Death of an Adversary

Jerry Falwell, dead today at 73, was a rock star of the Christian right.  He created Moral Majority.  He founded Liberty University.  He sued Larry Flynt.  He outed a Teletubby. 

And no matter what one thinks of his politics, Jerry Falwell was an effective proponent of a right-wing political agenda.  In Pat Robertson’s words, Falwell was a “tower of strength on many of the moral issues which have confronted our nation.”

We at FaithfulDemocrats.com disagreed vehemently with Falwell on which moral issues to focus on.  His priorities were not our priorities.  If he was a tower of strength, we believe he was a deeply misguided one.  But we respect his passion.  Revelation 3:16 tells us it’s better to be hot or cold than to be lukewarm, and Falwell certainly wasn’t the latter.  We offer our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

And yet we would be remiss to let this moment pass without reflecting on one of the most regrettable features of the Falwell legacy — or at least, of the political movement that Falwell and his co-thinkers have left us: the notion that there’s a heavenly link between Christianity and the Republican Party.

Ever since Moral Majority helped mobilize millions of evangelical votes for Ronald Reagan in 1980, the meme that God is spelled G-O-P has crept into our national consciousness.  Today, a narrow agenda, focused on sexuality but sometimes spilling inexplicably into laissez-faire economics and a hawkish foreign policy, has come to define both the image of conservative Christians and the moral (or at least rhetorical) priorities of the Republican Party.

The Democrats’ preferred issues of poverty, creation care, racial righteousness, and international cooperation — though biblical — have received short shrift in our country’s debate on faith and values.  Many groups are working hard to change that.  Let’s keep that work going.

But in the process, let’s not make the same mistakes that Falwell did.  We would be wise to emulate his passion and effectiveness; we would be downright sacrilegious to conflate our church with our party — a habit which, ultimately, renders Christ our pawn instead of our king.