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Ralph Reed
NationalReview.com

Posted: 5/16


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. When he founded the Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1957, fundamentalism was in the mid-throes of a half-century of withdrawal from American civic life, a self-imposed exile that had begun with the Scopes Trial of 1925. As arguably the leading fundamentalist pastor in the nation, he organized a network of independent Baptists and fundamentalists into a formidable force, moving fundamentalism back into the mainstream of American religious culture. The “fundamentals” of the Christian faith that he preached from the pulpit — the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the imminent return of Christ — came to heavily influence a movement back to orthodoxy within American Protestantism, most dramatically represented by the return of the Southern Baptist Convention to its conservative roots. This, along with a return to orthodoxy among pro-life, observant Catholics (especially under the papacy of John Paul II, which began in 1978), marked perhaps the two most important changes in religious life in the United States in the last half century.

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. Today, there is much talk about whether the pro-family community should work on a narrow band of issues such as abortion and protecting marriage, or whether it should broaden its concerns to include foreign policy and other domestic issues. Dr. Falwell grasped from the creation of the movement that the values of social conservatism spoke to every area of public policy, including foreign affairs and defense. He was a staunch anti-Communist, a strong supporter of Israel, and a believer in religious liberty around the world.

When he founded the Moral Majority in 1979, he awakened the slumbering giant of the evangelical vote. The marriage of that vote to an ascendant, confident Republican party is among the most important political demographic changes of the last century. One could see the shadow of his presence on the stage at the South Carolina Republican presidential debate last night in Columbia, as the ten aspirants for the GOP nomination sought to connect with the evangelical voters who will decide the outcome of that primary, and probably the Republican presidential contest. 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. He was also wise enough to leave no void of leadership, either at his beloved Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church, or at the helm of the pro-family movement he helped to birth. He is gone, but his vital work will go on, often in the hands of those he mentored and inspired, and the American people will continue to hear the clarion call of faith to which he devoted his life.

— Ralph E. Reed Jr. is president of Century Strategies and the former head of the Christian Coalition.
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