I try not to speak ill of the dead. I really do. After all, the dead take their leave of people that loved them. So it is with Jerry Falwell, the Lion of Lynchburg, who passed away suddenly yesterday, most likely due to heart failure. But I remember a quote from Julian Bond upon the death of Ronald Reagan.
" Of course you feel for the family at a time like this. But he was a terrible president."
It is in this spirit that we remember the Rev. Falwell and that peculiarly American species, the Televangelist, that sprang forth from his generation.
In one sense, he had pretty much a lot in common with his broadcasting brethren. Like Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson, he was an anti-intellectual who founded his own institution of higher learning. I don't know this for sure but it would not surprise me if he received his honorary "doctorate' from Liberty University. Which is a pretty damn convenient way to get to be called 'Doctor." Like Dr. Roberts (guess where he got his post-graduate degree?), Jimmy Swaggart and Billy Graham, he groomed his sons to take over the family business upon his leaving. The televangelist world is one of the last main adherents to primogeniture in America. It was apparently a close call with Franklin Graham however who for much of his young adulthood seemed to be more interested in motorcycles and beer than in preaching the Gospel. Fortunately, Franklin came to his financial senses and heeded the call in time-or feigned hearing it sufficiently convincingly- to take the helm of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
And to be fair, and we are nothing if not fair around here, he was not the worst of his ilk. Although he was compensated richly from his ministry, he certainly was not a con artist like a Robert Tilton or Jim Bakker. Unlike Oral and Richard Roberts or the reptilian Benny Hinn he never held himself out as a faith healer. Unlike Pat Robertson he neither ran for office nor made dubious claims about health food products sold through the ministry. Unlike Gene Scott (my personal favorite TV preacher) he didn't surround himself with flashy women or invest in thoroughbreds. He never dog-cussed the FCC on the air either as it was my privilege to hear Scott do one Sunday night around 1986.
What Jerry Falwell did accomplish, through the bully pulpit of his television ministry was to help make America a meaner and dumber place to live. His offensive vision of a Moral Majority of bloc voters became a force to be reckoned with in national politics as much as the trade unions. For the last 20 years, Republican politicians were at least forced to play lip service to Falwell's vision of an America where gays, feminists and Democrats were second class citizens.
That vision turned paranoid in the latter stages of his public ministry. He denounced the seriously weird but otherwise harmless children's show " The Teletubbies" as having a surreptitious homosexual agenda. However, his obsession with gays turned even more exceedingly pathological when he pronounced 9/11 as God's wrath upon America because of increased tolerance toward gay folks.
When you have a public forum and a constituency that subscribes to your world-view it is incumbent upon you to weigh your words with care. In a time of national crisis, scapegoating a class of people can get those people killed. On the other hand, maybe they don't teach German history at Liberty University. Anyway, it is to his credit that he eventually lamed out of that completely idiotic tautology but by then a large chunk of his credibility had vaporized even among some of those conservative Christians that otherwise admired him.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of these various television ministries that sprung forth in the seventies and eighties. It is hard to envision new ones taking their place. Modern medicine cures at a faster rate than the laying on of hands. In the age of the Internet there are easier ways to make a fast buck than by taking up charlatanry.
I don't know whether we will see the likes of Jerry Falwell again. I do know that this is to the greater and higher public good.
Of course, you feel for the family. But Jerry Falwell was a terrible ambassador for the Prince of Peace.
2 comments:
A week before he died, Rev. Falwell was interviewed by Christine Amanpour on CNN and said that he had asked God in prayer for 20 more years to complete his work at Liberty University. He referred to Hezekiah, who when he was sick unto death prayed to the Lord that his life be extended. According to Isaiah 38:3, Hezekiah walked before the Lord in truth with a perfect heart and did that which was good in His sight, so Jehovah responded to Hezekiah's righteous prayer by giving him fifteen more years of life. Rev. Falwell prayed for 20 more years and the Lord gave him a week.
I am certain that the scholars at Liberty University have an explanation for this apparent lack of prayerful efficacy.
The Lord moves in mysterious ways. Or maybe not.
This reminds me of the time that Oral Roberts had rotator cuff surgery. Evidently, slaying people in the spirit is like unto throwing a screwball for 20 years. Anyway, you would think a man who made a living casting out demons, goiters and cancers could heal a simple mechanical problems. That would seem to be no step for a stepper. But maybe Oral, like the Christian "Scientists" could only heal discreet disease processes.
Thanks for checking in.
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