I have been critical of Falwell on this website and others for his pompous representation of Christianity and for the Liberty University approach to science, if it can be called that. All Christians do not share Falwell’s views. His views on education, science and his apparent hotline direct to God are not universal Christian attitudes. God told me he will die in May of next year, but that doesn’t make it true.
The concepts of Moral Right and having a culture that has it’s roots in faith are beautiful to me. But so is Marxism, in theory. When some of these ideas are played out in the real world they can become ugly.
May 1979: Falwell, a televangelist and Baptist pastor in Lynchburg, Va., is recruited by
far-right activists Howard Phillips, Ed McAteer and Paul Weyrich to form the Moral Majority, a vehicle for bringing fundamentalist Protestants into the Republican Party with the aim of unseating President Jimmy Carter. The move was an about-face for Falwell, who advised his congregation in 1965, “Preachers are not called to be politicians but soul winners.â€
March 1980: Falwell tells an Anchorage rally about a conversation with President Carter at the White House. Commenting on a January breakfast meeting, Falwell claimed to have asked Carter why he had “practicing homosexuals†on the senior staff at the White House. According to Falwell, Carter replied, “Well, I am president of all the American people, and I believe I should represent everyone.†When others who attended the White House event insisted that the exchange never happened, Falwell responded that his account “was not intended to be a verbatim report,†but rather an “honest portrayal†of Carter’s position.
August 1980: After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas
Religious Right gathering that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,†Falwell gives a similar view. “I do not believe,†he told reporters, “that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.†After a meeting with an American Jewish Committee rabbi, he changed course, telling an interviewer on NBC’s “Meet the Press†that “God hears the
prayers of all persons….God hears everything.â€
1980-81: After the election of Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority begins advocating for
constitutional amendments banning abortion and restoring school-sponsored prayer. The
group also demands tax aid to religious education.
September 1982: Falwell announces a drive to register 1 million new voters before the
November elections.
July 1984: Falwell is forced to pay gay activist Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. During a TV debate in Sacramento, Falwell denied calling the gay-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 so, 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.
November 1984: Reports from the Federal Election Commission indicate that Falwell’s “I
Love America Committee,†a political action committee formed in 1983, was a flop. The
PAC raised $485,000 in its first year—but spent $413,000 to do so.
May 1985: Falwell apologizes to a Jewish group for seeking a “Christian†America. From now on, he says, he will use the term “Judeo-Christian.â€
January 1987: Falwell holds a Washington news conference to announce that he is changing
the name of the Moral Majority to the Liberty Foundation. The new name never catches on
and is soon abandoned.
October 1987: The Federal Election Commission fines Falwell $6,000 for transferring $6.7 million in funds intended for his ministry to political committees.
November 1987: Falwell tells reporters he is stepping down as head of the Moral Majority and retiring from politics. “From now on, my real platform is the pulpit, not politics,†he says at a news conference.
February 1988: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a $200,000 jury award to Falwell
for “emotional distress†he suffered because of a Hustler magazine parody. Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist, usually a Falwell favorite, wrote the unanimous opinion in Hustler v.
Falwell, ruling that the First Amendment protects free speech.
June 1989: Falwell announces that the Moral Majority will shut down its offices and
disband.
January 1991: Siding with Americans United, the Virginia Supreme Court unanimously
rejects Falwell’s quest for $60 million in state bonds for his Liberty University. During the
litigation, Falwell tried to camouflage the school’s rigidly fundamentalist character, telling the
court that the school would no longer discriminate in hiring or force students to attend
mandatory chapel (renamed convocation). All the while, Falwell assured his congregation that
Liberty had not changed, insisting chapel will be mandatory “until Jesus comes.â€
January 1993: In the wake of Bill Clinton’s election to the presidency, Falwell mails
fund-raising letters nationwide asking people to vote on whether he should reactivate the
Moral Majority. He later refuses to say how much money the effort raised and tells reporters he has no intention of reactivating the organization.
February 1993: The Internal Revenue Service determines that funds from Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour program were illegally funneled to a political action committee. The IRS forced Falwell to pay $50,000 and retroactively revoked the Old Time Gospel Hour’s tax-exempt status for 1986-87.
March 1993: Despite his promise to Jewish groups to stop referring to America as a
“Christian nation,†Falwell gives a sermon saying, “We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours.â€
September 1993: Falwell announces he will not reactivate the Moral Majority but will
instead do political work through a group called the Liberty Alliance.
March 1994: Falwell announces the formation of a new group, Mission America, which he
claims will mobilize like-minded clergy across the country. Falwell describes the group as a
“personal ministry†and says it will have no budget or staff. Nothing more is heard from it.
May 1994: Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Flame newspaper runs an article calling TV preacher
John Hagee a heretic for saying Jews can be saved without accepting Jesus Christ. Falwell
urges every pastor to “take this information to the podium next Sunday.â€
September 1994: Falwell endorses former Iran-Contra figure Oliver North for a U.S. Senate
seat in Virginia. Falwell glosses over North’s legal problems, saying they happened “in the
past.â€
1994-1995: Falwell is criticized for using his “Old Time Gospel Hour†to hawk a scurrilous video called “The Clinton Chronicles†that makes a number of unsubstantiated charges against President Bill Clinton—among them that he is a drug addict and that he arranged the murders of political enemies in Arkansas. Despite claims he had no ties to the project, evidence surfaced that Falwell helped bankroll the venture with $200,000 paid to a group called Citizens for Honest Government (CHG). CHG’s Pat Matrisciana later admitted that Falwell and he staged an infomercial interview promoting the video in which a silhouetted reporter said his life was in danger for investigating Clinton. (Matrisciana himself posed as the reporter.) “That was Jerry’s idea to do that,†Matrisciana recalled. “He thought that would be dramatic.â€
April 1996: Falwell hosts a “Washington for Jesus†rally in the nation’s capital where he holds a mock trial of America for engaging in seven deadly sins: persecution of the church,
homosexuality, abortion, racism, occultism, addictions and HIV/AIDS (acronym:
PHAROAH). He declares the nation guilty “of violating God’s law.â€
July 1996: Falwell announces a series of “God Save America†rallies in evangelical churches
to stop the United States from entering a “post-Christian†era.
February 1997: Falwell sponsors a pastors’ briefing in Washington, during which he
threatens to form a new political party if Republicans waver on abortion.
June 1997: Falwell announces a plan to urge fundamentalist churches to intervene in partisan
politics. He vows to send sample candidate endorsement sermons that pastors can read in
their churches and says he has already done this in the Virginia attorney general’s race. Falwell drops the plan after being reported to the IRS by Americans United.
August 1997: Falwell pleads for funds for a new group, the National Committee for the
Restoration of the Judeo-Christian Ethic. In a fund-raising letter, he promises to “get back in
the ring†and be a “spiritual George Foreman.†He pledges to register 4 million new voters and mobilize 50,000 pastors. After publishing a couple of fund-raising letters, the group is never heard from again.
November 1997: Falwell accepts $3.5 million from a front group representing controversial
Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon to ease Liberty University’s financial woes. The
donation, and several Falwell appearances at Moon conferences, raised eyebrows because
Moon claims to be the messiah sent to complete the failed mission of Jesus Christ, a doctrine
sharply at odds with Falwell’s fundamentalist Christian theology. (In 1978, before the Moon
money started flowing, Falwell told Esquire magazine, “Reverend Sun Myung Moon is like
the plague: he exploits boys and girls, and he should be exported.â€)
February 1998: Falwell accepts a $70-million donation from insurance magnate Art
Williams, for his debt-ridden Liberty University. Falwell says the contribution will free him to
focus on politics again.
April 1998: Confronted on national television with a controversial quote from America Can Be Saved!, a published collection of his sermons, Falwell denies having written the book or had anything to do with it. In the 1979 work, Falwell wrote, “I hope to 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. What a happy day that will be!†Despite Falwell’s denial, Sword of the Lord Publishing, which produced the book, confirms that Falwell wrote it.
October 1998: In a fund-raising letter, Falwell announces plans to expand his ministry and to
“immediately rededicate myself to use my God-given skills as a national spokesman for
morality and return to the moral/political arena….[W]ith God’s anointing and your prayerful
support, you will soon think I am omnipresent.â€
January 1999: Falwell tells a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish.â€
February 1999: Falwell becomes the object of nationwide ridicule after his National Liberty Journal newspaper issues a “parents alert†warning that Tinky Winky, a character on the popular PBS children’s show “Teletubbies,†might be gay. (Americans United was responsible for releasing the information to the national press.)
