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"It really had the feeling of the old-time religion," said the Pew Forum's Green. "In a lot of ways, Falwell was on the cutting edge of church building."

A half-hour daily radio broadcast, "The Old-Time Gospel Hour," launched when Falwell's church was only a week old, grew into a television show that went national in 1971, and soon reached an audience estimated in the millions.

Falwell became known for his fundamentalist Christian teachings and dabbling in conservative politics. "The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the inerrant Word of God, and totally accurate in all respects," Falwell once said.

After maintaining a near-constant public presence throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Falwell in 1990 withdrew from the political sphere to concentrate on his preaching and his work as chancellor at Liberty University, a respected institution he had founded in 1971.

Falwell's return to private life was short-lived. He again became politically active, railing against Bill Clinton's election as President in 1992. Falwell described Clinton as an "ungodly liar," and distributed a video that accused Clinton of a number of crimes, including an insinuation of murder. Falwell was also an outspoken advocate for Clinton's impeachment in 1998.

Long an independent pastor, Falwell became affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996.

Just days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Falwell was roundly criticized for saying God had allowed the tragedy because of America's liberal drift. "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians … 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 said on Robertson's 700 Club program.

Falwell later apologized, saying his remarks were "uncalled for at the time." A poll taken not long after his apology showed 73 percent of Americans "totally disagreed" with his remarks.

Barely one year later, Falwell angered Muslims by calling the Prophet Muhammad "a terrorist," a remark that set off deadly riots in India and prompted a death threat from an Iranian cleric. Falwell apologized again, saying he "intended no disrespect to any sincere, law-abiding Muslim."

After conservatives turned out in force to re-elect President George W. Bush in 2004, Falwell launched the Moral Majority Coalition to "finish what I started 25 years ago," with the goal of sending 40 million evangelicals to the polls in 2008.

In a late March interview with Religion News Service, Falwell contemplated the upcoming election and the role of evangelicals.

"We're about a third of the Republican constituency, social conservatives," he said. "Political and fiscal conservatives are the other two-thirds. We all need each other to win."

Falwell is survived by his wife of 49 years, Macel Pate, and three children, Jerry, Jeannie, and Jonathan.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Jerry Falwell Ministries has Falwell's Mothers' Day sermon and a biography.

He was publisher of National Liberty Journal, and founder, chancellor, and president of Liberty University and co-founder of Moral Majority, which was reactivated in 2004 as the Moral Majority Coalition.

NPR interviewed him this past June in "Religion, Politics a Potent Mix for Jerry Falwell."

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May (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51