Thread by @DavidAFrench

This profile of Falwell is just *remarkable.* There's so much to say about it (and related issues), but here are some thoughts. First, what a massive failure of Liberty's board. Just massive. Falwell's character was known for years: /1 vanityfair.com/news/2022/01/i…

And this quote is just astounding. Remember, it comes from the former president of the largest Christian university in the U.S. Liberty is the definition of "organized religion." He was the apex of the American "religious elite." Yet Falwell actually says this: /2

Keep in mind also that corruption at Liberty was hardly confined to the top. There have been horrible institutional failures in the response to sexual assault on campus. This is just a partial accounting of scandal after scandal: /3 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/the-moral-co…

People are after me for being too hard on Evangelicals. But many of these same folks will *never* say to conservatives that they're writing too much about MSNBC, CNN, Biden, trans issues or whatever's on Fox on prime time. That's fair game. *That* rallies the troops. /4

In the meantime, it turns out that one of the largest Christian camps in the world harbored a grotesque sex predator, ignored warning flags, and tried to silence victims. Accountability? Nope. /5 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/they-arent-w…

In the meantime, it turns out the nation's leading apologist was using women, and his own organization utterly failed to hold him accountable. /6 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/you-are-one-…

Oh, and Americans are dying unnecessary deaths by the tens of thousands, moving into the hundreds of thousands because of vaccine refusal. And guess which community is disproportionately vaccine-resistant and spreads anti-vax misinformation? /7 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/its-time-to-…

Finally, we just passed the anniversary of a violent attempt to occupy the Capitol and block the transfer of power, led by people with Christian prayers on their lips (imagine if that had been a Muslim-led attack, would the church be "moving on"?) /8 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/only-the-chu…

And the conversation about race has become so toxic that even open-hearted inquiry about systemic injustice and deep exploration of ideas for addressing centuries of racial oppression lead to accusations of "wokeness" with some calling for the "woke" to be cast out of church. /9

There are unjustified attacks on religious liberty in this country. Abortion is an atrocity. Cancel culture is real. But the constant us v. them phrasing is becoming an outright evil in the church. It's blinding people to extraordinary corruption. Worse it's rationalizing it. /10

So please read that profile. It's a window into a world that grasps power, rationalizes sin, and all too often lives in fear, in spite of its world-historic wealth and power. God help us, but American Christendom is undermining American Christianity: frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/how-american…