Liberty University’s Debate between Religious Liberals and Conservatives Hits a Snag

(RNS) — Plans for a proposed debate between liberal Christian leaders and representatives from Liberty University, a theologically conservative evangelical Christian school, have stalled, with participants unable to agree on a topic or a date for the event.

The Rev. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a North Carolina pastor slated to participate in the event, suggested Liberty University had backtracked.

“It seems Charlie Kirk and Jerry Falwell want to launch a center and fire people up about the dangers of an imagined socialism, but when they publicly challenged us and we said we would be glad to pay our own way to come and make the biblical case for taxing corporate wealth to address real human needs, they aren’t willing to back up their tweets,” he told Religion News Service in a text.

Liberty spokesman Scott Lamb disagrees.

He told RNS the school wants to hold the debate — which was originally planned for the spring — but prefers to push it until after the Democratic and Republican conventions this summer.

“I think it’s a lot more interesting conversation after the RNC and DNC have their conventions and draft their platforms,” he said.

Talk of a debate between liberal faith leaders and representatives from Liberty first emerged in November 2017, when Wilson-Hartgrove and the Rev. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the activist group The Poor People’s Campaign,…