Falwell's Legacy
As I've been reading blogs this week, I've stumbled across various opinions of the Reverend Jerry Falwell. As you might expect from such a public figure, people have many opinions about him. Some people really liked him, some really hated him, and some had distinctly mixed feelings. Here's a sampling of what I found interesting:
Larry Flynt and Jerry Falwell -- friends
My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling.
Guest Post: A Remembrance of Falwell
I attended Liberty University from 1998-2000. When I started at the school, I wasn't what you would call a Falwell fan. I would here people talk about him in glowing terms and think, "Yeah right. There's no way that he's like that."
After meeting and speaking with Dr. Falwell, my opinion started change. While he made mistakes in what he would say, he would immediately seek to correct those mistakes.
Students at Liberty University revered him. Evangelical pastors emulated him. Washington politicians courted him, and liberal elitists hated him. In all the years that Falwell fought pornography, we never opened our newspaper to read of his arrest at a peep show. For all his vehement condemnation of drug use and gay marriage, Falwell was never discovered with street-grade methamphetamines or getting sensual massages from paid male escorts. Sure he made a few verbal gaffes in this or that interview, but like the Bible says, we all stumble in many ways.
Rev. Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist in Chief
Indeed, his religious and political views were typically, as he himself described for much of his life, fundamentalist. As such he was out of step with most American Christians, including those who described themselves as evangelical. Although later in life Falwell dropped the "Baptist fundamentalism" label in favor of "evangelical," his religious and political views remained far more fundamentalist than anything. It's no surprise then that Falwell called Billy Graham, "the chief servant of Satan in America."
Falwell's influence should have ended there, but just as journalists flock to Al Sharpton for the "black perspective," ignorant journalists consistently propped up Falwell as a token Christian leader.
Like reader Chuck, I think this is the key sentence from Joshua's lovely negative obituary for Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died earlier this week. If I may put a different spin on it, however, I think the piece underplays somewhat how important and influential Falwell really was.
Many of you probably know that in the early years of his ministry Rev. Falwell was a staunch segregationist. In 1958 he said "If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision [Brown v. Board of Education] would never have been made ... The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line."
Falwell and King: Domesticating and Sanitizing, Grace and Truth, with Condolences
As an evangelical Christian, I firmly believe in the grace of God to conform saints to the image of his Son. This is the process of sanctification. So I believe that a Jerry Falwell, though once overtly racially-separatist, could see the error of his thinking by being confronted by the word of God, repent from that sin, and learn to embrace African Americans in love, as I believe he did. However, does the work of grace mean that we who hail heroes tone down, ignore, or attempt to clean up the early picture of Falwell or anyone else?
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