Jerry Falwell's Funeral Draws Thousands, Occasions Views of Past and Future

For reports on Falwell's death and earlier analyses of its meaning, please click here.

Faithful by the thousands attend Falwell funeral at church he founded in 1956

LYNCHBURG, Va. – The Rev. Jerry Falwell was remembered by thousands Tuesday as a champion of conservative Christian values who fearlessly galvanized the religious right into a powerful force in American politics.

The funeral returned Falwell to his roots – the Thomas Road Baptist Church, where he started as a young preacher in 1956 with just 35 parishioners in an old, abandoned soda bottling plant. More than 10,000 people attended the funeral, many forced into overflow seating.

He was a champion of the fundamental values that we hold dear,” fellow Virginia evangelist Pat Robertson said as he entered the sanctuary. “He stepped on some toes.” Continue.

During His Funeral, Falwell Is Praised for Activist Style

Lynchburg, Va., May 22 -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell was eulogized Tuesday as a daring critic of American life, called by God to his role as a clergyman and political activist.

"He was called at this particular time to raise high the Gospel banner in America," Dr. Jerry Vines, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said at Mr. Falwell’s funeral. "He understood that as Christians, we cannot hide our light under a bushel. He said, ‘I was called by our Lord Jesus Christ to confront the culture.’ And did he ever confront it."

He founded the Moral Majority almost 30 years ago, seeking to create a mass movement of evangelical Christians and people of other faiths, united by a conservative agenda on abortion, gay rights, patriotism and moral values. In 1980, the Moral Majority was credited with playing a role in the election of Ronald Reagan as president and in dozens of Congressional races. Continue.

Evangelicals at a Crossroads As Falwell's Generation Fades

If the Rev. Jerry Falwell personified the Christian right in the past, then the Rev. Frank S. Page may represent its future.

From his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., where his funeral will be held today, Falwell gave evangelicals a strong political voice. But it was often the voice of a sure and angry prophet, as when he blamed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in part on "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians," or described warnings about global warming as "Satan's attempt" to turn the church's attention from evangelism to environmentalism.

Page, 54, was chosen last year as president of the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, Falwell's denomination and the country's largest evangelical one, in an election that he saw as a mandate for change. Continue.

Rev. Mel White remembers Jerry Falwell

Falwell's former ghost writer in conversation with JewsOnFirst.org

by Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, May 16, 2007

We have posted a conversation with Rev. Mel White, who ghost-wrote Falwell's autobiography before coming out as gay and founding Soulforce, an LGBT civil rights organization.

White never stopped trying to change Falwell's attitude toward homosexuality. He moved to Lynchburg "to try to help him understand the tragic consequences of his anti-gay rhetoric." He attended Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church, and, as he tells JewsOnFirst.org Co-Director Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, he found some admirable qualities in Falwell, who died Tuesday.

To listen to White's ten-minute conversation with Beliak, please click here.

Religious and Political Icons Join Thousands Mourning Falwell in Virginia

A panoply of conservative political and religious leaders gathered Tuesday to bid farewell to the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an event that was vintage Falwell: oversize, spiritual, filled with family, hometown friends and high-profile allies, with TV cameras and a sprinkling of protesters adding oomph.

The Baptist minister who brought fundamental Christianity into the mainstream of American life, transforming the nation's politics and culture, was eulogized as a man of warmth, faith and principle.

"He was controversial," the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, told 7,000 mourners packed into Thomas Road Baptist Church, where Falwell continued as pastor even after founding the Moral Majority. "Jerry's goal wasn't to be popular, you know that." Continue.

Falwell's Sons, Mourners Vow to Carry On

The Rev. Jerry Falwell's son told thousands of parishioners packed in a church Sunday that the man they remembered as a mighty force in conservative Christianity would want them to continue the work he began.

Jonathan Falwell tried to rally the tearful crowd of around 5,000 at the second of two Sunday services at Thomas Road Baptist Church, telling them that if his father were alive he "would wrap his arms around us and say 'Guys, it's going to be OK.'

"He would say, 'I have finally I have finally reached glory.' He would say, 'You have a world to reach,'" said Falwell, the church's executive pastor. The elder Falwell died Tuesday at age 73.

Weeping parishioners comforted each other throughout the service, becoming increasingly distraught as a video and photo montage chronicling the evangelist's life played on the church's two giant screens.

But when told Falwell was with God, they rejoiced, at one point lifting their arms to the heavens and singing. Continue.

Thousands remember Falwell

LYNCHBURG, Va., (BP)--Thousands thronged Lynchburg, Va., and the facilities of Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University for the May 22 memorial service of Jerry Falwell.

The capacity crowd heard a statement from President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush as read by Tim Goeglein, special assistant to the president.

The statement offered the Bushes' sympathies and said that Falwell was a man who "cherished faith, family and freedom."

The Bushes wrote that one of Falwell's "lasting contributions was the establishment of Liberty University, where he taught young people to remain true to their convictions, and to rely upon God's Word throughout each stage of their lives." Continue.

Remembering Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1933-2007

CBNNews.com - LYNCHBURG, Va. -- In Ecclesiastes 3:2, the Bible says there is a time to be born and a time to die. In Lynchburg this week, it is a time to remember.

Thousands packed the Thomas Road Baptist Church founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. Continue for both print and video coverage of Falwell's funeral.

The Sad, Quotable Jerry Falwell

It's bad form to speak ill of the dead. Good thing this man's own vile words speak for themselves

You can eulogize. You can mourn and ponder and do a lengthy retrospective, a political analysis, a sociocultural examination of a career and a legacy and a rather remarkable life. When remembering the dead, the journalistic options are legion.

But in the case of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, the grandfather of the fundamentalist religious right and the foremost champion of the creation of a brutally homophobic, mysogynistic Christian theocracy in America, perhaps it's better to let the man's most insidiously famous quotes speak for themselves, and let time and karma be the judge of whether Falwell left the world a better place than when he found it. (All citations are available at wikiquote.org and elsewhere.)

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." Continue.

The Enduring Legacy of Jerry Falwell

What was it about Jerry Falwell that, even after his death, drives liberals crazy?

Media Advisory, June 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- Journalist Christopher Hitchens called the minister "a little toad" with "chubby little flanks" and called his ministry a "get rich quick scheme," adding that Falwell may not have read the Bible: "I would doubt that he could actually read any long book...at all." Said Hitchens: "I think it's a pity there isn't a Hell for him to go to."

Alan Wolfe of Salon.com wrote: "One never wants to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Jerry Falwell, how can one not?"

In the Calgary Sun, Kathleen Parker wrote: "Jerry Falwell's prosaic death has elevated speaking ill of the dead to the level of sacrament." Continue.

An open letter to LU's Class of 2007

To those of you who are leaving town for the next stage of your lives, it was nice having you here; for those who are staying, welcome.

You are living examples of the fact that this part of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s legacy, at least, will survive him. As Jerry Falwell Jr., the heir apparent as chancellor, said on Saturday: “All is well at Liberty. We’ve been planning for this transition for 15 years.”

We can all hope so, because the college has become so intertwined with the community economically that its loss or decline would be deeply felt.

When your school first started, it was somewhat isolated from the rest of Lynchburg. The “guard shack” that you breeze past today once operated like a military checkpoint in Baghdad. And a lot of the early students were very - how do I put this? - enthusiastic about spreading their religion. Continue.

Gingrich tells graduates to challenge "radical secularism"

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich told Liberty University's graduating class Saturday to honor the spirit of school founder Jerry Falwell by confronting ''the growing culture of radical secularism'' with Christian ideals.

Gingrich, who is considering a 2008 presidential run, quoted Bible passages to a mournful crowd of about 17,000 packed into the university's football stadium in Lynchburg, Va., four days after Falwell's death.

Despite the somber tone of the day, graduates who covered the football field chanted ''Jerry! Jerry!'' in tribute to Falwell.

''A growing culture of radical secularism declares that the nation cannot profess the truths on which it was founded,'' Gingrich said. ''We are told that our public schools can no longer invoke the Creator, nor proclaim the natural law, nor profess the God-given quality of human rights...

...''Anybody on the Left who hopes that when people like Reverend Falwell disappear, that the opportunity to convert all of America has gone with them, fundamentally misunderstands why institutions like this were created,'' Gingrich said. Click here.

Post-Falwell, U.S. Religious Right remains a force

DALLAS (Reuters) - U.S. evangelist Jerry Falwell has been laid to rest but it is premature to write the political obituary of the conservative Christian movement he once led.

The "Religious Right," a movement linked to the Republican Party that seeks to redraw U.S. public policy along evangelical Christian lines, remains a political force -- and doesn't need a unifying leader, experts on the movement say.

Falwell, who died in May at the age of 73, had been increasingly sidelined since 1989, when he disbanded the Moral Majority -- a group that drummed up support for conservative Republicans.

But the movement has moved from success to success over the years, even as Falwell's influence waned -- not least in playing an instrumental role in securing two White House terms for devout Christian George W. Bush.

"National-level leadership is less important than it was in the 1970s and 1980s when Falwell headed the Moral Majority because the movement has matured," said Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University. Continue.