Biography
American pastor, promoter
of TV evangelism and political lobbyist for the Moral Majority, Inc. who
had a six-figure income, lived in a 12-room mansion and enjoyed such
perks as his own jet and travel expenses for "The Old Time Gospel Hour."
The family history in Virginia dating back to 1669 is a colorful,
sweeping, almost biblical tale that includes financial success and
murder, atheism and profound religious conviction, sin and atonement.
Jerry and his twin, Eugene, were the youngest children of Carey and
Helen Falwell. Falwell’s paternal grandfather was a vocal atheist. Their
father, Carey Falwell, was a wealthy entrepreneur, a businessman who
owned grocery stores, service stations, restaurants, an oil company and
a bus company and who later turned to bootlegging. Like his father
before him, he had little use for religion and was reputed to have run a
brothel. When Carey’s brother Garland, the proverbial "wild child," came
to the family restaurant with guns drawn, Carey killed him. Although the
murder was labeled self-defense, Carey was laden with guilt and died at
age 55 of alcoholism, when Jerry and Eugene were only 15 years old. The
twins and their older siblings, Lewis and Virginia, have credited their
mom with instilling the old-time-religion in the family.
Falwell skipped second grade and earned a grade average of 98 in high
school, also excelling in football, baseball, and basketball. Despite
his good grades, he was barred from giving the valedictorian's speech at
graduation because it was discovered that he and other athletes had
obtained free lunches for a year by using counterfeit lunch tickets. He
enrolled in Lynchburg College majoring in mechanical engineering and won
a B.F. Goodrich citation for earning the highest grades in mathematics
in his freshman year.
During his sophomore year on January 20, 1952 Jerry became a "born
again" Christian when he and some friends attended a service conducted
by the Rev. Paul Donnellson in Lynchburg, VA. The time as noted was 9:00
PM. Shortly thereafter he decided to transfer to the Baptist Bible
College in Springfield, Missouri, turning down an offer to play baseball
with the St. Louis Cardinals. He graduated with a Doctor of Theology
degree in 1956. On his return to Lynchburg, Falwell founded an
independent Baptist church with funds totaling $1,000. The first service
of the Thomas Road Baptist Church was held June 24, 1956 in an abandoned
building owned by the Donald Duck Bottling Company, and first
congregation consisted of 35 adults and their families. Falwell's energy
and enthusiasm seemed unlimited. Besides his ministerial duties he
performed maintenance, carpentry work, door-to-door campaigning and fund
raising. He persuaded the building's owner to underwrite the church's
purchase of the deteriorating building.
A week following the opening of the church Falwell started a half-hour
daily radio program. Six months later he began his first television show
where he could preach to the multitudes. By the end of the first year
the church had 864 regular worshippers; by 1969, membership neared
10,000. In 1959 he set up the Elim Home for Alcoholics on a 165-acre
farm; the Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1964; a bus ministry for people
lacking transportation to attend service in 1969; a free summer camp for
children, a Bible institute and a seminary. The church also undertook
missionary and relief work, sending teams to Guatemala, Haiti, South
Korea, Indochina, Australia and other locations around the world.
By 1971, the televised "Old-Time Gospel Hour" began to broadcast
nationwide. In 1973, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a
federal suit for "fraud and deceit" and "gross insolvency" after he sold
over $6 million dollars worth of bonds to finance expansion of the
church's education facilities, but the suit was dropped by a US District
Court. Falwell's Lynchburg Baptist College became Liberty Baptist
College, an accredited four-year liberal arts institution offering B.S.
degrees in business administration, religion, communication, education,
natural science and other fields. A new campus was built in 1977, the
year that his mother died. She passed away on April 28th at 10:10 AM in
Lynchburg, VA.
Doing an "about face" on becoming involved in issues of morality he
began to expound on homosexuality. He helped singer Anita Bryant in her
campaign to repeal an ordinance granting equal rights to homosexuals in
Florida in 1977, taking a similar stand in California in 1978. He
launched a "Clean Up America" campaign in May 1978 and a second in April
1979, highlighted by a mass rally on the steps of the Capitol in
Washington, D.C.
In June 1979, Falwell founded Moral Majority, Inc. comprised of four
units: education, lobbying, endorsement of candidates and legal aid. At
the 1980 Republican National Convention, the party adopted a platform
encompassing many of Moral Majority's views including a historic turn
away from the Equal Rights Amendment and a demand for a constitutional
ban on abortion.
Falwell was unsuccessful in discouraging Ronald Reagan from selecting
George Bush as his running mate. After Reagan's election on November 4,
1980, Falwell happily pointed out that Moral Majority had registered
some 4,000,000 new voters and urged another 1,000,000 to go to the
polls. On March 17, 1987 Falwell took advantage of the sex scandal
surrounding Jim Bakker who had his own evangelical empire, the PTL.
Falwell insisted he was asked to take over its leadership and did so out
of his pastoral concern and fear that the sex scandal would damage all
televangelists. A public feud erupted when Bakker later said Falwell was
only to serve as "caretaker" of the organization. Falwell also accused
Bakker of having homosexual trysts which Bakker vehemently denied.
Falwell's takeover of the debt-ridden PTL was short-lived when he
resigned from the board October 8, 1987. An unfavorable ruling was made
by the bankruptcy judge on October 7, 1987 who said that Falwell's
reorganization plan did not take into account the wishes of creditors
and PTL's "Lifetime Partners" (a plan whereby the partners contributed
$1,000 in exchange for three nights per year at one of the PTL Heritage
USA theme park's two hotels located in Fort Mill, SC).
Falwell met his future wife, Macel Pate, on January 20, 1952, the night
of his conversion. She had been the pianist at the service. They married
on April 12, 1958 and had three children, Jerry, Jr. born 1962, Jeannie
and Jonathan. Falwell’s autobiography "Strength for the Journey" (1987)
brought in a $1 million advance from Simon and Schuster. His youngest
son Jonathan reported that his dad, even while living in a mansion,
considered himself a local pastor from Lynchburg who came home, grabbed
a soft drink and hot dog and watched boxing. One of Falwell’s colleagues
described him as being a generous man with a “wicked sense of humor.”
The reverend outdid himself after the terrorist attack in New York in
September 2001, when he publicly blamed "the pagans, the abortionists,
the feminists and the gays and lesbians for helping this happen, that
God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of American to
give us probably what we deserve."
On the morning of May 15, 2007, Falwell had breakfast with an
administrator of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. He was later found
unconscious in his office and was pronounced dead at 12:40 PM EDT, age
73. He had been suffering from heart problems, the most likely cause of
his death.
For More Information on the Web:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/obituaries/15cnd-falwell.html?ex=1194840000&en=482afc3b0fbfc2cd&ei=5087&excamp=OVGNfalwell
http://www.falwell.com/index.cfm?PID=13737
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/70/story_7040_1.html
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