Jerry Falwell died...
Jerry Falwell died on May 15th in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he was born and where he founded the Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty University and the Moral Majority movement. He was 73.
One of the figurehead firebrands at the front of the evangelical spiritual and political movement in the U.S., he was criticized (or reviled) for his occasional shocking soundbites. (Here is his post-9/11 gem: ''I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.''')
But he created a church of 22,000 and many more tuned in to his "Old-Time Gospel Hour". Suffice it to say that he lent support to the notion that America is divided: Christian and secular; red and blue; moral and...amoral? Or is it immoral?
It is odd, then, that his greatest innovation was as a uniter, and not, as it were, a divider. After Roe v. Wade in 1973, he decided that it was necessary in America today for the Church to engage in politics. With the Moral Majority in the '80s, and later on his own, he forged alliances across a wide swath of Christianity. He put out fires that had been burning for centuries, and he did it by simply avoiding the well-worn theological disputes that lead to intractable differences between the denominations. He calculated that Christians of all stripes could be untied around a core of political issues. Even if a Baptist and a Catholic, say, cannot agree on the nature of baptism or the Eucharist, they can agree that condoms are wrong or that abortion is evil or homosexuality a sin.
"Behind the idea of the Moral Majority was this notion that there could be a coalition of these different religious groups that all agree on abortion and homosexuality and other issues even if they never agreed on how to read the Bible or the nature of God," said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. (Quoted in the NY Times obit.)
In my previous post, I agreed with Garry Wills when he argued that the Church should be united as a single body. (I disagreed with his argument that the pope is crucial, or even beneficial, to this end.) For Wills, the core of his beliefs are basically the positions outlined in the Apostles' Creed. These are the beliefs that we all, as Christians, must share. And these are the beliefs around which I would build a united front. But Falwell's issue-oriented approach turns this on its head. Instead of uniting around the core of Christian belief, he united people around the fringe issues. As Wills says, "I do not, I confess, continually meditate on the evil of condoms or the horror of letting women be priests" (for the record, he does not believe that these things are either evil or horrific). Instead, he meditates on the resurrection and the trinity, as do all Christians, I suppose.
But importantly it was the fringe, political issues that kept bumping up against mainstream American life. It was the fringe issues that an average congregant, an average voter, could become passionate about. It was the fringe issues around which Falwell could build a coalition. But I think ultimately, these fringe issues will tear the Church apart rather than unite it. (See, for instance, the current schism in the U.S. Episcopal Church over the issue of homosexuality.) So, let's forget about the kind of unity that Falwell prescribed. Let Falwell go down as primarily a political leader, and not a theologian. Hold whatever political views you want, but I think it is a mistake to confuse such things with religious belief.
One of the figurehead firebrands at the front of the evangelical spiritual and political movement in the U.S., he was criticized (or reviled) for his occasional shocking soundbites. (Here is his post-9/11 gem: ''I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.''')
But he created a church of 22,000 and many more tuned in to his "Old-Time Gospel Hour". Suffice it to say that he lent support to the notion that America is divided: Christian and secular; red and blue; moral and...amoral? Or is it immoral?
It is odd, then, that his greatest innovation was as a uniter, and not, as it were, a divider. After Roe v. Wade in 1973, he decided that it was necessary in America today for the Church to engage in politics. With the Moral Majority in the '80s, and later on his own, he forged alliances across a wide swath of Christianity. He put out fires that had been burning for centuries, and he did it by simply avoiding the well-worn theological disputes that lead to intractable differences between the denominations. He calculated that Christians of all stripes could be untied around a core of political issues. Even if a Baptist and a Catholic, say, cannot agree on the nature of baptism or the Eucharist, they can agree that condoms are wrong or that abortion is evil or homosexuality a sin.
"Behind the idea of the Moral Majority was this notion that there could be a coalition of these different religious groups that all agree on abortion and homosexuality and other issues even if they never agreed on how to read the Bible or the nature of God," said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. (Quoted in the NY Times obit.)
In my previous post, I agreed with Garry Wills when he argued that the Church should be united as a single body. (I disagreed with his argument that the pope is crucial, or even beneficial, to this end.) For Wills, the core of his beliefs are basically the positions outlined in the Apostles' Creed. These are the beliefs that we all, as Christians, must share. And these are the beliefs around which I would build a united front. But Falwell's issue-oriented approach turns this on its head. Instead of uniting around the core of Christian belief, he united people around the fringe issues. As Wills says, "I do not, I confess, continually meditate on the evil of condoms or the horror of letting women be priests" (for the record, he does not believe that these things are either evil or horrific). Instead, he meditates on the resurrection and the trinity, as do all Christians, I suppose.
But importantly it was the fringe, political issues that kept bumping up against mainstream American life. It was the fringe issues that an average congregant, an average voter, could become passionate about. It was the fringe issues around which Falwell could build a coalition. But I think ultimately, these fringe issues will tear the Church apart rather than unite it. (See, for instance, the current schism in the U.S. Episcopal Church over the issue of homosexuality.) So, let's forget about the kind of unity that Falwell prescribed. Let Falwell go down as primarily a political leader, and not a theologian. Hold whatever political views you want, but I think it is a mistake to confuse such things with religious belief.
Labels: religion
posted by Brian at 4:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home