Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell (born
August 11,
1933 in
Lynchburg,
Virginia) is a
Fundamentalist Baptist pastor and
televangelist from the
United States. He also founded the
Moral Majority movement in 1979 and
Liberty University in 1971. He remains a controversial figure due to his theological, political and social beliefs. His parents were Carey and Helen Falwell, and he has a fraternal twin brother, Gene Falwell.
He has been married to the former Macel Pate since
April 12,
1958, and has two sons (one, Jerry Jr., is a
lawyer and the other, Jonathan, a
pastor) and one daughter (Jeannie, who is a
surgeon).
Falwell has long associated himself with 'Bible-believing, independent, local-church oriented, Baptist fundamentalism' and leads services at
Thomas Road Baptist Church, a "megachurch" in Lynchburg, Virginia. He changed affiliations from the more traditional
Baptist Bible Fellowship International to the mainly conservative
Southern Baptist Convention.
Prior to the founding of his church Falwell attended
Lynchburg College in
Lynchburg, Virginia without graduating. He later attended and graduated from
Baptist Bible College (Springfield, Missouri) in 1956 with a
Bachelor of Theology.
[Jerry Falwell's Official Biography July 1, 2006 ] (Baptist Bible College became regionally
accredited only in 2001.[
1])
Falwell uses the title of
doctor from an honorary
Doctor of Divinity from
Tennessee Temple Theological Seminary, an honorary
Doctor of Letters from
California Graduate School of Theology (an unaccredited institution
), and an honorary
Doctor of Laws from
Central University (Seoul) in
Seoul, Korea (an unaccredited institution
[UNESCO's list of accreditated schools– Accreditation database for South Korea ]).
On May 30, 2005
USA Today reported Falwell's condition was upgraded from critical to stable and removed him from a ventilator after
congestive heart failure.
[Falwell is taken off ventilator, upgraded to stable condition USA Today May 30, 2005] President
George W. Bush contacted Falwell to "wish him well."
He was eventually released from the hospital and returned his duties.
In 1995, Jerry Falwell began publishing a politically conservative, monthly newspaper. Its articles include religious freedom cases, the homosexual-rights movement, as well as examinations of the United States government. It also features articles on biblical prophecy, religious freedom, and Christian family issues.
The NLJ's stated objective is to:
* Inform Christians on the pertinent political, social and religious news of the day so that they are an educated voting bloc during election times;
* Identify the key religious freedom cases of the day;
* Encourage Christians by presenting modern interpretation articles on biblical prophecy, the Last Days, and the imminent return of Christ and 21st Century ministry strategies.[
2]
:More at
Thomas Road Baptist ChurchJerry Falwell attended high school at Brookville High School in Lynchburg, VA, where he was a student athlete (a "multi-letterman" as described in the terms of the time), playing on both the football and the basketball teams as a starter.[
Personal recollections of Dennis M. Smith who attended with Mr. Falwell at the time, as related to the author.] Jerry Falwell converted to Christianity as a young man in college and quickly felt a great desire to convert his home city, Lynchburg, to Christianity. After attending Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, he founded Thomas Road Baptist Church.
In 1956, Jerry Falwell became the first pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church of Lynchburg, Virginia. Only 35 adults were recorded as being in attendance at the church's first meeting in the elementary school that he attended. The church subsequently found its first permanent home in a structure which had been a Donald Duck Bottling Company building, a short distance from the location of what was at that time Brookville High School, subsequently Brookville Elementary School, and then the first campus of Liberty Baptist College, an insititution of higher learning associated closely with the church and with Falwell. From these beginnings Thomas Road Baptist Church has grown to a membership in excess of 24,000, based in a 6,000 seat sanctuary and an additional 1 million square feet of educational space. The church holds 4 services per week.[
3] In July of 2006, TRBC and celebrated its 50th anniversary and inaugurated its new sanctuary near Liberty University.
Founded in 1971 and located in
Lynchburg, VA,
Liberty University is a fully accredited evangelical Christian
Liberal Arts university, offering an assortment of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in over 70 programs, including Accounting, Pre-Med, Computer Science, Education, Law, Nursing, Psychology, and Religion.
: More at
The PTL ClubThe September 21, 1987 issue of
Time (magazine) noted that Jerry Falwell "plunged" down a 163 foot "hellish" water slide in fulfillment to "a promise made during a fund-raising drive that netted $20 million for the debt-ridden
PTL."[
4] This drive eventually took
The PTL Club, PTL TV network and
Heritage USA from
Jim Bakker.[
5] It is noted that "Bakker arranged for Falwell to take over PTL in March in an effort to avoid what he called a "hostile takeover" of the television ministry by people threatening to expose a sexual encounter he admitted to having seven years earlier with church secretary
Jessica Hahn."[
6]
Photos cirulated of the event at the Typhoon waterslide at
Heritage Island (located at
Heritage USA) in which Falwell remained fully clothed. It was selected as "The Best of Photojournalism" in 1987 Pictures of the Year book presented by the National Press Photographers Association.[
7] In September 1999,
The Associated Press selected it as one of the top 100 national photos of the century.[
8]
At its peak, Heritage USA was earning $126 million a year, but then the IRS revoked its tax-exempt status. Soon after Bakker's federal indictment and public condemnation over his sexual affair, attendance dropped. Falwell argued that "PTL's Heritage USA complex in Fort Mill, S.C., was competing unfairly against tax-paying tourist attractions, and that the tax-exempt ministry should be separated from the running of hotels and amusement parks."[
9] Under Falwell's leadership, Heritage USA sought "Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with debts estimated at $72 million." [
10]
According to the 2000 documentary
The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Falwall manipulated the Bakkers into giving up control of PTL, and then publicly attacked
Jim Bakker for greed and alleged homosexuality. Tammy Faye and husband
Roe Messner both allege that Falwall instructed Tammy Faye to write down details of the salary package provided to the Bakkers, and Falwell then characterized the list as the demands of the Bakkers.
Falwell grew up in a strongly segregationist setting and strongly supported racial segregation for the first few years of his career. His views eventually shifted and he is now against segregation. [
11]
The
Anti-Defamation League and its leader,
Abraham Foxman have expressed strong support for Jerry Falwell's staunch pro-Israel stand, sometimes referred to as "
Christian Zionism," despite repeatedly condemning what they perceive as intolerance in Falwell's public statements[
12].Falwell has repeatedly denounced certain teachings in
public schools and
secular education in general, calling them breeding grounds for
atheism,
secularism, and
humanism, which he claims are in contradiction with Christian morality. He advocates that the United States change its public education system by replacing it with a
school voucher system that allows parents to send their children to either public or private schools. Jerry Falwell wrote in
America Can Be Saved that "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them." [
13]
Falwell supported President
Bush's
Faith Based Initiative, but had strong reservations concerning where the funding would go and the restrictions placed on churches. "My problem is where it might go under his successors... I would not want to put any of the Jerry Falwell Ministries in a position where we might be subservient to a future
Bill Clinton, God forbid... It also concerns me that once the pork barrel is filled, suddenly the
Church of Scientology, the
Jehovah Witnesses, the various and many denominations and religious groupsbegin applying for money--and I don't see how any can be turned down because of their radical and unpopular views. I don't know where that would take us." [
14]
:More at
Clinton ChroniclesIn 1994, Falwell released the straight-to-video documentary "The
Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of
Bill Clinton." The video connected
Bill Clinton to a conspiracy theory involving
Vincent Foster,
James McDougall,
Ron Brown, and an alleged cocaine-smuggling operation. Despite being widely discredited the video's sophisticated production techniques served as effective propaganda, and sold over 150,000 copies.
[The Falwell connection by Murray Waas Salon.com]Funding for the film was paid for by the
Citizens for Honest Government, which
Jerry Falwell paid $200,000 to in 1994 and 1995.
In 1995
Citizens for Honest Government paid two Arkansas state troopers to make allegations supporting the conspiracy about Vincent Foster. These two troopers were
Roger Perry and
Larry Patteson who also were paid for their allegations in the
Paula Jones (See:
Troopergate) claims.
In March 2005, trooper Patterson was convicted of
lying to the FBI about an unrelated incident. [
15]
Falwell's infomercial for the 80-minute tape included footage of Falwell interviewing a silhouetted journalist who was afraid for his life. The journalist accused Clinton of orchestrating the deaths of several reporters and personal confidants who had gotten too close to his illegalities. However, it was subsequently revealed that the silhouetted journalist was, in fact,
Patrick Matrisciana, the producer of the video and president of
Citizens for Honest Government.
"Obviously, I'm not an investigative reporter," Matrisciana admitted (to investigative journalist
Murray Waas), "and I doubt our lives were actually ever in any real danger. That was Jerry's idea to do that ... He thought that would be dramatic."
In an interview for the 2005 documentary
The Hunting of the President Falwell admitted, "To this day I do not know the accuracy of the claims made in The Clinton Chronicles," but failed to condemn the poor research.
SEC and bonds
In
1972, the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched an investigation of bonds issued by Falwell's organizations. The SEC charged Falwell's church with "fraud and deceit" in the issuance of $6.5 million in unsecured church bonds.[
16] The church won a
1973 federal court case prosecuted at the behest of the SEC.
According to Falwell, the survival of the University could be attributed to the work of Daniel Reber and Jimmy Thomas, as leaders of the non-profit Christian Heritage Foundation in
Forest, Virginia.
Penthouse vs. Falwell
Falwell filed a
US$10 million lawsuit against
Penthouse Magazine for publishing an interview he gave to freelance reporters. "Falwell Says He Will Press $10 Million Penthouse Suit." The New York Times, 5th of February 1981.
|
Hustler's parody ad of Falwell |
Hustler v. Falwell
In November
1983,
Larry Flynt's
pornographic magazine
Hustler carried a parody of a Campari ad, featuring a fake interview with Falwell in which he admits that his "first time" was
incest with his mother in an outhouse while drunk. Falwell sued for $45
million dollars in compensation alleging invasion of privacy, libel, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.[
17] A jury rejected the invasion of privacy and libel claims, holding that the parody could not have reasonably been taken to describe true events, but ruled in favor of Falwell on the emotional distress claim. This was upheld on appeal. Flynt then appealed to the
Supreme Court and won a unanimous decision on
February 24,
1988 (
Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al. v. Jerry Falwell, 485 U.S. 46); the ruling held that public figures cannot evade First Amendment protections by attempting to recover damages based on emotional distress suffered from parodies.
Homosexuals and libel
Falwell has been on both sides of libel cases. In 1984, he was forced to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. During a TV debate in
Sacramento,
California, Falwell denied calling the
homosexual-oriented
Metropolitan Community Churches "brute beasts" and "a vile and Satanic system" that will "one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven."
When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did, Falwell refused to pay, and Sloan successfully sued. Falwell appealed, with his attorney charging that the Jewish judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was forced to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees.
Falwell vs Christopher Lamparello
On April 17, 2006 the US Supreme Court decided that Christopher Lamparello's usage of the internet domain
Fallwell.com (note: the extra "L") was legal citing a lower courts opinion that Lamparello "clearly created his Web site intending only to provide a forum to criticize ideas, not to steal customers".
[Supreme Court declines Falwell Web appeal Associated Press. April 17, 2006] Lamparello's website describes itself as not being connected to Jerry Falwell and is critical of Falwell's views on homosexuals.
Previous to this "Falwell's attorneys have fought over domain names in the past" with a man turning over jerryfalwell.com and jerryfallwell.com "after Falwell threatened to sue for trademark infringement."
On July 31, 2006
Paula Zahn Now featured "featured a segment on "whether the crisis in the Middle East is actually a prelude to the end of the world, "marking the third time in eight days that CNN has devoted airtime to those claiming that the ongoing Mideast violence signals the coming of the Apocalypse."
[CNN still fixated on Apocalypse predictors. Media matters for America. Aug 1, 2006] Jerry Falwell was interviewed claiming, "I believe in the premillenial, pre-tribulational coming of Christ for all of his church, and to summarize that, your first poll, do you believe Jesus coming the second time will be in the future, I would vote yes with the 59 percent and with Billy Graham and most evangelicals."
Reverend
Kevin Bean of St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City disagreed. Bean explained, "I think that any correlation that is made with present war making or other political schemes with the events that could lead to a final day and the second coming of Jesus and the separation of the faithful from the rest is an arrogant identification with these present-day events."
Falwell is a controversial subject for his theological, political and social beliefs. After the
September 11, 2001 attacks Falwell said on the 700 Club, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen." (to which Robertson concurred). [https://home.comcast.net/~joe.grabko/falwell.mp3] After heavy criticism, Falwell apologised. [
18]. As for homosexuality, Falwell remarked,
"AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals." Falwell's
ghostwriter Mel White said Jerry Falwell remarked about gay protesters,
"Thank God for these gay demonstrators. If I didn't have them, I'd have to invent them. They give me all the publicity I need."
[Steve Inskeep. Religion, Politics a Potent Mix for Jerry Falwell NPR June 30, 2006 ]Falwell has an obvious
social conservative stance in that he believes
"Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers."[
19] Regarding public schools,
"I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don't have public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them." (America Can Be Saved!,
Sword of the Lord Publishers, Murfreesboro, Tenn. 1979, p. 52-53.)[
20]
He has continued to be a harsh critic of Islam and Muslims. In a radio interview on
March 4,
2002, Falwell said of former President
Jimmy Carter,
"His message of peace and reconciliation under almost all circumstances is simply incompatible with Christian teachings as I interpret them. This 'turn the other cheek' business is all well and good but it's not what Jesus fought and died for. What we need to do is take the battle to the Muslim heathens and do unto them before they do unto us." In an interview given on
September 30,
2002, for the
October 6 edition of
60 Minutes, Falwell said: "I think
Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims and non-Muslims, [to decide] that he was a violent man, a man of war."
The following Friday,
Mohsen Mojtahed Shabestari, the spokesman of
Iran's
Ayatollah Ali Khameini, issued a
fatwa for Falwell's death, saying that Falwell was a "mercenary and must be killed," and, "The death of that man is a religious duty, but his case should not be tied to the Christian community."
In February of 1999, an article in Falwell's
National Liberty Journal suggested that a
Teletubbies character,
Tinky Winky, could be a hidden
homosexual symbol, because the character was purple (which he claimed was a color symbolic of homosexuality), had an inverted triangle on his head and carried a handbag. Falwell denied any personal involvement with the original article, and made clear he never had any prior knowledge of or concern with the Teletubbies. Falwell's organization said the author of the article was simply repeating what others in the media were already saying about the nature of the character [
21]. In the months following this incident, Falwell recieved a number of Tinky Winky plush dolls via mail, most of which he has given to his grandchildren.
* The
ghost writer for Falwell's autobiography is
Mel White ("wrote every word") who has ghost written many books (including
Pat Robertson and
James Baker), but has never written anything negative about homosexuals in those books.
White himself publicly announced he was gay in 1994.[
22] White stated that Falwell makes controversial remarks about homsexuals for attention, and White believes and hopes Falwell's attitude towards homosexuals will improve.
*In 2000
John McCain referred to Falwell as an "agent of intolerance"
, but gave an inaugural speech at Liberty University in 2006.
*
Church Aflame. Impact, 1971.
*
Capturing a Town for Christ. Revell, 1973.
*
Liberty Bible Commentary on the New Testament.
Thomas Nelson, 1978.
*
Listen, America! Doubleday, 1980.
*
The Fundamentalist Phenomenon. Doubleday, 1981.
*
Finding Inner Peace and Strength. Doubleday, 1982.
*
Liberty Bible Commentary.
Thomas Nelson, 1982.
*
When it Hurts Too Much to Cry.
Tyndale House, 1984.
*
Wisdom for Living. Victor Books, 1984.
*
Stepping Out on Faith.
Tyndale House, 1984.
*
Champions for God. Victor Books, 1985.
*
If I Should Die Before I Wake.
Thomas Nelson, 1986.
*
The Fundamentalist Phenomenon/the Resurgence of Conservative Christianity.
Baker Book House, 1986.
*
Strength for the Journey.
Simon & Schuster, 1987.
*
The New American Family. Word, 1992.
*
Falwell: An Autobiography.
Liberty House, 1997. (
Ghost written by
Mel White [
23])
*
Fasting Can Change Your Life. Regal, 1998.
*
Achieving Your Dreams. World Publishers, 2006.
*
Building Churches of Dynamic Faith: A Five-Session Study Guide. World Publishers, 2006.
*
Dynamic Faith Journal. World Publishers, 2006.
*
Jerry Falwell Ministries*
Liberty University - Jerry Falwell, Chancellor
*
The National Liberty Journal - Jerry Falwell, Publisher
*
Jerry-Falwell.com – An official Falwell page
*
Rev. Falwell's ProCon.org Biography*
Jerry Falwell News from I Hate Pat Robertson*
Falwell and Above*
Jerry Falwell at the
Notable Names Database*
Jerry Falwell's connection to Reverend Sun Myung Moon *
Rotten Library: Jerry Falwell*
Fallwell.com – Christopher Lamparello's webpage critical of Falwell
*
ESPN - A night of hoops with Jerry Falwell*
An NPR: Jerry Falwell timeline.
