Conservative Liberty U Gets a Rap Anthem

Baptists in the South aren’t usually known for their rapping skills. One Liberty University student is changing that. Senior Jason Lewis (a.k.a. “HumbleTip”) composed his “Liberty University Anthem” two years ago. But after filing away the lyrics and rediscovering them recently, HumbleTip, fellow students and university administrators pitched in to turn his words into a music video.

Among the lyrics:

Jerry Falwell Seniors our founder, we give honor to/
Him and his wife made the vision plain/
Champions for Christ is what he set to train/
Controversy follows us, because of his name/
But we're going to set the world fire, and we'll start it with a flame/

I go to Liberty U, where the motto sounds/
If we turn away from Christ, burn our school to the ground/
We've got teachers leading lectures who are world renown/
Ask around and they'll tell you that we run this town/
They say we're close minded saints from the south/
But if you're too open minded than your brains will fall out/

Trust Christ heavily, to put it together/
Because if it's Christian, it should be better/
This is the most exciting school that you will ever see/
So to Liberty U, I introduce you cordially/
His Word will forever be our final authority/
I hope they're ready; we're the new moral majority.

The young man at the beginning of the video, who doesn’t look the least bit happy his mother has brought him to Liberty, might have every reason in the world to fear enrolling there. That’s especially if he’s gay.

Liberty University is, perhaps, best known by its association with its founder, controversial Moral Majority founder Rev. Jerry Falwell. He passed away in 2007, but left a long legacy of anti-LGBT, anti-choice and anti-Islamic prejudice. His school, originally founded in 1971 as Lynchburg Baptist College, continues to uphold Falwell’s anti-gay views and practices, discriminating against LGBT students and faculty and encouraging so-called reparative, “ex-gay” therapies.

In 2005, the national LGBT civil disobedience group Soulforce targeted Liberty University for their anti-gay student conduct code and other discriminatory policies. In 2006, Soulforce visited the campus again, making it the initial stop in their first nationwide Equality Ride, a journey which took two dozen young people to Christian colleges and universities which discriminate against LGBT students and faculty across the country. Organizers hoped to build bridges and put an end to several Christian colleges’ anti-gay policies and practices. Along with a dozen or so other youth, I participated in the 2006 direct action at Liberty University. Despite the peaceful nature of our activities, we were prohibited from speaking with students about LGBT inclusion and Liberty’s anti-gay policies and were arrested when we attempted to go on campus.

And, if you’re tempted to think Liberty is just a small, insignificant Baptist school in the South, think again. Liberty University puts a premium on their students’ political, legal, and civic involvement both while in school and after graduation. That commitment, reflected several times in HumbleTip’s lyrics, has had a significant impact on LGBT legal and political matters.

Liberty’s law school trains hundreds of students each year in the “context of the Christian intellectual tradition,” and ultimately prepares them to work in legal professions with a “Christian worldview” and as “morally responsible leaders of society.” The school’s associated Liberty Counsel, a legal advocacy organization, defends some of the most ardent, anti-gay organizations and causes in the nation. 

Matt Comer is a staff writer for Campus Progress.

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