Jerry Falwell

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Lore & Background

Jerry Falwell and his twin brother Gene were born in the Fairview Heights area of Lynchburg, Virginia, on August 11, 1933. His father was an entrepreneur and one-time bootlegger who was agnostic; his paternal grandfather was a staunch atheist. As a youth, Falwell was a member of a group known to police as 'the Wall Gang.' He met Macel Pate on his first visit to Park Avenue Baptist Church in 1949; she was a pianist there. They married on April 12, 1958, and had two sons, Jerry Jr. and Jonathan, and a daughter, Jeannie. Falwell joked: 'Macel and I have never considered divorce. Murder maybe, but never divorce.'

In 1956, aged 22, Falwell founded Thomas Road Baptist Church with 35 members; it became a megachurch. That same year, he began The Old-Time Gospel Hour, a nationally syndicated radio and television ministry. He founded Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967 as a segregation academy, which the Lynchburg News in 1966 called 'a private school for white students.' In 1971, he co-founded Liberty University with Elmer L. Towns. In 1979, he co-founded the Moral Majority, which was promoted as 'pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-moral, and pro-American' and credited with delivering two-thirds of the white evangelical vote to Ronald Reagan in 1980. In March 1987, Falwell succeeded Jim Bakker as head of his PTL ministry after a sexual misconduct scandal. Falwell later barred Bakker from returning, calling him 'probably the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history.' He raised $20 million to keep PTL solvent and rode the water slide at Heritage USA, but was unable to save the ministry from bankruptcy, resigning in October 1987.

Reader's Guide

Falwell's significance comes from his role as a founder of the modern Christian right. Through the Moral Majority, he mobilized evangelical voters, aligning them with Republican candidates. According to Jimmy Carter, 'that autumn [1980] a group headed by Jerry Falwell purchased $10 million in commercials on southern radio and TV to brand me as a traitor to the South and no longer a Christian.' Falwell's institutions—Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty Christian Academy, and Liberty University—became centers of conservative Christian influence. Falwell held controversial views on civil rights. In the mid-1960s, his program The Old-Time Gospel Hour regularly featured segregationist politicians like Lester Maddox and George Wallace. Of Brown v. Board of Education, he said in 1958: 'The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.' In 1977, he supported Anita Bryant's 'Save Our Children' campaign. However, in a 2005 MSNBC appearance, Falwell said civil rights for gay people regarding housing and employment are 'basic rights, not special rights,' stating: 'Civil rights for all Americans... is not a liberal or conservative value. It's an American value.'

Falwell was a staunch pro-Israel Christian Zionist, saying in the 1984 book Jerry Falwell and the Jews: 'I believe that the people of Israel have not only a theological but also a historical and legal right to the land. I am personally a Zionist.' His death in 2007 ended an era, but his son Jonathan succeeded him as senior pastor at Thomas Road Baptist Church and became chancellor of Liberty University in 2023.

Did You Know?

• Falwell and his twin brother Gene were born in the Fairview Heights area of Lynchburg, Virginia, on August 11, 1933.
• Falwell's father was an entrepreneur and one-time bootlegger who was agnostic; his paternal grandfather was a staunch atheist.
• Falwell met his wife Macel Pate on his first visit to Park Avenue Baptist Church in 1949; she was a pianist there.
• Falwell founded Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967 as a segregation academy, which the Lynchburg News called 'a private school for white students.'
• In 1987, Falwell raised $20 million to keep Jim Bakker's PTL ministry solvent and rode the water slide at Heritage USA.