President Donald Trump will deliver the spring commencement address at Liberty University, returning to the scene of an appearance in January 2016 that helped put him on a path to winning widespread evangelical support in last year’s election.
The school in Lynchburg, Va., billed as the world’s largest Christian college, confirmed a report by CBN News that Trump will return to Liberty May 13.
“It is a tremendous honor and privilege for any university to host a sitting U.S. president, and we are incredibly grateful to have President Trump be a part of this historic day,” Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. said in a press release March 22.
Falwell, who took over the school founded by his father, Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, after the elder Falwell’s death in 2007, was one of the first evangelical leaders to endorse Trump, a thrice married casino magnate, builder and reality show host making his political debut.
Introducing Trump at Liberty University Jan. 18, 2016, Falwell shared stories of the candidate’s generosity and compared him to his late father, whose polarizing public image contrasted with personal qualities that charmed even his political foes.
“Matthew 7:16 tells us that ‘By their fruits, you shall know them,’” Falwell said. “Donald Trump’s life has borne fruit. Fruit that has provided jobs to multitudes of people, in addition to the many he has helped with his generosity.”
“Absolutely unbelievable,” Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, reacted to that comment in a series of tweets during the introduction and speech, which aired on C-SPAN.
“In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the Great Commandment,” Falwell said during Trump’s introduction.
“My father was criticized in the early 1980s for supporting Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter for president, because Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood actor who’d been divorced and remarried,” Falwell continued. “Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher.”
Donald Trump visited Liberty University Jan. 18, 2016, to speak at convocation. (Photo/Liberty University)
“My father proudly replied that Jesus pointed out that we are all sinners, every one of us, and when Jesus said render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, that meant we are to be good citizens, voting, active in the political process, serving in the armed forces if necessary,” Falwell explained. “And while Jesus never told us who to vote for, he gave us all common sense to choose the best leaders and the ability to choose the best leaders.”
Media outlets including The Atlantic and CNN noted running commentary on Moore’s Twitter feed.
“This would be hilarious if it weren’t so counter to the mission of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” said one tweet. “Evangelicals can love a golden calf, as long as Aaron promises to make Mexico pay for it,” said another, apparently a reference to Trump’s plan to build a wall along the southern U.S. border to stem illegal immigration.
“Trading in the gospel of Jesus Christ for political power is not liberty but slavery,” Moore continued. “Politics driving the gospel rather than the other way around is the third temptation of Christ. He overcame it. Will we?”
“Winning at politics while losing the gospel is not a win,” he added.
Similar comments throughout the campaign on social media and in interviews came back to haunt Moore after more than 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump in November. Several high-profile pastors who supported Trump, including former SBC President Jack Graham, took offense. A number of churches threatened to withhold denominational funding.
In December Moore apologized to Southern Baptists who read his comments as criticizing anyone who voted for Trump, and more recently issued a longer statement voicing regret for “contextless or unhelpful” social media posts he said were targeted at prosperity gospel preachers who turned their heads at Trump’s moral failures and not Southern Baptists who viewed him as a lesser of evils against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Officers of Moore’s governing board affirmed his leadership, and Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, commended his “gracious and unifying statement.”
Others say Moore shouldn’t have to apologize. His criticisms of Trump resonated particularly among African-American Southern Baptists. “Russell Moore has done nothing worthy of discipline or firing,” Byron Day, president of National African American Fellowship of the SBC,” said in an open letter.
Day, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Laurel, Md., said in addition to contending for high-profile issues like abortion and marriage, Moore “has also addressed social injustices such as racism which have been long overlooked.”
Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, said if Moore were to be marginalized or fired it would send a message to him and other African-American Southern Baptists to “pack your bags and leave.”
Nearly nine in 10 African Americans voted for Clinton, and about 7 percent of Southern Baptist churches are predominantly black.
Trump will be the second sitting president to speak at Liberty University. President George H. W. Bush was commencement speaker in 1990.
Trump’s previous visit, most remembered for his famous flub quoting from the New Testament book of “Two Corinthians,” wasn’t his first time on campus. Then famous as host of the TV game show The Apprentice, Trump waived his normal speaking fee when he traveled to Lynchburg in 2012.
“I really wanted to be here because I’ve heard so much about Liberty University,” Trump said. “Especially being Presbyterian, being a Christian, a very proud Christian … and a real Christian, I’ve heard so much about Liberty, and the job that’s been done, that this was really, really my honor.”
Falwell said in November that he turned down an offer to be Trump’s education secretary before the job was offered to school voucher advocate Betsy DeVos. Trump later appointed Falwell head of a White House task force to reform higher education in the United States.
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