Jerry Falwell Resigns From Liberty University (UPDATE ADDED)
[guest post by Dana]
Jerry Falwell Jr. the embattled president of Liberty University and one of the biggest champions of President Donald Trump, has resigned, Religion News Service has learned.
His resignation came within hours of the publication of a news story that alleged he and his wife Becki had a years-long sexual relationship with a business associate.
Falwell had been placed on indefinite leave earlier this month after posting, then deleting, a provocative Instagram photo of him posing with his arm around a woman at a party with their zippers down and midriffs showing.
Following the Instagram post of him with the other woman and their pants unzipped, there was a wide call by former faculty members for him to resign. There had already been a list of complaints against Falwell for offensive comments he had previously made.
Just this morning, a Reuters published a story that Falwell’s wife had been engaged in a years-long affair with one of Falwell’s business partners, and that, according to the business partner, things went south, in part, when he told the couple he wanted cut ties with them and then “fell into a business dispute with them”. It’s a sordid tale of broken vows, kinky sex, and even extortion. From what I’ve read and observed of Falwell over the years, this all seems to fit: a cheap grifter masquerading as an honest broker. Or perhaps to put it in religious terms: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Given the seedy particulars, I’m not too inclined to write much of a detailed post about the matter, suffice it to say that things fell apart in a spectacular way – as these things tend to do:
…as Reuters was preparing to publish this article, Jerry Falwell issued a statement to the Washington Examiner in which he said that his wife had had an affair with Granda and that Granda had been trying to extort money from the couple over the matter. Granda denies any such intent, saying he was seeking to negotiate a buyout from a business arrangement he says he had with the couple.
…
Other more recent text messages, such as an exchange from this June that Granda provided to Reuters, show Granda growing angry and frustrated as his relationship with the Falwells frayed.
“Since you’re okay with ruining my life, I am going to take the kamikaze route,” Granda wrote to Jerry Falwell. “It really is a shame because I wanted to reach a peaceful resolution and just move on with our lives but if conflict is what you want, then so be it.”
In the same message string, Falwell replied: “You should by now understand that I will not be extorted. I have always treated you fairly and been restrained in response to your threats because I did not wish to ruin your life. Going forward, stop contacting me and my family.”
Granda said that while he entered into the sexual relationship with the Falwells willingly, today he feels the couple preyed upon him. “Whether it was immaturity, naïveté, instability, or a combination thereof, it was this ‘mindset’ that the Falwells likely detected in deciding that I was the ideal target for their sexual escapades,” Granda said.
The full report leads to some interesting speculation about how Falwell’s support of Trump may have come about:
It raises an important question too about whether or not the Trump campaign used knowledge of the Falwells’ affair to pressure Jerry Jr. to endorse Trump. Former Trump legal fixer Michael Cohen told Tom Arnold that he handled a situation down in Florida in which somebody had some compromising boudoir shots of Becki Falwell that he (Cohen) had to obtain. Funnily enough, right after that, Jerry Jr., who was lined up to endorse Ted Cruz for president, flip-flopped to Trump. Amazing, eh?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Trump campaign “pressured” Falwell into an endorsement for Trump. Because as we’ve witnessed, those in Trump’s orbit – you know, the best and the brightest – often are revealed to be just as corrupt as their boss. Birds of a feather…
One another note: It’s sad to see the implosion of a marriage, even if the people involved are not individuals for whom we hold any respect. Family members and kids will be hurt by this very public moment of destruction. What a reminder to see how easily we can stray from the righteous path before us, and how far off that path we willingly wander. If the Falwells really are the believers they have claimed to be, then they face a more grueling reckoning than losing employment, dignity, self-respect, and the respect of others. Receiving the loving forgiveness of God is one of the most joyous experiences in the Christian’s life. But it doesn’t stop there. True restoration follows repentance, and it includes an incredibly painful and necessary heart surgery by the hand of God in order to bind the self-inflicted wounds, apply the healing salve, and then begin the agonizing journey toward wholeness.
ADDED: Uh-oh:
It’s here! The first day of classes!
What class are you most looking forward to this semester?📚 pic.twitter.com/vUnTpRCRzP— Liberty University (@LibertyU) August 24, 2020
UPDATE Via Politico:
New: Jerry Falwell Jr. tells me he is NOT leaving his post, despite indications from Liberty that he will do so. "I have not resigned," Falwell says.
— Maggie Severns (@MaggieSeverns) August 24, 2020
–Dana
What an incredible mess.
Dana (292df6) — 8/24/2020 @ 3:29 pmSo it is true.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 3:33 pmFallwell, Jr. was never cut out for the job of leading a Christian university. He had no training as a church leader, his background was as a real estate developer. Given some of the sweetheart business deals he was involved in with Liberty, there were clear conflicts of interest. I doubt that he was pressured to back Trump, they seem too much alike (from a business perspective)-willing to cut shady deals, and sell out people after they became useless to them.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/24/2020 @ 3:42 pmNo miracle is coming.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 8/24/2020 @ 3:43 pmOne one hand, I agree with you, Rip Murdock, about Falwell not needing any pressure to support Trump because of their similar “values,” but it is true that he was set to endorse Cruz first, and then abruptly endorsed to Trump.
Here is Reuter’s report from last year when Falwell was said to have asked Cohen for a “personal favor” concerning compromising photos of his wie.
Dana (292df6) — 8/24/2020 @ 3:58 pmFundamentalist doesn’t mean what we thought it meant after all.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 4:11 pmI feel like the excuse “It’s not gay if it’s a three-way.” might be relevant to Jerry’s life ATM.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/24/2020 @ 4:13 pmIt’s just so … common. So low class. So redneck.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 4:24 pmTough break, but I hear the Trump campaign is hiring.
Dave (1bb933) — 8/24/2020 @ 4:26 pmRemember, it was the elder Falwell who picked Junior to run his university despite the fact that the other son is an actual man of the cloth. One of Jerry Sr.’s biggest mistakes ever.
Paul Montagu (e7d63b) — 8/24/2020 @ 4:31 pmSo we can be assured that Falwell Jr. won’t be reviving the “Moral Majority” any time soon…
Dana (292df6) — 8/24/2020 @ 4:33 pmSo we can be assured that Falwell Jr. won’t be reviving the “Moral Majority” any time soon…
That’s not how those people think. They’ll take it as the right and proper thing to do now, while sneering at those who do other things publicly that they do in secret. There’s a Greek word for it.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 4:43 pmReasons for Jerry to join the Trump campaign:
#17: He can watch Trump have sex with his wife
#18: Trump tips generously
Dave (1bb933) — 8/24/2020 @ 5:17 pmI’d advise them to stick to the “business associate” line. As I kind of remember from the Eliot Spitzer case, prostitution across state lines is a federal offense even if the parties are of legal age.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 5:34 pm#19 Trump can pardon you for prostitution across state lines
Dave (1bb933) — 8/24/2020 @ 5:45 pmOfficial says Falwell leaving Liberty; Falwell says he’s not
Jerry Falwell Jr.’s future at evangelical Liberty University was unclear late Monday, with a senior school official saying he had resigned from his leadership post but Falwell telling several news outlets that he does not plan to leave permanently.
A formal announcement from the school was expected later in the day, according to the school official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. The disclosure of Falwell’s resignation followed the publication of news stories about his wife’s sexual encounters with a much younger business partner.
On Monday night, attorneys for Falwell and the school were negotiating the details of a possible departure, according to a person close to the school’s board of trustees who also spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss it.
But several news outlets quoted Falwell as saying that he has not agreed to leave the post permanently, nor does he plan to.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/24/2020 @ 6:02 pm………
Dead man walking. Falwell is being pushed, he doesn’t realize he needs to jump. If you read this Reuters story, it’s only a matter of time.
Negotiating his parachute. Like the boy toy did. I feel sorry for him, deep down. What a waste.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 6:09 pmWhat a loser. Can’t fathom how a dude can get his rocks off watching another guy bang his wife. But hey, we still need the moral majority to tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
Hoi Polloi (dc4124) — 8/24/2020 @ 6:37 pmRegardless of what you think of Queen, they sang it best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 8/24/2020 @ 6:43 pmWe only have the boy toy’s word for the sordid details, Hoi Polloi, and it’s better not to dwell on them at all.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 6:49 pmThe Reuters report says that Granda provided the outlet with text messages, audio recordings and screenshots from Facetime “meetings” with the Falwells.
I’ve added to the post an unfortunately-timed tweet…
Dana (292df6) — 8/24/2020 @ 7:05 pmI’ve also added an update to the post.
Dana (292df6) — 8/24/2020 @ 7:16 pmHey it least it wasn’t a boy!
asset (917852) — 8/24/2020 @ 7:35 pmCant wait till jerry falwell jr speaks at the convention on traditional christian family values.
asset (917852) — 8/24/2020 @ 8:00 pmIt was a boy, asset.
Dana, I just saw that Jerry Falwell/his lawyer? has also provided some details. So I guess we do kind of have “he said-he said”. Falwell denies any participation in the sexual acts and particularly the part of Troilus.
nk (1d9030) — 8/24/2020 @ 8:40 pmABC News reports that Falwell Jr’s resignation is back on.
JVW (ee64e4) — 8/24/2020 @ 9:44 pm13.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
lurker (d8c5bc) — 8/24/2020 @ 10:55 pmThose who scream loudest about the need for sexual purity are usually the biggest sexual deviants.
Hoi Polloi (dc4124) — 8/25/2020 @ 3:31 amOh, my! It was Troilic, no question about it. And I finally got to see the infamous, pants unzipped photo of recent vintage.
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 4:22 amWhat bothered me is his strictly enforcing rules on Liberty U students that he hadn’t follow himself.
Time123 (7cca75) — 8/25/2020 @ 4:30 amI have posted before that in Greece proselytizing is a crime. It is also frowned on by the Greek Orthodox Church itself, supported by this passage:
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 4:47 amfilthy greecers can suck on sour grapes cuz nobody wants to worship their stupid tranny gods like zeus and hera
shut up and offer your hecatombs
Dave (1bb933) — 8/25/2020 @ 5:17 amlearn the difference between parody and imitation, mr. Dave
and that is all i have to say
besides don’t let that pistachio ice cream with sriracha sauce drip on your shirt, i mean
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 5:26 amIf you haven’t seen the pants unzipped picture, click the Oh, my! link at 29. It is … revelatory.
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:02 amYes lets have debauchery as the standard, instead of some restraint.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:16 amepstein weinstein, nxim, (which is in the eyes wide shut realm) with creepy papa rutnik, the mexican uniparty, and a dynasty guest star, along with the ropers from smallville, parallels might be george roche of hillsdale, which didn’t discredit the message,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:23 amSo, narciso (that Bolivar di griz has worn thin, trust me), did they adopt Tesla’s AC system or Edison’s DC system for the electric grid in your universe?
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:32 amYes lets have debauchery as the standard, instead of some restraint.,
Amigo, when you support Trump, you mean that literally.
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:37 amdebauchery and every form of abomination is what is taught in the schools, has brother falwell fallen, yes, and…what’s the alternative,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:41 amWell, no, not everywhere. I went through sixteen years of Chicago public schools and three years of Chicago Jesuit school, and neither pimping out, nor pimping for, your wife were in any of the curricula. It’s different in your World?
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:46 am@39, It’s been a while since i believed you, or the right in general, cared about debauchery and every form of abomination. Look at this as an example. No one on the evangelical right seems upset or disappointed in his behaviors.
He’s on your team, that’s the most important thing.
Time123 (7cca75) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:50 amThe alternative is to not have a throuple with a pool boy. I don’t have the Liberty U code of conduct in front of me, but my guess is that it’s frowned upon.
Paul Montagu (a2078e) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:52 am@41
Yup. The right don’t care about this.
whembly (c30c83) — 8/25/2020 @ 6:55 amThey should just say so and let ppl at liberty U date. I think everyone would be less stressed.
Time123 (7cca75) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:08 amHe broke his own organizations rules, but its better to have a standard, instead of the sophisticated ivy league, which knows none
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:11 amI’ll grant you part of that. Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. At least Falwell recognized the existence of virtue. Trump does not. He is blatant in his vice. Those nekkid pichers of Melania he got into the kerfuffle with Cruz over? Trump had them taken and published.
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:17 am@45 You don’t have a standard. You have an excuse to tell other ppl what to do. Just admit you don’t care about biblical family values.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:19 amI’ll venture that 99% of Trump’s supporters are better people than Trump. Why are they supporting the mother-figure?
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:20 am@46, That’s true at the individual level, but not so true at the group.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:20 amWeve seen palomino pelosi legs up, miss threeple who is now teaming up with milano, dont know whose more deluded, the zinoviev impeachment was what she brought forth and the parademon hordes
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:21 am@50 Are you having a stroke?
Time123 (f5cf77) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:23 amShorthand, san francisco and marin county values which are the order of the day.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:24 amThe phony impeachment and surveillance perpetrated by a gruntled british operative and his gang of drinking buddies
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:27 am@46, That’s true at the individual level, but not so true at the group.
You’re right.
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:27 amI think you mean “Right Wing Conservative Values”.
Time123 (f5cf77) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:30 am@48
Cuz…
The alternatives are much worse. (ie, Democrat ran governance)
whembly (c30c83) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:34 am@56, that’s not born out by the poling.
The majority of Trump voters are more excited to vote for him then against Biden.
Time123 (7cca75) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:35 amIts not really complicated, we saw what a single average public spirited person went through 12 years ago,
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:37 amFunny, there was another Cuban-American;guy we should have listened to about New York Values, at least our counterpart mentioned the other coast.
urbanleftbehind (78d312) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:39 amYes weve been through that chapter, yes falwell bad, bakker yeesh, osteen is the wirst kind of self actualizing tapioca. Stanleys successor is not a chip off the old block thats for sure.
Bolivar di griz (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:42 amLeft out Jimmy Swaggart. You’d think they’d save it up for their Black Masses on Witches Sabbath.
nk (1d9030) — 8/25/2020 @ 7:45 am@57
You can’t really extrapolate like that based on simply on polls, it can be much more nuanced…
*I’m* excited to vote for Trump BECAUSE it’s primarily AGAINST voting for Biden/Democrats.
whembly (c30c83) — 8/25/2020 @ 8:28 amWhembly, There was a poll from a few weeks ago that asked that of respondents who indicated they planned to vote for a given candidate. I posted a link to it with the actual question. I think it’s a pretty clean question and it wasn’t really close. Ppl aren’t excited to for Biden.
Time123 (7cca75) — 8/25/2020 @ 8:41 amI don’t know if this is apropos of the subject of this thread, but did any of you watch the new Perry Mason mini-series (8 episodes) on HBO? I did, out of curiosity at first, because I had read glowing reviews of it. The critics lavished it with praise for production, casting, screenwriting, setting, scenery, costumes, props, made it sound like the best new show on a movie channel, so I checked it out. It was not what I expected. Vulgar, graphic verging on pornographic at times, dark and sordid, I don’t think it’s the kind of show someone like Dana would enjoy watching, but it drew me in. Perplexing and horrific, I just had to know how the plot, which is complex, would work itself out. In the end, I came away thinking that, while well-filmed, the series left me unsatisfied. Perry Mason is nowhere near as good as Bosch (also on HBO), which in my opinion is the best series I’ve seen in decades. So, if any of you plan to watch it, be warned, it is not what the critics portray it to be. If any of you have watched it, I would appreciate your thoughts and insights.
The series is set in the early 1930s, beginning on New Year’s Eve, 1931, and continuing through 1932, amidst the onset of the Great Depression, and tells the story of a young Perry Mason and how he came to become a lawyer in his first case, which is a terrifying murder mystery. Flashbacks reveal that Mason had been a combat artillery soldier in WW I, but had been dishonorably discharged from the Army for insubordination (he punched a superior officer in an argument), and now he’s working as a private investigator, doing mostly sneak and peak jobs, taking compromising photos of adulterers in sordid divorces, a few of the scenes are sick and obscene. He’s also working as an investigator for a prominent attorney in Los Angeles, who takes the case of a young wife accused of the grotesque murder of her infant boy, in a twisted kidnapping gone awry.
The young wife, herself involved in a adulterous affair it turns out, and her husband, the son of a wealthy businessman, had received a ransom demand of $100,000 cash in exchange for the return of their boy. The husband gets the money from his father, but when they leave it in their apartment and rush to the cable street car to retrieve their child, he is found dead, with his eyes sown open in a horrifying blank stare. That’s just in the first episode. Much murder and mayhem ensues as the sordid plot unfolds.
The show touches on just about every aspect of American hypocrisy–racism, sexism, corruption, police brutality, organized crime, political and religious persecution–the entire modern ‘liberal’ panoply set in the Great Depression. Midway through the series, the attorney Mason works for commits suicide by carbon monoxide asphyxiation in his garage, thus Perry is forced, at the insistence of the paralegal secretary, to take the bar exam, become a licensed lawyer, and close out the case, in defense of the set-upon young mother. It is his first trial, and it is a doozy, one fraught with every kind of corruption and hypocrisy imaginable.
In the end, and I don’t mean to be a spoiler here, it turns out that the entire brutal murder of a child was all set up, from the beginning, to bail out an Evangelical church, with a female pastor passing herself off as a prophetess. It is all so sick and demented. But Perry Mason does get his client off–mistrial, hung jury. And so the corruption and hypocrisy continues unabated.
It is such a sad and sick mini-series, one that I really do not believe accurately depicts reality in any way. I do not recommend it, although I will admit it does shine a dark spotlight on American Christianity.
This is nothing new. Nathaniel Hawthorne recognized it when he wrote The Scarlet Letter. The real adulterer and hypocrite was the minister! He abandoned the young mother of his child, and own daughter, the persecution and humiliation of the townspeople, while he received praises for his sermons from the pulpit. Talk about gross hypocrisy and sin. This is exactly what Jesus railed against, when He drove the Pharisees and hypocrites out of His Church–“You have made my Temple into a den of thieves!”–or so goes the lyrics to Jesus Christ Superstar.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was the first to realize that the nascent American people needed to form their own identity, in his great work, Self-Reliance. Henry David Thoreau followed along in that path, in his great work, Walden. Walt Whitman also followed along, in a somewhat disturbing sort of way, in his great work, Leaves of Grass, and other poems. Whitman though, and very few are willing to admit this, was an onanist, meaning he never had sex with anyone other than himself. In other words, he was a masturbate, which is a far greater sin in the minds of Evangelicals or WASPs than adultery or child abandonment.
It is a sick, twisted, mad, mad, mad world we live in. There is no end to hypocrisy, sin and corruption in this country, and we’re supposedly the shining light on a hill, the beacon of freedom and liberty for the entire world. Sadly, I don’t think so.
Under Trump, this entire country and the Republican party in particular has gone to hell in a handbasket. And I, for one, don’t see any path forward to recovery. As a (lapsed) Catholic, I try to live by the Sacraments. But it is becoming increasingly difficult, as this nation continues in its downward death spiral. God help us all.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 8/25/2020 @ 8:42 amAmerica has always been rotten, isn’t that the message, lets tear it down, the flatline kills main street, wall street and the big box stores are less affected, then the riots comes and scavenge off what’s left, this is after 30 years, of the piracy that international trade agreements have been relabeled,
aimee semple mcpherson, you never heard of her before, a rather garish extrapolation of same, she bowed out before the 20s ended in the recession, before lord roosevelt, offered us scarcity as a virtue, the dole as the mana, that was the best we could do, frankly the arms buildup after 1940 showed us otherwise, but the soviet moles in the government, like remington, hiss duggan currie did as much to prevent this,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 8:55 amwhat we’ve undergone the last six months, is demoralization and destabilization, as bezmenov, outlined all the way back in 1984, as haley reminded us, in the convention speech, back when the democrats were known soviet moles, of course they retreated into the media and academia, for another generation, shaping the information space,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 9:04 amsaul of tarsus, was speaking of this 2,000 years ago, there will come a time of persecutions, as sure as we are here, plagues of dimension we can’t even imagine, what restrictions will we accept then,
bolivar de gris (7404b5) — 8/25/2020 @ 9:13 amJerry Falwell Jr. officially resigns from Liberty University
After a daylong back and forth, Jerry Falwell Jr. officially resigned from Liberty University Monday night, he told ABC News.
The embattled religious leader told ABC News he submitted his resignation letter to the school late Monday night.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/25/2020 @ 9:40 am…….
I would have put “religious leader” in quotes.
Preacher in sex scandal = Dog bites man
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/25/2020 @ 10:01 amThis is as newsworthy as “60’s rock star dies of overdose.”
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 8/25/2020 @ 10:02 am