Liberty University Brings Back Tim Clinton

After rushing in 2018 to tell me that Tim Clinton was no longer with Liberty University, the school has brought him back to lead a right wing initiative.

When Clinton was fending off allegations of plagiarism in 2018, I mistakenly wrote that he was on the faculty of Liberty U. Len Stevens from LU sent an email with the following message:

Liberty University leadership wants you to know that Tim Clinton resigned from Liberty University following the Spring Semester of 2018 for reasons unrelated to the allegations detailed in your article. Liberty University has no further comment.

Recently, I heard that Clinton had rejoined the school and wrote to ask Stevens if LU had done an independent investigation of the plagiarism allegations. I have received no response.

Also, back in April, former LU faculty member Karen Swallow Prior had this to say about Clinton’s most recent book:

In 2018 when the rampant and repeated instances of plagiarism by Tim Clinton were covered by Inside Higher Ed, I emailed Tim about it through his website. Because Tim was a fellow faculty member at Liberty University and is a brother in Christ, I thought it was important to reach out to him directly. I never heard back. When Tim later spoke at my church, I communicated my concerns to one of my pastors.

I am disappointed and grieved to see yet another instance of blatant plagiarism in this new book [Take It Back: Reclaiming Biblical Manhood for the Sake of Marriage, Family, and Culture]. The examples of plagiarism I’ve seen in it are so egregious that if they were committed by a student, I would give that student a failing grade for the class. Christians must do and demand better, especially Christian leaders.

The Inside Higher Ed article was published in 2018 and involved similar issues uncovered by Aaron New.

The new intiative is called the Global Center for Mental Health, Addiction and Recovery and references mental health issues provoked by the pandemic. One of the board members is Sam Rodriguez who last night at the AACC conference joked about the pandemic:

 

4 thoughts on “Liberty University Brings Back Tim Clinton”

  1. I don’t think it is fair to describe Liberty’s “Global Center for Mental Health, Addiction, and Recovery” as a “Right-wing initiative.”

    It is Liberty so anything they do is from a conservative christian view point. However, I don’t see (after a cursory review at least) any red-flags this center is going to be treating schizophrenia by “exorcising the demons” or engaging in conversion therapy or any other sort of quack therapy.

    1. They should not be treating schizophrenia period. The gold standard front line treatment for schizophrenia is to find a medication that reduces or eliminates the aural and/or visual hallucinations. PS You have not lived until you’ve sat in the doctor’s office while your mom describes her (very mild) visions and then renarks that the voices sound like incomprehensible static. This is NOT something Christian counseling can treat.

  2. Liberty University leadership sure are determined to make the wrong decision, every time. As investigations are ongoing, we still don’t know the total number of people on Liberty’s payroll who provided sexual favors for Mr. and Mrs. Falwell.

    On a different note, Dr. Throckmorton you deserve a gold star for your Twitter handle.

  3. Pastor Sam Rodriguez making COVID jokes at the American Association of Christian Counselors conference right now in Orlando. “I know Delta is real – but next we’ll have United and then American and then Southwest.”

    Off topic because my thoughts aren’t about Liberty, but on topic because Christians are the best joke tellers and always have been. It must be the Holy Spirit that helps with the delivery. /s

    I remember back in the mid-1980s when I was in a Discipleship Training School at Youth With a Mission / YWAM in Vancouver BC, we had a specialist / fly-in speaker (joker?) from San Francisco, who was probably paid a pretty penny out of our tuition to travel to our DTS and teach us for a week, who introduced himself as: “Hi, I’m _________ and I come from San Francisco, the land of fruits and nuts.” You could tell by the way he waited for the laughter after his punchline that this was a common joke of his. The older DTS faculty and staff did an expected “hardy har har” while the younger DTS students (it’s always the youth that’s more aware) were quite uncomfortable and appalled, and from that moment forward the students tuned out anything further he had to say during his visit (money well spent?).

    Oh, and Jesus wept.

    ETA: In the almost 40 years since my time at YWAM, it’s not shocking to see that “church jokes” haven’t gotten any better.

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