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The Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder and chancellor of the
Baptist college, Liberty University, and influential televangelist, died
May 15 at the age of 73. Around 10,000 people attended his funeral.
Falwell will be remembered as the founder of the Moral
Majority and as a sure source of flamboyant, religious-inspired bigotry.
Among his more notorious comments was his accusation that the Sept. 11
attacks were the result of “pagans, and the abortionists, and the
feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” as well as the ACLU.
According to the reverend, God was so indignant about
an America that would tolerate the presence of such sinners that He used
(created?) terrorists to punish the nation with fire. Falwell later
apologized for the statement.
Yet, remarks like this were typical of Falwell’s
entire career. Falwell denounced the Rev. Martin Luther King and the
struggle for civil rights (“the civil wrongs movement”); he denounced
Bishop Desmond Tutu and the struggle against apartheid; he denounced
Tinky Winky for being a purple cartoon character with a handbag—which was
sure to influence children into adopting a “gay life-style.”
Falwell was enormously successful in spreading his
message. The small church that he founded in 1956 has swelled to a
membership of 24,000 today. Almost immediately, Falwell began using local
radio and television for spreading his sermons.
In 1971, he began “The Old Time Gospel Hour,” a
program syndicated to hundreds of radio and television stations, with a
listening audience of 1.4 million. In the same year, Falwell founded
Lynchburg Baptist College, which eventually grew to Liberty University,
with more than 21,000 students enrolled.
Perhaps most importantly, Falwell in 1979 founded the
Moral Majority, a lobbying organization instrumental in electing conservative
political candidates. The Rev. Falwell was not the first to bring
evangelical Christians as a group into national politics. Credit
President Jimmy Carter for that. But Jerry Falwell built a mass
organization that wedded Christians to a right-wing political agenda in
general and the Republican Party in particular and helped bring Ronald
Reagan to the White House.
Falwell’s key operational concept that made the Moral
Majority possible was the idea of “cobelligerency.” This meant that
conservative Christians who disagreed with each other on theological
issues would unite among themselves and with Protestants, Catholics, and
Mormons in pursuit of common political goals.
For the religious right, it was a thoroughly radical
idea. In the past these denominations would ignore each other, at best.
Furthermore, fundamentalist Christians had traditionally separated
themselves from the political arena to focus on personal issues of
morality. Political work was taboo. Falwell changed all that.
In the 1980s the Moral Majority grew explosively and
became the political voice of conservative Christians. From an emphasis
on personal and family values, Falwell and the Moral Majority went on to
adopt a wide range of right-wing causes, from supporting funding for the
B1 bomber to opposing the Panama Canal treaty, opposing the strategic
arms limitation treaty (SALT II), the Equal Rights Amendment, and
social-welfare legislation, in addition to the traditional opposition to
abortion and homosexuality.
Falwell made regular appearances on television news
and commentary programs as the representative of the fundamentalist
right. He was an effective advocate. Falwell could say terrible things in
debate, though a soothing voice and a broad smile seemed to exude
friendliness, even warmth.
Still, in angry moments, Falwell’s narrow-minded,
vindictive malice seeped through. In righteous indignation the ends of
his jowly, smug smile pumped up and down like wobbly pistons as he
proclaimed that, for instance, AIDS was God’s just punishment on the
wicked. Often, it seemed that God’s judgment was reserved almost
exclusively for Falwell’s enemies.
In fact, Falwell practiced a highly selective brand of
Christianity. Not for him the doctrine of charity, forgiveness, and “turn
the other cheek.” Nor did he preach the message of social compassion
taught by even conservative Catholics.
When Pope John Paul II visited America and gave mass
in New York City’s Central Park, he spoke out in favor of immigrants; he
reminded his listeners to care and provide for the poor; he spoke in
favor of the United Nations and stressed the need for world peace. Even
the more right-wing Pope Benedict XVI, visiting Brazil near the time of
Falwell’s death, felt compelled to denounce “rampant capitalism” and
globalization for exacerbating the gap between rich and poor and creating
more human misery. Not a hint of this compassion can be found in
Falwell’s theology.
Despite his many talents as a preacher and political
organizer, Reverend Jerry Falwell was ultimately a false prophet capable
of no more than leading his followers into the desert.
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