White House resident Donald Trump took a few moments off from his usual weekend routine of disappearing to one of his golf clubs for a few days to deliver an address to graduates at Jerry Falwell Jr.’s far-right Liberty University. It’s a good time to remind ourselves that Jerry Falwell Jr. is quite possibly the most consistently malevolent mainstream preacher in America today; he’s the supposed Jesus Guy who led the evangelical movement into accepting the serial sexual assaulter and misogynist Trump—a rich boor who conspicuously has never done a speck of Christian or non-Christian good for anybody—as being a good and proper vessel for evangelical voters because … well, that’s a good question now, isn’t it?

It’s partly because Falwell’s version of Christianity doesn’t seem to depend much on doing actual good. It’s partly because Falwell’s version of Christianity is one that flirts with a notion that more crooked preachers blurt out outright; if you’re rich, it means God doesn’t care whether you’re a decent man or not. But it is mostly because Falwell is of the opinion that whether or not you are a good Christian is entirely irrelevant, compared to the existential importance of making sure […]