An excellent account of Jerry Falwell's place in modern society

[fpb]

I especially recommend the passage where Kathleen Parker points out that Falwell was a product of the very forces that empowered all the things he opposed.
Transcending Jerry Falwell
By Kathleen Parker
Friday, May 18, 2007

Jerry Falwell's prosaic death in his Liberty University office -- just another body, unresponsive and pulseless, on a random floor -- has elevated speaking ill of the dead to the level of sacrament.

The founder of the Moral Majority may have been a man of God to his 6.5 million followers, but to others, he was a charlatan, a huckster and a dangerous fool.

Atheist provocateur Christopher Hitchens, Falwell's most eloquent critic, described the reverend as an evil old man who fed lies to children and who interfered with the Middle East peace process by encouraging fanatics in Gaza.

Hitchens, whose intellectual virtuosity is an argument for martini lunches, eulogized Falwell without Christian charity. He called him a Chaucerian fraud who probably didn't read the Bible -- or ``any long book'' -- and who pinched ``his chubby little flanks'' each morning in disbelief that he'd gotten away with bilking the credulous yet one more time.

Hitchens is nothing if not perfectly clear. But was Falwell all that? Dangerous and deceitful? Or was he merely passionate in his belief that America was in decline because of its gradual slide away from Judeo-Christian principles?

Like all men, Falwell was neither all good nor all bad -- and not entirely wrong, even if he was often foolish. Among his more infamous declarations, Falwell blamed the 9/11 attacks on our tolerance of feminists, gays and liberals.

True believers -- and even some secular liberals -- might agree that America could use some self-restraint, but Falwell's statement made him easy to dismiss as a ranting fool. Other colorful assertions: that Tinky Winky, the purple, purse-carrying Teletubby cartoon character, was gay, and that the anti-Christ is a Jew and probably alive.

Falwell was, alas, a ``pedi-phile,'' which is not the same as a pedophile. He seemed to love the taste of his own boot.

Whatever one's view of Falwell's literal, hellfire brand of religion, he was not an accidental preacher. That is, he didn't come from nothing, but emerged to fill an apparent need at a time when many Americans perceived that their faith-based world of decency was being eroded by a leftist vision of godless relativity.

As post-modernists gradually redefined decency -- or rather undefined it -- there were no longer any absolutes. Whatever felt good was the new moral code. Falwell articulated the aversion many felt as the broader culture became increasingly alien.

Even people who might not routinely attend church, and for whom God is a private affair, heard something from the Falwellian pulpit that rang close to truth. What Falwell said may have sounded like bigotry and hatred to some, but to evangelical Christians, his incautious words sounded like traditional values.

In another time, Falwell and other televangelists would have remained on society's fringes, preaching from street corners and, as Hitchens suggested, hawking pencils from cups. Not so long ago, polite people in America didn't wear their religion as raiment.

Educated Christians may have dressed up on Sundays and kept a Bible in the house, but otherwise they whispered prayers at bedside and wouldn't consider holding hands to bless food in a restaurant. It wasn't done.

But come the sexual revolution, abortion, same-sex marriage and the mainstreaming of porn -- along with a media that facilitates ``characters'' in the service of ratings -- and the street preacher got mainstreamed, too. The same forces that created pole-dancing moms and partial-birth abortion also created Jerry Falwell and the religious right.

The problem with Falwell and others of his ilk is the problem all preachers have: They preach. And in Falwell's case, he named himself ``moral,'' as though others who don't tithe to the evangelical weal are hell-bound. Nothing quite makes one want to sign up with the immoral minority than a band of white males declaring themselves the ``moral majority.''

It is axiomatic that if one declares oneself more moral than thou, the impulse is irresistible to prove otherwise. Implicit in the brand, meanwhile, is the pride that always precedes the fall. Irony has never been the fundamentalists' strong suit.

Falwell left his earthly and opulent corpus -- including Liberty University, various charities and a private jet -- at peace with himself, according to friends and family. For Americans ready to see religion return to the private parlor, his departure is the peace that passeth all understanding.




Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.

Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Interesting piece. Much of what she had to say, to varying degrees, was rather what I and many other have been thinking and saying for years. It's strange that it requires the passing of one polarizing icon or another for many people to say publicly what they've thought privately, instead of speaking up when the polar opposites -- the remaining 20% of people -- are going at it with the usual ferocity and some moderation and pragmatism certainly wouldn't hurt.

[theswordmaiden.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen many good responses to his passing, unfortunately. One good one was along the lines of "I'm not glad he's dead, just glad that he's quiet ..." and just in reaction to the "burn in hell" ones. It was nice to see a thoughtful article here, and it put some things in perspective.

[notebuyer.livejournal.com]

And for those who weren't ready to see religion relegated to the margins of society again, especially when those opposing us are doing so on explicitly religious grounds (an argument which the secular among us, including Mr. Hitchens, are pitifully unable to handle), his death reminds us to continue to speak in, and to, and with, the public so that they do not remain lost in a haze of incomprehension as they face their enemies.

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

I don't know that religion was ever in the "margins" of society anyway. I think that's a false perception that liberals have created of the past. It's just like the "golden age" of the 50s that never were which right-wingers look back to as some kind of utopia, though it never existed.

Christianity has always been a loud, major voice in American society. It was just never an organized voting block in politics until a decade or two ago. But it's grass-roots influence could be felt since the time of the Founding Fathers. Even if they and the intellectual elite were Deists, many, even most, of the colonists were not.

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

I really don't think religion is going to return to the private parlor, anytime soon. The same forces that created Falwell are still active today, more than ever. Many Christians in America still feel that secular liberal post-modern materialist beliefs are being crammed down their throats every minute of the day the moment that they leave the house. Ever wonder why Evangelicals are so loud, and so aggressive, much of the time? Most of those folks (I suppose I can be numbered among them) are not naturally mean people, and would just as soon be left alone. They make noise because they feel threatened.

Let's not kid ourselves, either. The extreme far-left in this country is just as hateful, just as controlling, and just as ready to dictate to people how they should live their lives and what they should believe as the extreme far-right is. So there is, perhaps, actually some real justification for feeling threatened, even if much of the vitriol that Falwell spouted was due only to perceived threats.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would add that Falwell belonged to a first generation of leaders that was pretty unsophisticated - gutter level, if one wants to be nasty. They had appeared because there was a need for them; Falwell would have been nobody had there not been millions of people willing to listen to him. The newer generations are more sophisticated, more intellectually competent, less ready to offer such obvious hostages to fortune as Falwell and Robertson's unfortunate statements about the fall of the Twin Towers. The conservative and Christian movements are becoming more, not less sophisticated. Nobody could treat Chuck Coulson with the contempt many people legitimately felt for Falwell's learning or intellect. And as it grows in sophistication and competence, so, of course, it becomes a more fearsome enemy for everyone who has a reason to fear it.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

I agree he was a lightning rod because he was a preacher. He didn't listen - he spoke loudly. To weak people, listening looks like a person lacks confidence and conviction. Politics was just a different flavor of evangelicalism. They all want to convince the unenlightened to join the right path. I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning to make people miserable - but different people find different miseries.

[8bitbard.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about Falwell other than that he griped about the Teletubbies, but the cheering I've seen over his death is nauseating.