February 25, 2007 8:36 AM
Elisabeth Elliot on Jerry Falwell
I subscribe to daily devotions by Elisabeth Elliot in my email. (You can too by going here.)
Yesterday's was an interesting one on the discrepancy between worldy standards for "getting ahead" and what is required of us as Christians to make spiritual progress.
She had these thoughts on Jerry Falwell - a man much maligned by the media for really no reason other than his faith:
Christians ought to be always shaking up people's categories. I guess one of the things the world finds most infuriating about much-maligned Jerry Falwell is his unflappable graciousness, his refusal to retreat behind spurious logic. They'd like to call him a rechecked bigot, but he doesn't fit the category. His worst offense is that he's so often right. He speaks the truth--that's bad enough--and he speaks it in love. That's unforgivable. [my emphasis]
If you've bought into the media's stereotype of Jerry Falwell, you might want to reconsider. And then you might want to begin revisiting other opinions you may have assumed without any direct knowledge, just media hearsay.
Jerry Falwell has built an excellent university in Virginia - Liberty University. Two of my sons are enrolled there. One studying to be an opera singer and one - a National Merit Scholar - studying physics/computer something or other.
When they applied there, they met peer pressure along the lines of "Don't you want to go to a REAL college?" - even from Christian friends who'd bought into the lies about Falwell and Liberty.
Ben and Zach have been thrilled with the quality of education they're receiving at Liberty and would not choose to go anywhere else.
I thank Jerry Falwell for what he's provided for my sons and their classmates. And interestingly enough, the media is starting to be a little startled by Liberty's success - with steadily rising applications and enrollment. Read U.S. News and World Report's take on Liberty in their America's Best Colleges 2007: They Pray as They Go.
Posted in Media Bias | Permalink
Comments
I am a Liberty grad and don't have any complaints about my education there. The teaching staff was wonderful. I don't agree with everything that Jerry Falwell does or says, but I will say that he went out of his way to greet me as a college freshman and ask how I liked the school. I was impressed that he seemed genuinely interested.
Posted by: Wendy | February 25, 2007 2:02 PM
I, too am a Liberty grad, and take it a little personally when Jerry or Liberty are picked on. I respect him so much- how many people in our lifetime have had a dream realized as completely and miraculously as this man has? Not many. He literally prayed, "Give me this mountain [Liberty Mountain:)]", and God did, exceedingly and infinitely above all he could have imagined. Praise God for a wonderful institution.
Posted by: Valerie | February 26, 2007 2:30 PM
