Jerry Falwell's legacy

Well, there goes half the conservative Evangelical sources in the average American journalist's Rolodex. When Pat Robertson goes to be with the Lord, what on earth will the news media do?

OK, sorry, that's not the way to get into a discussion of the Rev. Falwell's legacy. As my liberal Evangelical colleague Bill McKenzie said on the Dallas Morning News blog, love him or hate him, Falwell was the most politically consequential American religious figure since the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. I think that's a fair and accurate assessment.

Falwell helped energize conservative Evangelicals around political issues, and organized them into a potent force. His movement was the vanguard of the Reagan Revolution, and he (as well as Pat Robertson and others) forcibly won a place at the American political table for Evangelicals. These two were the great boogeymen of American politics (I once heard a ranking editor at a news meeting complain angrily about why "we always hear about what radical Muslims are doing, but we never focus on what Falwell and Robertson are doing" to threaten America). In truth, I didn't agree with a lot of their style, and some of their substance. But nobody can deny the significance of Falwell to US politics. Christian conservatives like me may not have liked Falwell's style much of the time, or some of the causes he championed. I once wrote something extremely uncharitable about him after he blamed 9/11 on gays, feminists and so forth; it was so nasty that I regretted it afterward, and I wish I had thought to send him a note of apology; but he ought not to have said what he said. For all that, there's no denying how important his work was to the cause of the unborn, and other issues that matter to folks like me.

The truth is, though, Falwell was really yesterday's news. His passing today is not only the passing of a man, but the passing of an era. The next generation of engaged Evangelical pastors aren't like him and his generation. I'm generalizing, of course, but they are conservative, but not so partisan, and not as eager to cast their lot with the GOP. And they care about bringing their Christian faith to bear on a wider range of issues than that which galvanized the Falwell generation. This makes crunchy-con me quite happy, but the truth is that no matter how politically engaged Christian conservatives regard Falwell's legacy, we all owe him a debt. I'm pleased that Falwellism existed in its day, and I'm pleased that it is fading from the scene. And I pray that Jerry Falwell rests in peace.