The trustees of Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell Sr., finally located their collective spine, and put Liberty president and chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. out on indefinite suspension. What crossed the line? This Instagram message:

It’s an image of Jerry Jr. and his wife Becki’s personal assistant. The unzipped pants were part of a white-trash costume party being held on a yacht where the fundagelical macher was vacationing with family and friends. He later deleted that Instagram post, but the damage had been done. Imagine the arrogance of being the head of a conservative Evangelical college, and not only partying like that, but putting it out on social media!

Politico writes:

Liberty University has a strict code of conduct for students that, among other things, prohibits students from having sexual relations outside of a “biblically-ordained” marriage and consuming media with lewd lyrics, sexual content and nudity.

On Wednesday, Falwell said he had “apologized to everybody” for the photo but also defended the incident as a vacation “costume party” that was “just in good fun.” He added: “I’m gonna try to be a good boy from here on out.”

Jerry Jr. did a call-in interview with a Lynchburg radio station to try to explain himself. He might have been as sober as a judge on that call, but he sure does sound drunk. Listen to it and judge for yourself.

Emma Green at The Atlantic writes about the latest:

With Falwell’s ouster, one of the most influential evangelical institutions in the country is facing an identity crisis: There’s never been a time when Liberty wasn’t led by a Falwell. The president has also lost one of his most prominent ties to the evangelical community. Donald Trump earned credibility in Christian circles four years ago in part because Falwell promoted him as the evangelical champion, and now it’s not clear who Falwell speaks for. Liberty’s leaders see Falwell’s statements and actions as unbecoming of a Christian leader, especially for someone in such a high-visibility role. But most of all, Christians inside and outside of Liberty fear Falwell has tarnished the mission of the school, and of evangelicalism—to “train champions for Christ.”

More:

Falwell’s supporters at the school were willing to rationalize his behavior and focus on his strengths. But this is the “Achilles’ heel of evangelicalism,” Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor who recently left Liberty, told me. “We put so much emphasis on the redemption narrative that we are too willing to excuse sinful behavior, and not hold people accountable.” This culture of forgiveness and redemption, she added, is why so many evangelical leaders are willing to overlook bad behavior in Trump.

Someone on Reddit calculated that a Liberty student who did what Jerry Jr. did with that yacht hootenanny and photo would rack up a ton of demerits and possibly be expelled from the school.

Here’s David French’s take on “the decline and fall of Jerry Falwell”. Excerpts:

If you know anything about American Evangelical higher education, the shocking thing about the board of trustees’ decision to place Liberty University president Jerry Falwell on an “indefinite” leave of absence isn’t that it happened, but that it took so long. And no, I’m not naïve. I know full well that Evangelical educational institutions have often suffered from low-integrity leadership in the past. But the general rule has been clear—misdeeds must be done in secret for the leader to survive. He must conceal his sin. The instant his wrongdoing becomes open and notorious, the leader must leave.

Jerry Falwell, however, was blazing a new trail. He was living his sin out loud, careening from controversy to controversy even as his students and faculty lived under the traditional, strict moral rules of Christian education. In response, Falwell didn’t bother pretending to be a spiritual leader. Instead, his argument was the higher education equivalent of “scoreboard!” His success excused his sin.

French says that Evangelical institutions have long recognized that their leadership class has to live by higher ethical standards:

For several years, however, Liberty flipped this script. The president lived life with greater freedom than his students or his faculty. The message sent was distinctly unbiblical—that some Christian leaders can discard integrity provided their other qualifications, from family name to fund-raising prowess, provided sufficient additional benefit.

French cites the stunning and swift decline in Liberty’s enrollment applications (this taken from a Liberty annual report):

That makes sense to me. My niece is an Evangelical Christian who graduated from high school this spring. She has long wanted to go to Liberty. She ended up at a state school, which was far more affordable, but I had warned her about the risks of getting a Liberty degree. She is completely apolitical, and deeply devoted to her church. I’m quite sure she was only focused on the good side of Liberty, and knew nothing of the antics of Falwell Jr. I warned her, though, that as long as Falwell Jr. is in the saddle, he’s making a Liberty diploma toxic to potential employers. It may not be fair at all, but that’s how the world works.

Again, I’m sure she made her decision based on financial prudence, but surely a greater than 50 percent falloff in applications in the three years of Trump’s presidency has something to do with the fact that Liberty only makes headlines when Jerry Jr. has done something obnoxious.

I’m wondering now if Junior’s fall will free the tongues of people at Liberty to talk about the weird, skeezy aspects of the Falwell lifestyle. For example, will we finally learn what really happened in the Miami Beach Pool Boy scandal? You might have heard of the Pool Boy escapade, but unless you read this 2019 Brandon Ambrosino piece in Politico, you might not know that there’s all kinds of serious controversy at Liberty over Falwell Jr.’s administration — and that people who work there have been scared to death to talk about it.

UPDATE: A reader who teaches at a college writes:

FWIW, those aren’t crashing numbers at Liberty. The final number, the one that counts, is matriculates-the number of new students who actually show up. 3,143 is actually an increase. If they are doing that on a third the number of applications they have likely adjusted their recruitment strategy to better target students who are genuine prospects.