Yes, Falwell Jr., Liberty University’s president, is happily in the pocket of the president. But evangelicalism’s most prestigious institution of higher learning, Wheaton College in suburban Chicago, is led by the Oxford-doctorate-holding Philip Ryken. Partisan? Not in the slightest.
Nor are the presidents of similar leading institutions: Calvin College in Michigan, Gordon College in Massachusetts, Westmont College in California and so on. Baylor University, the Baptist school aiming to rival Notre Dame, is led by a president who has her hands full defusing various ethical scandals and guiding Baylor into a brighter future. She has no time for political partisanship.
Yes, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, speaks out loudly and frequently on behalf of conservative values, yet even he is often circumspect about outright political partisanship. All the more politically reticent are the presidents of the other top 10 seminaries, all of them evangelical.