I'm Not Mourning for Jerry Falwell
The Reverend Jerry Falwell Died Yesterday. Why Am I Not Terribly Upset?
I am not terribly sure that this is a reasonable sentiment. Those of us unfortunate enough to have been paying attention to popular media about a month after 9/11 may remember Reverend Falwell's gloriously outlandish tirade about feminists, abortion, and the ACLU being more causative of 9/11 than, er, terrorists. His hasty backpedaling the following day does not redeem him in my heart, it merely reveals him to be dishonest.
His 1980 book "Listen, America!" (easily his best-selling; it earned him more than any of his subsequent books, even without accounting for inflation) lists abortion, liberalism, social welfare, drugs, and homosexuality as great evils plaguing the United States. He does not blame abundant firearms, the enormous gap between the rich and the poor, voter apathy, etc... he spouts the Republican party line and expects us to believe that the Jesus of the New Testament was anti-welfare. It worked.
His egregious lawsuit against Larry Flint and Hustler magazine ($50 million) was obviously an attempt to steal more than recompense for the libel he wanted the Supreme Court to think was being printed against him. What he wanted was to destroy a publishing house that he saw as threatening to the principles of the theocracy he would struggle for his entire life.
This was a man who blamed 9/11 on feminism and who has stated that he thinks that there will be a festival in heaven on the day that homosexuality is destroyed.
Jerry Falwell is the worst sort of person that the United States could produce: a dedicated Christian. He lived in a terrible and tiny universe populated by sinners and their demon-friends, with good, fag-hating, capitalist killing-for-Christ diamonds in the rough far and few between. His intense dedication to prostrating himself before the god who dashes infants on rock and zealous evangelism of the worst kind of Old Testament literalism has brought the United States perilously close to an inescapable cultural divide, with the upright Christian on one side, and the reasonable, thinking man on the other.
As you hear the memorials and apologies on the radio, never, ever forget that this is the man in whose best possible world unrepentant sinners would be stoned to death. This is the man who has every problem with women voting and none with his personal acquaintances mailing live explosives to abortion clinics. Let us call a spade a spade: this man was not just a caricature of his side, he was the archetype of everything we as a civilization discarded when we stopped obeying the the architects of the Inquisitions. He wanted the Constitution undone at its foundation and pined for the days when governments answered only to Leviticus and none other.
His two sons are now in charge of his ministry. The quest for the Holocaust of homosexuals, where science is banned from public schools and there is a Decalogue in every public building, is still on. The dream of the insane world is still being dreamed by Jonathan Falwell and Jerry Falwell, Jr. and we will be hearing their bullshit for years to come. I for one will not be mourning Jerry Falwell's departure from the world that no longer has any use for his kind.
As for his legacy, we see the growing tide of fundamentalist, conservative evangelism across the nation. Presidents are A-OK with saying that God told them to do this or that, schools are being taken apart because some parents don't understand biology, and every day more and more good, God-fearing Christians are doing the good Christian thing, whether it be expelling their homosexual children from their homes, or voting in droves to outlaw the extremely promising lines of medicine hidden in the mysteries of stem cells.
Perhaps his god will be kinder to him than I am. I can only hope that history will not be sympathetic to a wolf in Christ's clothing.
Published by Mike Larsen
I am an undergraduate student pursuing two BAs from a New England liberal arts college. Articles on this page are contributed to by pictures from my friends, but I do all the writing. View profile
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15 Comments
Post a CommentFalwell had every right to be offended at what Flynt printed about him in Hustler magazine, but his suit against Flynt which was later settled by the Supreme Court had more to do with Falwell's self interest as opposed to any libel damages he expected to be compensated for. Had Flynt lost with the Supreme Court, it would have been forever damaging to free speech in this country. It would have affected everyone in this country regardless of their political or religious convictions. Defending free speech also means defending unpopular speech because it will stop the flow of ideas in society, and that would promote the death of our culture. Falwell has the right to say what he wants, just as we have the right to call him a big fat bigoted and hypocritical homophobe which he is.
I have to say, I didn't mourn him either. If he was right, then his death was no loss to him because he's going to heaven to get rewarded. If I'm right, then his death was a great gain to America and I think God's merciful to the highly misguided. And if he and I are both wrong, America's still better off, because he would have been spreading hate and misguided teachings. So whoever's right, the world and the country are better off. And he might be too.
as a direct response to the first post i would say that this dedicated christian is not aware of what christiannity really is-i am an atheist and seem to have a better idea of it!
the god of leviticus or genesis is not the god of mark or thessalonians. either that or he has multiple personality disorder, which is logically impossible considering god is meant to be perfect.
Ryan, here is the issue: Jerry Falwell was a true Christian. How do I know? Because every time he condemned a homosexual, affronted a nation, or cursed us all for our modern ethics, he cited chapter and verse. Nothing he ever said or did wasn't a command straight out of Scripture. If you believe that Falwell was wrong about the God of the Bible, then I can safely surmise that you have never read the Bible. You sound to be like a "moderate" Christian, which is to say, a Christian who sort of believes the religion of his parents, but doesn't have the dedication to put any effort into it. Is the Bible of the word of God, or is it not? Did Jesus rise bodily from the dead and ascend to heaven, or did he not? If the answer to either of those is yes, then Jerry Falwell was 100% right about everything he said. If he was wrong, then both of you are wrong about everything you believe.
Chris, keep on givin' them the business, keep on givin the cold hard facts! Jerry "Fare-thee-well" all the way to the bowels of Celestial Hell; he wasn't sublime, theocratic footprints on the sands of crime, surely banished into nothing toujours time. Christopher, plat du jour peer, I proudly raise my glass of beer, & shed not even a crocodile tear...Down the road, however, I will mourn, for the "King of Porn" Oh, by the way! Nice riposte to Tidwell.
Jerry Falwell was a misogynist, racist, rabid, bloated blowhard, and I hope he'll spend some time in afterlife-rehab for jerkaholics.
Chris Tidwell: do you mourn aloud for the death of Stalin? Is Osama bin Laden's life precious to you? If yes, then your moral priorities are irretrievably misguided, if no, then you are a hypocrite.
I'm glad someone had the guts to say it.
To Mike White:
"The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation," Falwell said, "is the inerrant Word of God, and totally accurate in all respects." Jerry Falwell said that in 1972. That the Bible prohibits women from making themselves heard in public (1 Timothy 2:11-12, 1 Corinthians 34-35) and demands violence against the unfaithful (Deut 7:5, 28:16-68, Isaiah 5:24-25). If you cannot understand the extremely thinly-veiled calls for violence in the chapter titled "A Biblical Kind of Action" (pp.245- 254 in the 1980 edition of "Listen, America!") then you have chosen not to understand Jerry Falwell. If his comments about 9/11 or his stance on the coming homosexual holocaust do not persuade you, then nothing will. If you want me to quote Jerry Falwell saying "kill sinner x right now," you aren't going to get it for obvious reasons, which I'm sure is good enough for you to go to bed with rosy visions of a good upright Christian in your brain. Good luck.
Did you know that the media twisted the words of Mr. Falwell in more ways then one, so don't believe everything you have ever heard about the man. His comments about the Telli Tubbies were actually quoted 6 months prior to the media hype, and his full comments on the subject were edited and manipulated. Jerry Falwell was a great man who deserves the utmost respect, even if you disagree with him, and I for one mourn the death of any human being regardless of their political, culteral, ethnic or religous stance. A life is precious and no matter who it belongs too.