I think my reaction to the death of Jerry Falwell is atypical—at least given that I am a politically-liberal philosophy professor at a large state university. And in many ways I understand and even agree with the views of most of my colleagues. To those who only knew of him through his statements of social morality and political conservativism, he was a pompous ass, a poster child of arrogant intolerance. God knows he said things for which he should be ashamed (and I trust he now is). Again, if this is all I knew of him, I’d join in the chorus of condemnation.
But if you think that this all there was to Jerry Falwell you aren’t seeing the whole picture. By all accounts of people who really knew the man, Jerry Falwell did have a concern for the poor (even if his stress on preaching the gospel over meeting physical needs seems out of balance to many of us), for single, scared pregnant women, and for the souls of those he thought were bringing down divine judgment on our country. Even Al Sharpton, hardly a man given to saying nice things about conservatives and in particular those who initially resisted the civil rights movement, commented on Larry King's CNN show that he counted Jerry Falwell as a friend. Jerry would call Sharpton just to find out how his family was doing and to chat. Sharpton also commented that Falwell never failed to speak to and show concern for the "little guys" who served him food and whose existence is often ignored by those with equal celebrity. People who paint Falwell as a one dimensional conservative moral monster just don’t know what they are talking about. Like most of the rest of us, he was a man with contradictions. But I believe that the most straight-forward measure of the moral compass of a person is how he or she treats the persons in his or her life, and in particular the people who are in servant roles. Everything I’ve read about Falwell leads me to believe that he was at least my moral equal on this score, and likely my superior (since he walked on a more heady stage than I ever will). So I’ll cast no stone in his direction. Yes, I think he sometimes hurt the true cause of Christ as it relates to social/political agenda we should be pursuing. But his convictions were at least in part a result of the time and place in which he was raised. In judgment, we should be merciful--even to the judgmental. The bottom line is that if I were in need and had to appeal on a personal level to someone in the public eye, I rather suspect I couldn’t do better than to ask for the help of the Reverend Falwell.
May God have mercy on your soul, Jerry. May God have even more mercy on mine.
But if you think that this all there was to Jerry Falwell you aren’t seeing the whole picture. By all accounts of people who really knew the man, Jerry Falwell did have a concern for the poor (even if his stress on preaching the gospel over meeting physical needs seems out of balance to many of us), for single, scared pregnant women, and for the souls of those he thought were bringing down divine judgment on our country. Even Al Sharpton, hardly a man given to saying nice things about conservatives and in particular those who initially resisted the civil rights movement, commented on Larry King's CNN show that he counted Jerry Falwell as a friend. Jerry would call Sharpton just to find out how his family was doing and to chat. Sharpton also commented that Falwell never failed to speak to and show concern for the "little guys" who served him food and whose existence is often ignored by those with equal celebrity. People who paint Falwell as a one dimensional conservative moral monster just don’t know what they are talking about. Like most of the rest of us, he was a man with contradictions. But I believe that the most straight-forward measure of the moral compass of a person is how he or she treats the persons in his or her life, and in particular the people who are in servant roles. Everything I’ve read about Falwell leads me to believe that he was at least my moral equal on this score, and likely my superior (since he walked on a more heady stage than I ever will). So I’ll cast no stone in his direction. Yes, I think he sometimes hurt the true cause of Christ as it relates to social/political agenda we should be pursuing. But his convictions were at least in part a result of the time and place in which he was raised. In judgment, we should be merciful--even to the judgmental. The bottom line is that if I were in need and had to appeal on a personal level to someone in the public eye, I rather suspect I couldn’t do better than to ask for the help of the Reverend Falwell.
May God have mercy on your soul, Jerry. May God have even more mercy on mine.
