Does Liberty University hurt the GOP?

An influential movement of very conservative evangelical voters is still alive and well in America. But is that good for the GOP?

Ted Cruz
(Image credit: (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik))

"We're just uncomfortable with some of the things you've been writing," Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. told me. That's why I was being disinvited from giving an alumni lecture at my alma mater.

This conversation took place in a phone call last fall. When I asked for specifics, Falwell said he was quite concerned that I had authored a column criticizing Hobby Lobby, a conservative company owned by the Green family, which has donated millions in financial and land contributions to the Christian college. He also cited an article he believed painted an unfavorable picture of his father. The senior Falwell founded the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and helped give birth to the religious right movement.

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Jonathan Merritt

Jonathan Merritt is author of the book Learning to Speak God from Scratch: Why Sacred Words are Vanishing — and How We Can Revive Them and a contributing writer for The Atlantic.