Speaking well of the dead

Rob Price

In considering the life of the late Jerry Falwell, it's probably wise to recall the Latin warning "De mortuis nil nisi bonum."

Loosely translated, it means, "Speak only good of the dead." And it's good advice. People who speak critically, or negatively, about someone who recently has died sound petty. Surely, the thinking goes, we can strive to behave with a touch of grace, now that the deceased is no longer capable of of their customary mischief.

So let it be with Jerry Falwell. Still, I don't think I'm breaking any rules of decorum by recalling the puzzlement many liberals felt in 1980, in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan's shellacking of Jimmy Carter and the co-emergence of Falwell's Moral Majority as a political and cultural force. The world was suddenly changing, and not in ways friendly to liberal thought.

Falwell had a deep melodious voice and an avuncular manner even when he was explaining how he believed in hell, and identifying whom he believed was headed in that direction. As George Bush would say, he didn't do nuance. Homosexuality was a sin. So was abortion. So was pornography.

These were opinions liberals took serious issue with. The trouble was, there weren't many liberals who could wage successful arguments against Falwell. Falwell constructed his arguments around Biblical verse, using selective readings of Scripture to support his claims. That's not how liberals argued. The most they could do is annouce their profound disagreement with anything Falrwell had to say.

But that didn't accomplish anything liberal. Instead, Falwell's influence in the culture and politics of the country continued to grow. The Moral Majority, which he had founded a year before Reagan's election, eventually numbered 6.5 million members. It raised millions of dollars that it donated to conservative political causes. From the perspective of liberals - whose candidates for the presidency were defeated three times in a row - Falwell's Moral Majority carried a terrifying amount of political clout. You couldn't just laugh at the guy and wait for him to go away.

I like to think Falwell was as much an entrepreneur as a preacher. And he would probably agree, acknowledging how he successfuly merged his personal religious fervor with a gift for marketing and a shrewd understanding of the electronic media's omnipresence in modern life.

If you were gay, you might have bristled at Falwell's condemnation of your sexual orientation; still, you had to admit he marketed his condemnation in an attractive package - all smiles and deep voice.

A smart businessman, he had a product to sell, and he sold it well. He started his own church in 1956 in an abandoned bottling plant in the middle of rural Virginia; Thomas Road Baptist Church eventually numbered 24,000 members. He started his own television show, "Old Time Gospel Hour," which stations carried across the country. He started his own college, Liberty University, with a student body eventually of 9,500. Of course, he named himself its chancellor.

In short, had he been a straight business entrepreneur, he would have started a company like Apple or Nike. He would have made a billion. Of course, it's possible he did.

Billionaires, though, are becoming rather common - creations of the economic forces unleashed while Reagan and Falwell were at the top of their games. Falwell accomplished something far more significant than getting rich. Possibly more than any other man, he helped lower the wall that traditionally had separated church and state. Falwell made it possible for conservative religious leaders to argue there isn't any constitutional separation of church and state.

He did that by merging and marketing a conservative political agenda with a conservative Christianity. To the horror of liberals, he raised - legally - millions of dollars and donated them to the campaigns of unabashed conservative Christian politicians. Whoever thought anybody could do that? Falwell had the nerve to try. And when liberals howled he wasn't respecting the separation of church and state, Falwell just smiled and said something homey.

Ever the salesman, Falwell recognized something about American culture that secular thinkers often ignore: Many, if not most, American are comfortable with the blending of religion and politics. They don't mind if someone traces a political tenet to a particular religious value. They may even be uncomfortable in a political discourse that refuses to admit any religious presence.

It was the perfect market for Falwell's product and pitch. Whether that product was utlimately good or bad for the country is another question - a question I'm not going to raise right this second, in light of the wisdom of certain Latin aphorisms.