Falwell gave evangelicals political voice

WASHINGTON – Admire him or revile him, the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s role in American history will reverberate long past his death Tuesday at the age of 73.

He was among the first socially conservative ministers to recognize the potential political power of his fellow believers and to harness that power. That led to an alliance with the Republican Party that had profound consequences for American public life over the past quarter-century.

Falwell was found unconscious Tuesday morning in his office at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and couldn’t be revived. He had a history of heart troubles.

Falwell built one of the nation’s first megachurches, founded a cable television network and the growing Bible-based Liberty University, and was considered the voice of the religious right in the early 1980s. In 1983, U.S. News & World Report named him one of the 25 most influential people in America.

He also drew fierce criticism. An outspoken supporter of South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 1980s, he visited the country and voiced his support for the white minority government.

In 1999, he told an evangelical conference the Antichrist was a male Jew alive in the world today. He later apologized for his remarks but not for holding the belief.

That same year, he criticized the children’s show “The Teletubbies” because he thought one of the four colorful, nonhuman characters – Tinky Winky, the purple one with the red bag – might be gay. He routinely, cruelly vilified gay people.

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said, “Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America’s anti-gay industry … someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”

In 2002, on “60 Minutes,” he labeled the Prophet Muhammad, founder of the Islamic religion, a terrorist.

Perhaps his most provocative comment came on Sept. 13, 2001, when he appeared on “The 700 Club,” the Rev. Pat Robertson’s TV show, and blamed pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, the ACLU and others for Sept. 11.

“I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen,’ ” he said.

He later apologized on CNN.

But, for all his critics, “he was the most instrumental person in getting a heretofore apolitical group to become politically engaged. And that’s no small accomplishment,” said Michael Cromartie, an expert on evangelicals at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Before Falwell, Southern Baptists and most other evangelical Christian groups were reluctant to get involved in “things of this world,” including politics; they had their eyes on what they considered higher things, primarily saving souls. When Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1978, fellow fundamentalist Bob Jones called the organization “the work of Satan,” because the organization was making common cause with Catholics, Mormons and Jews in an ecumenical-political alliance.

“Many people forget that Falwell had critics to his right,” Cromartie said.

“He came to understand that if people of faith were not engaged in the larger culture, eventually the culture would move in a direction so hostile to its values it would be difficult to live in that culture,” said Ralph Reed Jr., former executive director of the Christian Coalition.

In an interview with the Lynchburg, Va., News and Advance available on the Jerry Falwell Ministries Web site, Falwell contended that “America began losing her soul only a generation ago.”

He decried prayer expelled from public schools, abortion legalization, a high divorce rate, teen pregnancy, a drug epidemic, the gay and lesbian lifestyle, school violence, and pornography. “America is in serious jeopardy of self-destructing,” he said.

Liberals, leftists, anti-God politicians and activist judges were primarily to blame, Falwell proclaimed over the years. A fusion of politics and conservative Christian piety became the antidote.

Falwell founded the Moral Majority with the express purpose of organizing a Christian right electorate, registering voters, raising funds for candidates and exerting political leverage at state and national levels.

The organization first applied that leverage in Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980, helping forge a bond between the Republican Party and the religious right that remains strong.

“Moral Majority by necessity became the lightning rod of the conservative movement,” Falwell told the New York Times in 1987. “It was first. It was extremely successful in 1980. And that brought down a firestorm from all who disagreed.”

In 1983, just as the “firestorm” began to rage, Larry Flynt’s sex magazine Hustler carried a parody of a Campari ad that featured a fake interview with Falwell in which he admits to incest with his mother. He sued, alleging invasion of privacy, libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A jury rejected the invasion of privacy and libel claims, holding that parody could not reasonably be considered a description of actual events, but ruled in favor of Falwell on the emotional distress claim.

After the ruling was upheld on appeal, Flynt appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. The court confirmed that public figures cannot recover damages based on emotional distress caused by parodies.

In 1987, Falwell took over the scandal-plagued PTL ministry from its disgraced founder, Jim Bakker. PTL gave him access to a nationwide cable television network that reached 13.5 million homes. Unable to salvage the Bakker empire, with its deficit of some $70 million, he resigned a few months later.

“I am not a Republican; I am not a Democrat! I am a noisy Baptist!” he told crowds of supporters.

Falwell dissolved the Moral Majority in 1989, insisting the organization had accomplished what he had set out to accomplish.

In 2004, after voters told pollsters that moral values were important to them in the presidential election, Falwell founded the Faith and Values Coalition, calling it the “21st-century resurrection of the Moral Majority.”

The organization’s objectives included support for anti-abortion judges and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Although his political influence and public profile had diminished in recent years as he devoted more of his time to Liberty University, his positions on a number of core issues have become canonical for the mainstream of the modern Republican Party.

“He had awakened the slumbering giant of evangelical politics and made it a force to be reckoned with,” Reed said. “It has become the most critical and vibrant constituency in the American electorate, certainly on the Republican side.”