The support, Panyard and others said, hasreinforced their belief that there is a place for young evangelical journalists in the current media environment.

“As journalism students from Liberty University you wonder how you’ll be perceived by different news and media outlets, just considering our school’s reputation,” Stiner said. “And so to have this opportunity to engage on these huge platforms with these huge news media organizations and have them listen to us and hear our story and take us really seriously has been a really neat and really interesting [experience].”

As Panyard and his team prepare to enter their last semester at Liberty, the future of The Torch is still largely up in the air. Though the site has not faced any pushback from the university it has yet to pull in enough advertising revenue to cover hosting costs and its editors are all seniors, meaning come May the site may wind down without a new team to take their place.

But Panyard and his co-editors aren’t worried. It’s their faith, they said, that has them confident in The Torch’s future.

“I’m just absolutely amazed by how gracious God has been in all of this,” Panyard said, referring to the accomplishment of launching the site. “There is no doubt in my mind that we were supposed to reach this point, no doubt in my mind that we were supposed to get to here. And we’ll just see where we’re going from here.”

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