Jonathan Falwell, the younger son of the late Jerry Falwell, was unanimously chosen June 3 to take his father’s place in the pulpit of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. The 40-year-old minister has since 1994 been executive pastor of the 24,000-member congregation, which affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996. The congregation moved into a 6,000-seat sanctuary as it marked its 50th anniversary last year.
"Did you ever meet Jerry Falwell?” someone asked me the day Falwell died. “Meet him? Jerry nearly got me fired,” I responded.
This was true. During Falwell’s days at the Moral Majority a student dared me to ask Falwell to speak at Duke. Never thinking that the famous, busy man would come, I invited him. A couple days later I received a gracious acceptance. I had underestimated Jerry’s love of publicity and a good fight.
Few figures in the second half of the 20th century have proved as polarizing in American popular and political culture as Jerry Falwell, who died May 15 at the age of 73. But the outspoken fundamentalist preacher and political activist, who preached a black-and-white gospel and described a stark world of evil versus good, leaves behind a legacy far more nuanced and complex.