Thursday, May 17, 2007
The light and dark of Jerry Falwell
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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
Shanna Flowers
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"In my Father's house are many mansions ..."
-- John 14:2
When it came to styles of faith, Jerry Falwell and I definitely lived on opposite sides of the celestial block.
Falwell founded the Moral Majority. But I never liked his brand of morality.
The internationally known Lynchburg pastor meshed a judgmental style of Christianity with a polarizing, political conservatism that revealed itself in vicious attacks on groups who were easy targets.
Who can forget his hateful post-9/11 rip, blaming "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians" and other left-leaning groups for the terrorist attacks?
Falwell reveled in his lightning-rod status as the man who changed the political tilt of the nation and delivered the Christian conservative vote to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Yet, he didn't summon the moral courage to initially see the immorality in segregation as a young pastor in the 1950s and '60s. The same man who later established a national movement because he saw everything in black and white had been blind to state-sanctioned bigotry.
"If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's Word," Falwell said in a 1958 sermon at Thomas Road Baptist Church, "I am quite confident that the 1954 decision [Brown v. Board of Education] would never have been made. ... The true Negro does not want integration. He realizes his potential is far better among his own race." (Falwell later said he changed his views on segregation "early in his ministry," and attributed his words to the era in which he grew up.)
So no, I've never been able to buy into Falwell's type of moral absolutist faith. However, you cannot ignore his legacy.
He showed how a group of people with a common mission can come together and effect significant change. There are lessons to be learned in that both locally and nationally.
Falwell's greatest legacy, however, is Liberty University. The school that he built from nothing four decades ago now has some 9,600 students on campus and 12,000 in off-campus programs.
I visited the campus last fall, and its modern buildings and facilities are a testament to Falwell's vision.
Falwell changed American politics, but in the end, he did not change American culture.
Abortion remains legal, and gay rights are more widely accepted now than ever.
But he sure changed Lynchburg. He and Liberty University gave the city an identity. Thousands more educated young people stream from it each year.
That's an undeniable tribute to the Baptist preacher.
Shanna Flowers' column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
