Jerry Falwell builds his legacy

By Bill Berkowitz
Created Oct 20 2006 - 9:02am

Fifty years behind the pulpit and 30 years in the political spotlight have
not slowed the Reverend Jerry Falwell

After 50 years behind the pulpit at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in
Lynchburg, Virginia, and nearly 30 years in the political spotlight, the
Rev. Jerry Falwell has a lot to be proud of. While he hasn't achieved the
iconic status of the Rev. Billy Graham, and his books have not sold the
millions of copies that Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic
novels or megachurch Pastor Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life," have,
Falwell has been a major player in the changing political landscape over the
past three decades. Now, though still a potent political figure, he has set
about to solidify a permanent monument to his life's work; building a
multi-million dollar endowment for his thoroughly Christian Liberty
University.

In the late 1970s, Paul Weyrich, widely considered as the guru of the modern
conservative movement, Terry Dolan, Richard Viguerie, the godfather of
conservative direct mail, and Howard Phillips left Christian Voice and
tapped Falwell, then a relatively unknown televangelist to head up a new
organization called the Moral Majority. Over the years, as the Reverend
became more influential politically, he became a favored guest on cable
television's news programs.

From his pre-Moral Majority days, when he preached against religious folk
supporting the civil rights movement, to his support for President Ronald
Reagan-backed contra movements in Central America and Africa, movements that
were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, to his
invective against Nelson Mandela and South Africa's African National
Congress and his support for the apartheid regime, Falwell has been a
Republican Party stalwart and a dependable voice of reaction.

From accusing Tinky-Winky, a character on the popular British children's
television show "Teletubbies," of being gay, to being involved in a video
entitled, "The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged
Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton," which accused President Bill Clinton
of being involved in a covert cocaine-smuggling operation, to blaming
pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and the American Civil Liberties Union
for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Falwell has had more than his fair share of
embarrassing moments.

Shortly after the Twin Towers fell, Falwell appeared on Pat Robertson's 700
Club, and said: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and
the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make
that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, 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." Falwell was later pressured into issuing
an apology.

From accepting a $3.5 million donation from the Unification Church's Rev.
Sum Myung Moon in 1994 to allow his then-struggling Liberty University -- a
school founded in 1971 "to develop Christ-centered men and women with the
values, knowledge and skills essential to impact tomorrow's world" -- to put
its financial house in order, to currently presiding over a major
expansion -- including a new law school, 10 dormitories, a football
clubhouse and a chapel -- of the Lynchburg campus, Falwell has had the magic
touch attracting wealthy conservative benefactors and philanthropists.

Coming home to Lynchburg

After graduating from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo., at the age
of 22, Falwell "returned to his hometown and started his church with 35
members in an old Donald Duck soda bottling plant," an Associated Press
story pointed out in late June. Falwell told the AP that they "scraped syrup
off the floors and walls," to get the building into shape. To build a
congregation, he "began knocking on 100 doors a day, six days a week," he
said. A year later, Falwell's Thomas Road Church had 864 members; it now has
nearly 25,000.

"Within a few weeks of starting the church, Falwell found a way to expand
his reach quickly -- first with a radio program, then a live Sunday night
television show -- the "Old Time Gospel Hour" -- on the Lynchburg ABC
affiliate. In 1956, the move was bold," AP noted.

"Nobody else was doing it," Falwell said. In his interview with AP, Falwell
dated his political activism to the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that
established a woman's right to an abortion. "Believing life begins at
conception, I became very exercised over this," he said. With Falwell at the
helm, the Moral Majority, founded in 1979 (dissolved in 1989), prospered.
And, unlike some of his televangelist brethren -- among them, Jimmy Swaggart
and Jim Bakker -- who were severely wounded by sexual and financial
scandals, Falwell's enterprises prospered throughout the 1980s.

Building the future of Liberty University

Now, in his early seventies and having recovered from being seriously ill
last year, Falwell is focused on making Liberty University his everlasting
legacy.

Liberty University's 4,400 acre campus is home to 9,600 students and another
15,000 are enrolled in its distance learning program. "Falwell's goal is to
have 25,000 on the campus in 13 years," the Associated Press reported. The
university offers B.A.s from its college of arts and sciences, its schools
of business, communication, education and religion, and it offers graduate
degrees in 15 programs. Athletics plays a major role on campus; Liberty
participates in 18 NCAA division-1 programs.

In a lengthy profile of Liberty University in Forbes magazine ( September
18, 2006), Dirk Smillie wrote:

Religious instruction permeates academic and social life. Prayer leaders
minister to groups of five students, who must attend chapel three times a
week; the school prides itself on turning out 'champions of Christ' who take
the Bible literally, believe in creationism, political conservatism and free
enterprise. The law school preaches that separation of church and state was
never intended by the founders. Students must submit to random drug tests
and adhere to hair and dress codes. Coed dorms, partying and sexual
promiscuity are out. Anyone involved with 'witchcraft, seances or other
satanic or demonic activity,' warns the student handbook, will be slapped
with a $500 fine and 30 hours of community service.

The Forbes story also pointed out that Falwell, the school's chancellor, and
his son, Jerry Jr., its vice chancellor, have been experiencing some tough
sledding raising money to grow Liberty University. At the same time, Jerry
Jr. has been focused on a number of real estate ventures. One project --
together with a real estate developer -- involves the building of a ski
resort on Lynchburg's Candlers Mountain.

"Reverend Falwell, who used his television ministry [The Jerry Falwell
Ministries] to raise $2 billion for conservative causes in the 1980s, isn't
the money machine he once was," the Forbes piece pointed out. "He and his
son have spent the last few years battling to work off $100 million-plus in
debt, just as donations to Falwell Sr.'s Thomas Road Baptist Church, the
university's onetime key benefactor, have shriveled. At the same time father
and son have towering ambitions: They're looking to raise $1 billion to
solidify Liberty's legacy as a West Point for the faithful."

Despite the financial setbacks, the Falwells continued to move ahead with
more than $80 million in campus construction projects. "Nearly half that sum
is being spent to transform a million-square-foot former Ericsson plant
bordering the campus into a new law school and a larger site for the church.
The mammoth building came courtesy of an $11 million purchase on Liberty's
behalf in 2004 by David Green, chief executive of retailing giant Hobby
Lobby Creative Centers and a big backer of evangelical education."

In less than a decade, "Jerry Jr. and his private development firm have
raised $100 million or so via sales of land and leaseholds to pull in
retailers -- Wal-Mart, Kohl's, Staples and Circuit City, plus a dozen
restaurant chains -- around Liberty's campus. 'Jerry Jr. is a one-man real
estate boom,' Christopher Doyle, vice president at CB Richard Ellis and the
Falwells' point guy on the Candlers development., told Forbes.

Liberty also found a savior in life insurance mogul and Forbes 400 member
Arthur L. Williams, who has dropped $70 million into the kitty. His biggest
gift came in 1997 with the proviso that he be allowed to send his finance
chief to scrutinize Liberty's books. It came out that the source of
Liberty's ramshackle financial state was an overreliance on donations from
Falwell's diminishing TV ministry. Williams also urged him to scale back his
other ministries and make Liberty the focus of the family business. 'Jerry
Falwell is one tough dude,' Williams says. "He refused to let his dream
die." Williams has created a few of his own: His $12 million for a new
basketball arena and football stadium helped recruit University of Virginia
coach Danny Rocco for the upcoming season. Other big gifts have come in from
the likes of apocalyptic Christian novelist Tim LaHaye, whose $7 million
helped to build an ice rink and a student center with five basketball courts
and an Olympic-size pool.

The Moral Majority officially shut down in 1989, replaced by the Christian
Coalition, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and a host of
other conservative Christian organizations. However, 15 years later,
Falwell, seeing a political opening and hoping to re-connect with his
funding base, announced the formation of an organization called The Moral
Majority Coalition, which he characterized as a "21st century resurrection
of the Moral Majority."

As the mending-fences visit of Sen. John McCain to the Liberty University
campus earlier this year, Falwell's continued deep involvement in high-level
GOP politics, and his connection to the development of Christians United for
Israel -- the brainchild of Texas Pastor John Hagee -- has shown, the
Reverend isn't only about setting up multi-million dollar endowments and
fashioning impressive real estate deals. Nearly 30 years after entering the
political fray, Falwell still has formidable political clout.

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson