era. Information about those years are available at the Jerry Falwell Library Archives.
During the Reagan era and beyond, Falwell's idea of a Moral Majority proposed that Church and State should not be divided, and those thoughts of a strong Christian theocracy have spread for more than four decades.
In March 2016, Jerry Falwell Jr. referred to presidential candidate Donald Trump as America's King David. And under the first Trump Administration, the school gained favor from the President.
Under Donald Trump's second term, Liberty University should be expecting to get closer to that goal of a Christian theocracy. For the moment, LU has the political power and the economic power that few other schools have to enjoy.
Related links:
Jerry Falwell Library Digital Archives
Dozens of Religious Schools Under Department of Education Heightened Cash Monitoring
Liberty University fined record $14 million for violating campus safety law (Washington Post)How Liberty University Built a Billion Dollar Empire Online (NY Times)
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