Liberty stands with Brunson

In the wake of a national standoff between Turkey and the United States, Liberty University has chosen to partner with Pastor Andrew Brunson, an evangelical preacher being held under house arrest on terrorism counts in Turkey.

The university has also paused its relationship with Turkish Airlines for all LU Send trips until Turkish leadership releases Brunson.

“Pastor Brunson has been wrongly imprisoned for his faith and for sharing the gospel, and at the end of the day, we feel like he has been wrongly treated by the leadership in Turkey,” Senior Vice President for Spiritual Development at Liberty University David Nasser said.

Nasser said the message to Turkey from Liberty was clear and understood by the executive leadership at Turkish Airlines.

Nasser said that the pressure on Turkey to release Brunson comes at a time when Turkey will already be on the main stage at Liberty because of the Campus Community series called “Seven”, which starts Sept. 5.

Seven, a series rooted in hope, comes out of the Apostle John pleading with the seven churches in Asia Minor in the book of Revelation.

To help prepare for the series, a team of 35 Liberty staff, including executive leadership and a creative team, traveled to the seven churches this summer, straight out of the book of Revelation.

“We’ve never preached on the seven churches of Asia Minor or traveled to Turkey with leadership like we did this summer,” Nasser said. “But all that was teeing up this series, and every week, we are going to be talking about Turkey, which is going to remind us to be praying for pastor Brunson and his family and his release.”

Nasser asked students at the first Campus Community of the year to write and bring in letters the following week asking for the release of Brunson.

“It’s not against Turkey, we love the people of Turkey, we love the nation of Turkey we’re just asking their leadership to release our brother,” said Nasser.

Brunson has been a topic of international conversation since 2016, but was brought to the front page following a fiery exchange of Tweets between figureheads in July 2018.

“The United States will impose large sanctions on Turkey for their long-time detainment of Pastor Andrew Brunson, a great Christian, family man and a wonderful human being. He is suffering greatly. This innocent man of faith should be released immediately!” President Donald Trump Tweeted July 26, 2018.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu fired back only 27 minutes later.

“No one dictates Turkey. We will never tolerate threats from anybody,”

Cavusoglu Tweeted.

Brunson has lived in Turkey for 23 years and was renewing his visa in the spring of 2016 when authorities detained him and denied him visitation rights, including a lawyer and members of Brunson’s church, Izmir Dirilis (Resurrection) Church.

December 9, 2016, Brunson was officially charged with membership to an organization deemed a terrorism group — the Gulenists, a branch of the Hizmet movement.

The group’s namesake is Fethullah Gulen — a Muslim imam and U.S. based cleric who has recently led the movement to Germany and Kyrgyzstan. Gulen preaches that Muslims have a calling to resist and fight terror and believes in universal education and tolerance of all faiths and ideas.

Turkey has maintained the idea that Gulenists are terrorists. The Turkish president blamed Gulenists for the 2016 attempted coup in Ankara and Istanbul.

During the coup, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went live via Facetime with a CNN Turk reporter, and told citizens to take up arms however they could and go to the streets.

The failed insurrection was the fourth attempt in Turkey’s 95-year existence, and it was the bloodiest attempt — 290 Turks were killed and 1,400 were injured.

After the coup, Turkey imprisoned 40,000 suspected Gulen supporters, including Brunson.

Liberty University will continue to support Brunson through prayer and encouragement until further notice.