Jerry Falwell, dead today at 73, was a rock star of the
Christian right. He created Moral
Majority. He founded Liberty
University. He sued Larry Flynt. He outed a Teletubby.
And no matter what one thinks of his politics, Jerry Falwell
was an effective proponent of a right-wing political agenda. In Pat Robertson’s words, Falwell was a
“tower of strength on many of the moral issues which have confronted our
nation.”
We at FaithfulDemocrats.com disagreed vehemently with
Falwell on which moral issues to focus on.
His priorities were not our priorities.
If he was a tower of strength, we believe he was a deeply misguided
one. But we respect his passion. Revelation 3:16
tells us it’s better to be hot or cold than to be lukewarm, and Falwell
certainly wasn’t the latter. We offer
our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.
And yet we would be remiss to let this moment pass without
reflecting on one of the most regrettable features of the Falwell legacy — or
at least, of the political movement that Falwell and his co-thinkers have left
us: the notion that there’s a heavenly link between Christianity and the
Republican Party.
Ever since Moral Majority helped mobilize millions of
evangelical votes for Ronald Reagan in 1980, the meme that God is spelled G-O-P
has crept into our national consciousness.
Today, a narrow agenda, focused on sexuality but sometimes spilling
inexplicably into laissez-faire economics and a hawkish foreign policy, has
come to define both the image of conservative Christians and the moral (or at
least rhetorical) priorities of the Republican Party.
The Democrats’ preferred issues of poverty, creation care,
racial righteousness, and international cooperation — though biblical — have
received short shrift in our country’s debate on faith and values. Many groups are working hard to change
that. Let’s keep that work going.
But in the process, let’s not make the same mistakes that
Falwell did. We would be wise to emulate
his passion and effectiveness; we would be downright sacrilegious to
conflate our church with our party — a habit which, ultimately, renders Christ
our pawn instead of our king.
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