Update 5/16/07 - Michael Novak appreciates a special and unique quality in both Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan - "a permanent cheerfulness."
National Review Online today offers a helpful symposium on the life and achievements of Jerry Falwell. A few samples follow. Paul Kengor -
. . . here is something that will not be acknowledged in obituaries and hit pieces that try to frame him as a theocrat: Falwell and many of those in the Moral Majority got involved in politics not because they were sticking their nose where it didn’t belong but because they saw what happened to the culture and to their country when they were not involved in politics. Falwell was a reaction, a response to the nation’s moral drift in the 1960s and beyond.
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus -
He was pastor of a megachurch, and then there is Liberty University, which is nothing to sniff at, although that has not stopped the sniffing. In American histories rightly told he will be more than a footnote. As much as anyone, he precipitated a reconfiguration of our public life whereby democracy has been reinvigorated by the inclusion of millions of citizens determined to have a say in how we order our life together. May he rest in peace where the sounds of battle are no more.
Ralph Reed -
Jerry Falwell was one of the most historic religious and political figures of the 20th century. He transformed the life of our nation, even as he never wavered from his first love and calling, which was to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . Falwell’s liberal critics saw him only through the prism of secularism, and so they never grasped what a groundbreaking progressive he was within fundamentalism. He insisted that the Moral Majority work with Catholics, Jews, charismatic Protestants, and Mormons, who were anathema to some of his fundamentalist colleagues. But this break with the separatist, isolationist past of fundamentalism was critical to building cooperation across denominational and doctrinal lines in the pro-family movement. It is one of his most significant and lasting achievements. His support for Israel and his work with the Jewish community were legendary. . . The Republican majority that exists in states like South Carolina and other states across the south and midwest would have been unthinkable without the voters that Falwell helped energize.
Though not without controversy, Jerry Falwell led an enormously consequential life. Few of us who are engaged in politics failed to be touched directly or indirectly by his leadership. Many of us were fortunate to count him as a friend. He will be greatly missed.
In a separate article, Joseph Loconte observes:
Jerry Falwell had his faults, excesses, and ego. His style of politics has no doubt contributed to the public rancor over religion. But think about it: The most frightening outcome of his activism was not a cadre of suicide bombers, or a culture of nihilistic rage, or a network of terrorists plotting to destroy the foundations of Western civilization. The most frightening outcome of Falwell’s activism was the mobilization of middle-class citizens to join school boards and city councils, to launch lobbying campaigns and voter-registration drives, to participate in local and national elections.
We call that democracy.
My own thinking yesterday and today has centered on what I suspected was the chief influence on Jerry Falwell's movement into the public and political realm: namely the influence of Francis Schaeffer. An article Christianity Today published back in 1997 confirms my hunch:
Francis's [Schaeffer] writings helped convince Jerry Falwell to take a stand against abortion. Francis also tutored Falwell in the concept of cobelligerence (Schaeffer's belief that Christians ought to stand with non-Christians against social injustice), which led Falwell to try to bring Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and others into the Moral Majority in 1979. Francis and Franky both made public appearances with Falwell and with Pat Robertson.
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Dr. Al Mohler provides it. (HT: Hugh Hewitt)