World bids evangelist Jerry Falwell adieu

Jerry Falwell, the outspoken televangelist whose television ministry helped fuel the rise of the religious right, passed away, May 15, leaving behind a rich legacy.

US evangelist Falwell, a leader of the religious right who battled in the political arena against abortion and homosexuality, was found dead after being discovered unresponsive in his office at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, an executive vice president at the university, said Falwell was transported to Lynchburg General Hospital and pronounced dead at 12:40 p.m. "He has had a history of heart problems," Godwin said in a news conference.

Dr. Carl Moore, a cardiovascular specialist, said Falwell was found "unconscious without a heartbeat" about 11:30 a.m. Efforts to resuscitate him in his office, in an ambulance and at the hospital were unsuccessful.

Moore said Falwell had a cardiac arrhythmia – an irregularity in the heart's rhythm – that occurs "without warning and cannot be predicted."

Evangelist Billy Graham, in a statement, called Falwell "a close personal friend for many years. We did not always agree on everything, but I knew him to be a man of God." The Rev. Billy Graham once rebuked him for political sermonizing on "non–moral issues."

For many, Falwell represented the public face of evangelical Protestantism, particularly its involvement in politics. Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979 which became a major vehicle for getting out the vote for the Republican Party and, in his words, to lobby politicians to "reverse the politicization of immorality in our society."

By then, Falwell had already been a radio and television preacher for 20 years. He rode a politically conservative wave and used his television ministry as a platform to advance conservative causes including voluntary prayer in public schools, opposition to abortion, and military strength.

From his living room, he broadcast his message of salvation and raised the donations that helped his ministry grow.

"He was one of the first to come up with ways to use television to expand his ministry," said Robert Alley, a retired University of Richmond religion professor who studied and criticized Falwell's career.

Falwell had once opposed mixing preaching with politics, but changed his views. The Moral Majority grew to 6.5 million members and raised $69 million as it supported conservative politicians and railed against abortion, homosexuality, pornography and bans on school prayer.

This led Falwell to become the face of the religious right, appearing on national magazine covers and on talk shows. In 1983, U.S. News & World Report named him one of 25 most influential people in America.

Fellow TV evangelist Pat Robertson, himself a one–time GOP candidate for president, declared Falwell "a tower of strength on many of the moral issues which have confronted our nation."

"When most people think of the Christian right, they think of the Moral Majority," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The Moral Majority was "an opportunity to bring a lot of Southern conservatives into the Republican Party," Green said.

For decades before Falwell, evangelicals had largely withdrawn from politics. That began to change in the late 1970s, in part because of Falwell's activism.

"Falwell manipulated a powerful pulpit in exchange for access to political power and promotion of a narrow range of moral concerns," said Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who frequently sparred with Falwell.

Falwell initially supported Democratic President Jimmy Carter because of the Georgian's public embrace of his "born again" Christianity. But Falwell eventually became critical of Carter after what Falwell called the president's move toward liberal policies.

Falwell's cause was emboldened by the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, but suffered some setbacks with the televangelism scandals involving Rev. Jim Bakker, evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and others.

"He became a leading voice by the time of Ronald Reagan's emergence in 1980 and the whole concept of family values was adopted by the Republican Party," Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told Fox News, recalling Falwell's long influence on US politics. "There's not a conservative in America that hasn't taken Jerry Falwell seriously. Liberty University's become a bellwether spot, a place where if you're going to be a real conservative and get the conservative vote, you have to go spend a day with Rev. Falwell."

In 1987, Falwell took over the PTL (Praise the Lord) ministry in South Carolina after the Rev. Jim Bakker got caught in a sex and money scandal. Falwell slid fully clothed down a theme park water slide after donors met his fundraising goal to help rescue the rival ministry. He gave it up seven months later after learning the depth of PTL's financial problems.

Largely because of the sex scandals involving Rev. Bakker and fellow evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, donations to Falwell's ministry dropped from $135 million in 1986 to less than $100 million the following year. Hundreds of workers were laid off and viewers of his television show dwindled.

Liberty University was $73 million in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy, and his "Old Time Gospel Hour" was $16 million in debt. By the mid–1990s, two local businessmen with long ties to Falwell began overseeing the finances and helped get companies to forgive debts or write them off.

Falwell dreamed that Liberty would grow to 50,000 students and be to fundamentalist Christians what Notre Dame is to Roman Catholics and Brigham Young University is to Mormons.

"My heart was burning to serve Christ," he once said in an interview. "I knew nothing would ever be the same again."

In 1989, Falwell dissolved the Moral Majority, saying the group had accomplished the job it set out to do. However, it was later resurrected as the Moral Majority Coalition, with an explicit political purpose, after President George W. Bush's re–election in 2004.

Falwell also made headlines when he sued publisher Larry Flynt for $45 millions for a 1983 parody liquor ad in the adult magazine Hustler. Falwell was awarded $200,000 in emotional damages for the ad – which had him committing incest with his mother in an outhouse – but the case was eventually struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1999, Falwell told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive. Falwell later apologized for the remark but not for holding the belief.

The same year he created a furor when one of his publications suggested that the purse–carrying "Teletubbies" character Tinky Winky was a gay role model and morally damaging to children.

Matt Foreman, executive director of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, extended condolences to those close to Falwell, but added, "Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America's anti–gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation's appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation."

Falwell and his twin brother, Gene, were born Aug. 11, 1933, the youngest of five children. Their father, Carey, was a successful businessman who battled alcoholism; Falwell described their mother, Helen, as a gentle "woman of great faith."

It was to his native Lynchburg, Va., that Falwell traced his religious conviction, starting with a 1952 conversion experience midway through his sophomore year at Lynchburg College. The event led him to transfer to the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo., and a professional life in the pulpit.

"I wanted to study the Bible and prepare myself for whatever God wanted me to do," Falwell was to say later. "My heart was burning to serve Christ. I knew nothing would ever be the same again."

After graduation, Falwell founded a Baptist church in Lynchburg, with a congregation of 35 adults in 1956. Over the years, Thomas Road Baptist Church grew to a membership of 24,000, with an expansive campus that housed a day school and missionary work to serve impoverished countries.

"It really had the feeling of the old–time religion," said the Pew Forum's Green. "In a lot of ways, Falwell was on the cutting edge of church building."

A half–hour daily radio broadcast, "The Old–Time Gospel Hour," launched when Falwell's church was only a week old, grew into a television show that went national in 1971 and soon reached an audience estimated in the millions.

Falwell became known for his fundamentalist Christian teachings and dabbling in conservative politics. "The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the inerrant Word of God, and totally accurate in all respects," Falwell once said.

After maintaining a near–constant public presence throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Falwell in 1990 withdrew from the political sphere to concentrate on his preaching and his work as chancellor at Liberty University, a conservative center of higher learning he had founded in 1971.

Falwell's return to private life was short–lived. He again became politically active, railing against Bill Clinton's election as president in 1992. Falwell described Clinton as an "ungodly liar," and distributed a video that accused Clinton of a number of crimes, including an insinuation of murder. Falwell was also an outspoken advocate for Clinton's impeachment in 1998.

Long an independent pastor, Falwell became affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996.

Just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Falwell was roundly criticized for saying God had allowed the tragedy because of America's liberal drift. "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians ... 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,'" Falwell said on Robertson's 700 Club program.

Falwell later apologized, saying his remarks were "uncalled for at the time." A poll taken not long after his apology showed 73 percent of Americans "totally disagreed" with his remarks.

Barely one year later, Falwell angered Muslims by calling the Prophet Muhammad "a terrorist," a remark that set off deadly riots in India and prompted a death threat from an Iranian cleric. Falwell apologized again, saying he "intended no disrespect to any sincere, law–abiding Muslim."

After conservatives turned out in force to re–elect President George W. Bush in 2004, Falwell launched the Moral Majority Coalition to "finish what I started 25 years ago," with the goal of sending 40 million evangelicals to the polls in 2008.

In a late March interview with Religion News Service, Falwell contemplated the upcoming election and the role of evangelicals.

"We're about a third of the Republican constituency, social conservatives," he said. "Political and fiscal conservatives are the other two–thirds. We all need each other to win."

Falwell is survived by his wife of 49 years, Macel Pate, and three children, Jerry, Jeannie and Jonathan.