Farewell, Reverend Falwell

Just in that Jerry Falwell has died at age 73.

What a man. I'm sure someone will find a way to put all of his beliefs and actions and words into posthumous soft-focus, but let's be clear on a few facts:

He was a vocal supporter of South African apartheid.

He called Desmond Tutu "a phony," later apologizing and saying he had "misspoken."

He spearheaded the production of "The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton." {From Wikipedia:}The video connected Bill Clinton to a conspiracy theory involving Vincent Foster, James McDougall, Ron Brown, and an alleged cocaine-smuggling operation. Despite the theories being discredited by all major investigations, the video's sophisticated production techniques served as effective exposure, and sold over 150,000 copies. Falwell's infomercial for the 80-minute tape included footage of Falwell interviewing a silhouetted journalist who was afraid for his life. The journalist accused Clinton of orchestrating the deaths of several reporters and personal confidants who had gotten too close to his illegalities. However, it was subsequently revealed that the silhouetted journalist was, in fact, Patrick Matrisciana, the producer of the video and president of Citizens for Honest Government. "Obviously, I'm not an investigative reporter," Matrisciana admitted (to investigative journalist Murray Waas), "and I doubt our lives were actually ever in any real danger. That was Jerry's idea to do that ... He thought that would be dramatic." In an interview for the 2005 documentary The Hunting of the President Falwell admitted, "To this day I do not know the accuracy of the claims made in The Clinton Chronicles," but failed to condemn the poor research.

He said that the Antichrist would be a Jewish male. (What? Not gay or liberal?)

He laid partial blame for 9/11 on pagans, gays and lesbians, feminists and abortionists.

He stated that AIDS is the "wrath of a just God against homosexuals."

He wrote in 1979, "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" I wonder if the happiness would still overflow if those Christians happened to be Mormon or Unitarian...

He wrote, "The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior."

All in all, the primary message I got from Mr. Falwell was so much anger, so much hatred, so much seeming dishonesty. If he was really trying to do the Lord's work, he might have shown a little bit more love to his fellow (wo)man.