American televangelist and political activist Jerry Falwell. He described his upbringing as taking place in a home where the forces of God and the forces of Satan were engaged in combat. Jerry was encouraged to follow Jesus by his mother, who was a devoted Christian despite having an atheist grandpa, an agnostic father, and an atheist mother. His “Old-Time Gospel Hour” helped him gain notoriety as a religious broadcaster, but later as the head of the Moral Majority, a fundamentalist Christian political movement. He developed from a Lynchburg Baptist preacher to a significant player in electoral politics. More than anyone else, he played a key role in the rise of the religious right as a political movement, helped to define the concerns that would fuel it for years, and solidified its ties to the Republican Party. But because of his convictions, he disrespects both the Muslim and the LGBT communities. He also insulted many Americans by trying to separate Christian kids through his school and instruction.
Early Childhood & Life
Jerry and Gene Falwell, twins, were born on August 11, 1933, in the Fairview Heights neighborhood of Lynchburg, Virginia, to Helen Virginia and Carey Hezekiah Falwell.
His mother was a devoted Christian, his grandfather was a fervent atheist, and his father was an entrepreneur who was agnostic.
He performed well in athletics and academics. He enrolled in Lynchburg College in 1950 after graduating from high school, and in 1952 he underwent a religious conversion.
He later changed schools and graduated in 1956 from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri.
Career of Jerry Falwell
With an original congregation of 35 adults and their families, Jerry started the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg shortly after graduating in 1956, in an abandoned structure. Cleaning cola off the brick walls was their first task.
He also started a half-hour radio program called “The Old-Time Gospel Hour” in 1956. The broadcast was turned into a television program in 1971, with a target audience of millions.
He advocated for a school voucher system because he believed that the US public education system inculcated in children ideas that were strongly opposed to Christian moral precepts, such as secularism, atheism, and humanism.
He announced a wish to build the Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967 after expressing a desire to develop a Christian educational system for young evangelicals. The Thomas Road Baptist Church’s academy was a segregationist institution.
In Virginia, he established Liberty University in 1971. Gradually, it grew to become the largest private, non-profit university in the country, the largest Christian university on the planet, and the largest university in Virginia.
He was a fervent Bible reader and thought that it was the only way to build a solid foundation for his family and get spiritual instruction and direction. He considered the church to be a gathering place for brothers with similar beliefs.
According to the Green v. Connally decision by the Supreme Court in 1971, any private school that engaged in racial discrimination was ineligible for a tax exemption since it actively promoted religious segregation.
In 1979, Jerry founded the Moral Majority Political Action Committee to coordinate the opposition against US President Jimmy Carter’s decree to revoke Christian schools’ tax-exempt status.
The committee was hailed as being pro-life, pro-traditional families, pro-morality, and pro-American; by the 1900s, it had grown to be the biggest political lobbying organization for evangelical Christians.
Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter by a wide majority in the 1980 presidential election, and this accomplishment was credited to the committee and their 2/3rd white, evangelical Christians voting for him.
Jerry, as chairman of the committee, showed a steadfast love for Republican candidates and conservative beliefs. He painted Carter as a traitor and non-Christian in a $10 million advertising campaign that included radio and television commercials.
He believed that the United States wasn’t battling the North with all its might throughout the Vietnam War. He held that the President should use force to “cast wrath upon those who would commit evil” because he was “a minister of God.”
He was a steadfast supporter of Christian Zionism, also known as support for the State of Israel, during his entire life. He claims that the Jewish people are “spiritually blind and badly in need of their Messiah and savior” in his book “Listen America.”
He released the 1994 film “The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton,” which purported to connect Clinton to a murder plot involving Vincent Foster, James McDougall, Ron Brown, and a cocaine smuggling organization.
The documentary’s theory was quickly exposed as false after numerous of its assertions were challenged. Years later, Jerry said he couldn’t verify the footage’s veracity.
Bigger Works
The Thomas Road Baptist Church, which Jerry founded in Lynchburg in 1956, currently has 22,000 members, a day school, a live-in rehabilitation facility for alcoholics, a summer camp for kids, and a transportation service.
The Moral Majority, a political action committee that Jerry formed in 1979 to support religious segregation, quickly attracted millions of members. After completing its task, the group was disbanded.
Recognition & Achievements
In his lifetime, Jerry Falwell was awarded three honorary degrees: a doctorate in divinity from Tennessee Temple Theological Seminary, a doctorate in letters from California Graduate School of Theology, and a doctorate in law from Central University in Seoul, South Korea.
Personal Legacy & Life
On April 12, 1958, Macel Pate and Jerry got married. Jerry Jr. and Jonathan were the couple’s two sons, and a daughter (Jeannie).
He criticized the inclusion of the LGBT-welcoming Metropolitan Community Church into the World Council of Churches because he was adamantly opposed to homosexuality.
He thought that Islam was a diabolical faith and that Muhammad, its founder, was a terrorist. Although he expressed regret to the Muslim community, he left these remarks on his website.
On May 15, 2007, Jerry Falwell passed suddenly at Lynchburg General Hospital from a heart arrhythmia or sudden cardiac death.
Jerry Falwell’s Net Worth
Jerry Falwell, an American televangelist, political analyst, and evangelical Southern Baptist pastor, had a $10 million fortune. August 1933 saw the birth of Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia, and he passed away in May 2007. At the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, he served as its first pastor.