Jerry Falwell was a more three-dimensional man than either his critics or fans will ever admit.
Whatever took Jerry Falwell's life was swift; he ended breakfast with a friend at 9:50 this morning, and was found dead in his office at 11:30. Worldwide reaction has been almost as swift and vehement as whatever killed him.…
Article comments
26 - Jet in Columbus
Falwell took over the PTL club and ran it into bankruptcy before he was removed. Hardly what I'd call a good and reputible move.
Falwell's own ministry was taking in 150+ million a year ten years ago, and this last year took in only 10.
That speaks volumes
Look up Falwell's new worth at the time of his death, and check out the mansion he lived in, and you'll suddenly see that he loved money and God was an afterthought.
27 - Leslie Bohn
OK, Baronius, what are these differences you assumed exist?
I'd love to hear your definition of scandal that would not include the head of a church being prosecuted and going through a trial for fraud. And in what sense was he not "involved" in the Bakker scandal? Or wasn't that a scandal?
His whole career was plagued constantly by scandal and controversy, as anyone who honestly looks at the facts of his career can see.
28 - Dan
I think you could say that he articulated the evangelical rights positions well.
Whether you liked him or what he stood for, He could debate logically. He had an answer for everything. Calm and confident. Maddening for opponents.
There's a whole lot of liberals that will tell you 911 was for our sins. Not many are apologizing for it.
My favorite Falwell moment--and I'm not sure if I've dreamed it up, because a quick google search didn't turn up much--was when the Liberty mens NCAA basketball team made it to the 64 team championships. It seems like it was about 20 years ago and Jerry Falwell was the coach.
Anyone confirm?
29 - Northwest
First, that was last year. A few more points, twice the women made it to the NCAA basketball playoffs and for the last three years have either won or been in the top five for Debating, even defeating all Ivory League teams. Finally becaue of Liberty University there are over 115,000 graduates with their degrees. I am a counselor and it all started with my degree from Liberty. Shall we mention all the lawyers, nurses, doctors and social workers and counselors that are out there serving because in 1971 a man that some have called a "PIG" started Liberty University.
30 - Jet in Columbus
I certainly congratulate you for graduating from the University of Hate. One thing for sure is that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Liberty, despite the name!
31 - NR Davis
Ivory League?
I met some cool queer kids -- yes, students who had just come out -- during my visit to Liberty. Talk about a trip...
I'm sorry, but if all those lawyers, nurses, doctors and social workers and counselors with LU degrees are spreading Falwell's hateful messages, that is NOT a good thing.
That said, condolences to those who loved and miss him. Any death diminishes the human family. And in the end, Falwell was what we all are: human and flawed.
32 - Jet in Columbus
I don't mean to scare you NR, but according to CNN a lot of them work in important positions in the Bush Administration.
No joke.
... I wish it was
33 - Leslie Bohn
Yep. I'm responsible for hiring people at my job (only 5 or 6 people a year, I'm not in HR) and I won't consider anyone from Liberty or Regent or any other "university" I know to teach bullshit. Their resumes go right in the trash.
I urge anyone who would consider going there to consider this fact.
34 - Lee Richards
Jerry Falwell accomplished a lot of things in his lifetime--some, no doubt, were of benefit to others and many more, most certainly, deeply wounded a lot of people and brought mischief and grief to our political system.
Like the central character in "Citizen Kane", he was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, with many facets and more than one face.
I met Falwell only once. He made a joke about the buffet we were both visiting, to start the conversation. He introduced himself and I answered that I recognized him from his mug shots in the post office, which he seemed to find amusing. He asked the usual questions one asks to get to know a stranger, and we chatted about the part of Virginia we were in, the food, and why we were there...celebrating my wife's birthday...and so he graciously spoke to her and a friend with us. He introduced his wife. He was affable, pleasant, even charming.
Now, the other side:the attack-dog preacher and self-promoter who learned to use the name of God, power of TV, prestige of his famous friends, and mass mailings to make a fortune, and to erect countless straw men he could publicly battle for the Lord, branding his opponents with distortions and exaggerations, smiling piously as he slid the knife in.
His mailing lists included many unsophisticated elderly TV viewers and members of churches in other cities, and appealed to their guilt feelings for ever more money to keep his empire going and growing. And that empire expanded into broadcating, publishing, education--and, of course, politics, feeding his ego and giving him the power to command more attention and larger donations, so that he became a kind of secular messiah to those political friends he favored.
What did Falwell say? What does Jerry want? Politicians came to him for annointing, and his sermons became more about issues of governance and political science than the Kingdom of Heaven.
Did he have a right, even a duty to speak up against spiritual and moral failings in government? Certainly! But he carried it too far;it became "them vs. us", not "we" together, first-and-foremost-Americans-all any more. As much as anyone, he is responsible for deeply polarizing our people, setting us one against the other and cutting away so much of the unity and national spirit that has always bound us uniquely together. That seemed to become his goal--the old love-it-or-leave it dictate, as Jerry tried to become a constitution unto himself. We didn't need open-minded discussion and fair debate any more. We needed the power of a righteous prophet to dictate what was best.
One of the dangers of relying on the authority of any "scripture" is that those who misinterpret or misuse that scripture can then claim to be the authority themselves. Falwell, unelected to anything, was certainy proud of his authority to dictate to governors, congressmen and presidents.
Like "Citizen Kane", a mixed legacy, indeed.
35 - NR Davis
Jet in Columbus,
Yes, I recall that CNN report. Not a surprise. In fact, one could say that GOP administrations provide a public service in that they offer an employment option for Liberty grads so that they don't end up on the dole.
36 - Dave Nalle
Leslie, I assume you work for some sort of political or scientific organization?
Because if you're hiring secretaries or paper pushers or general adminsitrative types, there's no reason why the ideological content of an education at Liberty, Regents, Oral Roberts, Bob Jones or even Baylor would limit the ability of their graduates to do their jobs.
Dave
37 - Nancy
Yes it does, Dave. Frequently these places value ideology over content, & how can anybody learn to think analytically & independently if they're at an institution that insists on unquestioning obedience & mind-control? I doubt very much an "A" from Liberty carries the same amount of effort or knowledge as an "A" from, say, UVA or even a good secular community college. Such institutions have not yet reached the level of detachment from political/religious ideology of such places as Georgetown, altho Baylor is probably close.
38 - Jet in Columbus
I think the best way to sum up my feelings about Falwell's passing would be to compare him to the enthusiastic bully that you encountered every day on the school bus to and from school, and on the playground.
In the span of 10 years between 1983 and 1992, Falwell and his allies succeeded in convincing people worldwide that I, as a gay man, was a pedophile, I was evil and corruptive toward all children, I spread AIDS just by shaking hands with them and was being put to diseased death as God's and Jerry's punnishment for not being "saved", and that all good christians should hate me, and I should be captured, put in a burlap sack and dumped off the nearest bridge.
Paranoid? If you didn't live through the 80s with Reagan, Anita Bryant and Falwell, you could never understand it-and I wouldn't expect you to.
It was a lot like being a negro just after the civil war, only we were branded ever more dangerous because you couldn't "tell" we were gay by looking at us, so the danger you can't see is always more potent.
I'm relieved he's gone. He used the fear he himself created to gain power and the more power he acquired, the more he was corrupted.
Near the end of his life, he even began bragging openly and publicly that political candidates couldn't be elected without his personal blessing-witness last year John McCain and now this year Newt.
I'm glad he's gone, like I'm glad the bully is gone. I didn't wish him dead, but I'm not mourning his passing either...
39 - Nancy
Well, I DID wish him dead, & I'm just sorry it was quick & painless. So there.
40 - Jet in Columbus
I admionly to fantasizing/killing him with the bloccritic's blimp, but he survived alas
41 - Nancy
I'm not as nice as you are; there are plenty of people in the world in power I'd like to strike with a long, slow, painful, lingering illness, after having them suffer at the hands of medical science pursuing endless fruitless cures & palliatives, so that they suffer, & die, & more important, KNOW they're suffering & dying. Like Reagan being aware of his alzheimer's. Couldn't have happened to a nicer old bastard...or his bitch black widow spider, Nancy.
42 - NR Davis
It's good to be an independent. Schadenfreude makes me ill.
43 - Nancy
Even independents can enjoy schadenfreude. I do.
44 - Leslie Bohn
I don't care about ideology, Dave. This place teaches misinformation, so no thanks. I get scores of resumes and am always lookimg for any easy reason to eliminate one.
And besides, whatever the job, wouldn't you hire the person from the best school, other things being equal? These are the worst schools by most measures â€" the least competitive for admission, lowest-rated for academics, least qualified faculty.
45 - Baronius
Ah, the 1980's. I was assigned to Bryant's 62nd Mobile out of New London. We were tasked with rounding up all the gays in a five-state area, and put them into camps. Jet misstates one thing: the gays were treated like blacks before the Civil War. We even managed to keep them out of the voting booths through the mid-90's.
Of course, as Jet pointed out, they do sort of blend in. That's how two or three of them escaped our nets, and by the Clinton years, they re-gayed the whole East Coast.
46 - Matthew T. Sussman
"we were branded ever more dangerous because you couldn't "tell" we were gay by looking at us"
However, we could tell by the way you were looking at us.
47 - Jet in Columbus
Don't flatter yourself Matt.
Ahh Baronious, I thought that was you in your brown shirt!