Jerry Falwell

His father Carey Falwell made money in Lynchburg any way it came, bootlegging included, did not believe in God, shot and killed his own brother Garland, and died of cirrhosis in 1948 at 55. Jerry was 15 and one of a pair of twins. He converted four years later, in 1952, at the Park Avenue Baptist Church a few miles from the house, went out to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, and came back to Lynchburg in 1956, at 22, to start a church with 35 members on Thomas Road. He put a radio program on the air the same year and moved it to television soon after. Whatever else he was, he understood a transmitter better than most men in his trade.

What he built was a distribution system. Thomas Road became a megachurch, The Old-Time Gospel Hour carried him nationally, and in 1971 he founded a college in Lynchburg that grew into Liberty University, now among the largest Christian universities anywhere, with roughly 100,000 students studying online. In 1979 he co-founded the Moral Majority, which registered voters, ran direct mail, and converted conservative evangelicals from a constituency that mostly stayed home into one that reliably turned out Republican. He was credited with delivering two-thirds of the white evangelical vote to Ronald Reagan in 1980, and he wound the organization up in 1989 on the ground that it had done what it was for. In 1987 he took over Jim Bakker's collapsing PTL ministry, barred Bakker from returning, and quit that October unable to stop the bankruptcy.

In 1965 he preached a sermon called Ministers and Marches whose argument was that pastors had no business in politics and should preach the gospel instead. It was aimed at the civil rights clergy, whose movement he opposed. Two years later he opened the Lynchburg Christian Academy, a segregation academy the local paper had already called a private school for white students. Then he spent the rest of his life doing precisely what the sermon forbade, at a scale no preacher had reached. He disavowed the segregationist positions later. Others he kept: he said publicly that AIDS was God's punishment not only for homosexuals but for a society that tolerated them, and two days after September 11, 2001 he told a television audience that pagans, abortionists, feminists and gays had helped bring the attacks on. He apologized for that one.

The case he lost outlived him. Hustler ran a parody advertisement that had him describing a drunken first sexual encounter with his mother in an outhouse. He sued for 45 million dollars. In February 1988 the Supreme Court ruled against him unanimously: public figures cannot collect for emotional distress caused by parody. It is taught in every First Amendment course. He and Larry Flynt later toured campuses debating and became friendly. Falwell was found without a pulse in his Liberty office on May 15, 2007 and died of cardiac arrhythmia at 73. He is buried on the campus. Jerry Jr. ran the university until a scandal forced him out in August 2020. Jonathan took the Thomas Road pulpit.

Jerry Falwell's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Thomas Road Baptist Church company
  Started with 35 members. Became one of the country's first megachurches. 1956
• The Old-Time Gospel Hour television
  Radio first, then television, and the machinery behind everything else he built 1956
• Ministers and Marches speech
  The sermon telling pastors to stay out of politics, which he later abandoned 1965
• Lynchburg Christian Academy company
  Opened as a segregation academy 1967
• Liberty University company
  Founded as Lynchburg Baptist College 1971
• The Moral Majority company
  Co-founded in 1979 and dissolved by him in 1989 1979

• 1948 aged ~15 His father dies of cirrhosis at 55 Carey Falwell had shot and killed his own brother Garland. Jerry was 15.
• 1952 aged ~19 Converts at the Park Avenue Baptist Church in Lynchburg
• 1956 aged ~23 Founds Thomas Road Baptist Church at 22, with 35 members He started The Old-Time Gospel Hour the same year.
• 1965 aged ~32 Preaches Ministers and Marches against clergy in politics The target was the civil rights clergy. He reversed the position within 15 years.
• 1971 aged ~38 Founds Lynchburg Baptist College, later Liberty University
• 1979 aged ~46 Co-founds the Moral Majority
• 1987 aged ~54 Takes over Jim Bakker's PTL ministry and resigns in October He barred Bakker from returning and could not stop the bankruptcy.
• February 24, 1988 aged 54 The Supreme Court rules against him unanimously in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell Parody of a public figure is protected, whatever distress it causes.
• September 13, 2001 aged 68 Blames pagans, abortionists, feminists and gays for the attacks two days earlier He apologized after the condemnation that followed.
• May 15, 2007 aged 73 Found without a pulse in his Liberty University office He died at Lynchburg General Hospital of cardiac arrhythmia, at 73.

• Ronald Reagan 1911–2004
  40th president whose conservative domestic program and assertive Cold War strategy reshaped American politics. delivered evangelical votes to
• Jimmy Carter 1924–2024
  39th president who emphasized human rights, brokered the Camp David Accords, and built a major post-presidential humanitarian legacy. the evangelical president he organized against
• Billy Graham 1918–2018
  Evangelist whose mass crusades, media reach, and presidential relationships made him a defining figure in modern American Protestantism. the model he broke with
• William Rehnquist 1924–2005
  Chief justice who led the Court’s conservative shift toward federalism and limits on congressional power. wrote the opinion against him
• Donald Trump b. 1946
  Businessman, media personality, and 45th and 47th president whose populist movement transformed American politics. inherited the coalition
• Newt Gingrich b. 1943
  Speaker who engineered the 1994 Republican House majority and the Contract with America agenda. congressional ally of the movement