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Where Is the Liberty University of the Left?

Bernie Sanders is winning the hearts of college students. But do their colleges actually embody his values?
liberty university

Rod Dreher was impressed by Bernie Sanders’s outreach to Liberty University (as was I), and asks:

Where is the conservative Christian Bernie Sanders? A guy who stands up for the poor and the working class, but also for the unborn? I’d vote for that man — or woman — in a heartbeat.

I’m sure he would. The real question, though, is whether you’d respond to Sanders’ call to work together on issues of poverty and inequality across a difference on something as important (to Dreher) as abortion.

It seems to me that, in this context, a conservative Christian Sanders would be somebody who was down-the-line conservative on social issues, but who went to, I dunno, Yale to say: don’t make a shibboleth of your views on these social issues when you look for ways to help the poor. Be willing to put those disagreements aside to work with Catholic or Evangelical Christian – or, for that matter, Muslim – or other conservative religious groups, to serve those in need.

Except – Yale isn’t Liberty University. It is not, in the same way, an organization embodying and promoting a distinct ethos. It’s just a pillar of the establishment, dedicated to selecting the future leadership of America and training it to be the kind of leadership that it already, largely, wants to be (or that its parents want it to be).

So my question would be: is there a Liberty University of the left?

If there is, maybe someone can tell Fredrik deBoer so he can pay a visit.

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