As has been true for most of the past three decades, the Rev. Jerry Falwell was a lightning rod for praise and criticism as news of his death spread Tuesday afternoon.

"Jerry has been a tower of strength on many of the moral issues which have confronted our nation," said Pat Robertson, a fellow Virginia television minister and former presidential candidate.

"Jerry Falwell was an entrepreneurial, energetic and opinionated fundamentalist, who was almost always wrong, but never in doubt about the righteousness of his cause," said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, based in Nashville, Tenn.

The man who helped lead a nationwide political and theological shift to the right during the 1980s was used to those conflicting opinions, and often seemed to revel in the attention they brought.

He clearly enjoyed playing up his role as a kingmaker -- the Moral Majority's influence in electing Ronald Reagan president in 1980 was "my finest hour," he once said. But the two institutions closest to his heart, and the ones he counted on to perpetuate his legacy were Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University, both in Lynchburg, the place of his birth 73 years ago.

Thomas Road started with a handful of members meeting in a former soft-drink bottling plant in 1956. Last summer for its 50th anniversary, the 24,000-member congregation opened a massive new high-tech worship center within sight of Falwell's beloved Liberty University.

The university, founded in 1971 as Lynchburg Baptist College, has some 9,600 students on the Lynchburg campus, and another 12,000 in off-campus programs. About 2,000 will graduate Saturday.

Falwell slowly built a national television audience through the "Old Time Gospel Hour" broadcasts that began just months after he founded Thomas Road Baptist.

He gained national and international attention, however, as the head of the Moral Majority, a conservative political organizing and lobbying organization he headed from 1979 to 1989.

Even though he disbanded the Moral Majority in 1989, declaring its work done, Falwell remained a popular spokesman for conservative causes. Comfortable on camera and a master of the sound bite, Falwell was a regular on network and cable news and talk shows even though he headed no formal national constituency.

As recently as 2002, his comments on the CBS show "60 Minutes" asserting that the Prophet Mohammed was "a terrorist" caused riotous protests around the globe. He later apologized for offending anyone but declined to withdraw the comment.

He loved to debate liberals on social and political issues, but frequently counted them as friends. He spoke fondly, for instance, of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., one of the most liberal members of Congress.

There were exceptions, however, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, who drew nothing but disdain from the Lynchburg preacher.

The early years

In his 1987 autobiography, "Strength for the Journey," Falwell recalled a turbulent family history.

He and his twin, Gene, were born Aug. 11, 1933, to Carey H. and Helen Beasley Falwell. Carey Falwell, who died when his sons were 15, was a successful legitimate businessman in Lynchburg with a string of stores and restaurants. He was also, however, one of the area's leading purveyors of bootleg whiskey -- a trade he continued even after Virginia ended Prohibition by allowing the sale of beer and wine in 1933.

The elder Falwell was an alcoholic and an agnostic, but he didn't interfere with his pious wife's determination to raise their children in church.

After an emotional conversion experience in which Jerry Falwell became a Christian at Park Avenue Baptist Church in January 1952, he decided to transfer to the fundamentalist Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo.

Armed with a new degree in theology in May 1956, he and a group of 35 former members of Park Avenue Baptist started a new church in Lynchburg in June.

On its first anniversary in June 1957, more than 850 people showed up for the service. It was the first sign of the influence Falwell would have.

He and Macel Pate married in 1958, but starting a family didn't slow down the industrious Falwell. The church's first auxiliary ministry was the Elim Home for alcoholic men, founded in 1959. Eight years later, the church would start Lynchburg Christian Academy for kindergarten through 12th grade.

In 1971 it founded Lynchburg Baptist College -- today known as Liberty University -- with 154 students and four faculty members.

In two years, the college's enrollment had jumped to 1,100, a theological seminary was added, and the church was boasting 13,000 members.

But financial trouble was brewing, a situation that would haunt the ministry consistently over the years.

Taking the national stage

Even though his rapidly growing ministerial empire was showing signs of financial shakiness, Falwell was increasingly drawn to politics.

In June 1979, he and a group of other religious conservatives formed the Moral Majority.

Falwell quickly developed a mailing list of 5 million, many of whom were willing to send in donations to support the cause. By 1984 it was raising $11 million a year to use to influence elections and legislation.

But things were about to get rough for the Moral Majority's leader.

Liberty University was continually operating at a deficit that had to be made up by funds raised through the "Old Time Gospel Hour" branch of the ministry.

Falwell had become embroiled in the widespread televangelism scandals in March 1987 when he agreed to take over the chairmanship of the Praise The Lord, or PTL, ministry of Jim and Tammy Bakker.

By October, that relationship was over. As happened at almost every other television ministry, contributions to the "Old Time Gospel Hour" plummeted, dropping by $10 million in fiscal 1987 alone.

In the summer of 1989, Falwell declared the Moral Majority's mission accomplished and closed down that the organization. He hunkered down in Lynchburg to try to figure a way out of the growing financial crisis.

He was forced to pay more than $1 million in back taxes to Lynchburg, lost a years-long battle to be able to borrow industrial-development bonds whose interest payments would have been tax-free to buyers, and he lost a lawsuit trying to force a big financial company to back a $60 million bond sale.

By 1997 an anonymous donor had paid off most of the creditors, staving off bankruptcy.

By then, Falwell and Thomas Road Baptist were reconsidering their denominational relationship. Doggedly independent since its founding, Thomas Road Church quietly joined the ranks of the increasingly conservative Southern Baptist Convention in 1996.

In 1999 he helped orchestrate a meeting with gay-rights activists led by Mel White -- the man who had ghost written Falwell's autobiography a decade earlier -- but many of his supporters condemned the effort and no follow-up meetings were ever held.

"He died before we could bring him around," White said Tuesday. White and his partner moved into a house across the street from the old Thomas Road church after the 1999 meeting and began regularly attending services in a bid to soften Falwell's and the church's stance against homosexuality.

Legacy in Lynchburg

Today, even his critics agree that Liberty University is likely to be Falwell's most influential legacy. Supporters are sure of it.

"He was well aware that the university was one thing that could far outlive him," Mark DeMoss said.

DeMoss, who graduated from Liberty in 1983, the next year became Falwell's chief of staff and spokesman, a position he held until he left to form his own business in 1991. Today he is chairman of the Executive Committee of Liberty University's Board of Trustees.

"I've been affiliated pretty closely with the university for 23 years, I'd say, and the university, by any measurement, is the healthiest it has been in its history," DeMoss said.

For him, however, Tuesday's loss is truly as close as family.

"I would say, outside of my own father, Jerry Falwell had more impact on my life than anybody else. He gave me a great opportunity at a young age to travel the country with him, and work by his side. He was a remarkable, remarkable man."