Jerry Falwell, R.I.P.

Breaking news, from Yahoo.com:

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university's executive vice president, said Falwell was found unresponsive late Tuesday morning and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later.

Requiescat in pace.

Some interesting facts about Falwell's early years that I'd not heard before:

Falwell's father and his grandfather were militant atheists, he wrote in his autobiography. He said his father made a fortune off his businesses — including bootlegging during Prohibition.

As a student, Falwell was a star athlete and a prankster who was barred from giving his high school valedictorian's speech after he was caught using counterfeit lunch tickets his senior year.

He ran with a gang of juvenile delinquents before becoming a born-again Christian at age 19. He turned down an offer to play professional baseball and transferred from Lynchburg College to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo.

"My heart was burning to serve Christ," he once said in an interview. "I knew nothing would ever be the same again."

CBS.com has more biographical info, showing that although Falwell was sometimes controversial for the wrong reasons—saying silly or offensive things—he was often controversial for the right reasons:

Falwell crusaded against same-sex marriage.

"The issue of marriage is simply an eternal one. That is, one man married to one woman," he said.

For Falwell, the issue had no middle ground.

"To endorse marriage is to say to the society, to the culture, that what is wrong both biblically, theologically, sociologically is OK in America," he told CBS News. ...

"Abortion, family values, the moral underpinnings on which the nation was built we call the Judeo-Christian ethic, is important to us," Falwell said.

My one encounter, so to speak, with Falwell was in December 2004, when I was a guest—via satellite—on FOX's "Geraldo At Large"; Falwell was the other guest, via satellite from Liberty University. I wrote about it here. Although I disagreed with many of Falwell's views, especially theologically, there was much to admire about the man. After all, anyone who could annoy social liberals and the MSM as much as he did was doing something right. Whatever the case, may God grant him eternal peace.

Comments

[Jackson]

The liberal media is now dutifully dancing on his grave.

[Pazdziernik]

Is it safe to say that Rev. Falwell is Catholic now? I will keep him and his family in my prayers. He was truly a significant personality and leader in America.

[Ed Peters]

Paz, yes, and yours is an interesting question, and not at all rhetorical (imo), but let's bury the man with our respects, and then talk about it...

[Celestial SeraphiMan]

Didn't he condemn women who stepped outside the home? Didn't he condemn homosexual persons? Didn't he claim that blacks are meant to serve whites? Please respond.