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Real Answers™
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Copyright: ©2007 Debbie Thurman
635 words

AN OFT-REPEATED MISCONCEPTION ABOUT JERRY FALWELL

By: Debbie Thurman

While the initial storm of words that followed the passing of Jerry Falwell has subsided to intermittent showers, the man and his legacy will continue to be debated until Christ comes back.

Leaving aside for the present the vitriol of those who really hated the man, one bit of oft-repeated criticism that was poorly addressed in the swirling commentary was that Falwell cared little for the poor, choosing to focus his preaching and ministry efforts on “the pelvic-area” sins, as one pundit put it. That’s how Falwell died a “rich man,” having accumulated massive personal wealth from his fund-raising campaigns built around pro-abortion, pro-gay doomsday scenarios.

Sorry, but as a native Lynchburger and someone fortunate to have known the man personally -- I helped start one of his ministries to “the least of these” -- I have to point out that many have been deceived by such factoids. That Falwell ignored the poor is simply untrue, a judgment as careless as the assumption that Jesus shrugged off sexual sin but was obsessed with money-related issues. That’s a popular tenet of the new social gospel. 

Jerry Falwell was a loving, caring, generous soul who certainly did not ignore the plight of the less fortunate. That's why Thomas Road Baptist Church operates The Center, a Lynchburg, Va. inner-city outreach program. Falwell's other well-known ministries -- the Elim Home for Alcoholic Men and the Liberty Godparent Home for unwed mothers-to-be -- were founded to care for those whose sins would invite shunning by many Christians.

Freedom Ministry, the one I was involved in for nearly six years, is a small-group recovery outreach to those entrapped in all manner of addictions, depression and related disorders, those who are wounded by grief, divorce, past sexual abuse and relationship problems, and -- most interestingly -- those seeking to escape same-sex attraction and the myriad problems of the gay lifestyle. The latter is one of the more popular groups, in fact.

Then there are the many compassionate outreach programs at Liberty University that for decades have sent thousands of students throughout our nation and abroad to dirty their hands and strain their backs as they have brought aid to impoverished souls. Falwell, himself, traveled to third-world countries to seek relief for the forgotten. Others he influenced launched their own ministry outreaches to the poor -- World Help comes to mind.

Falwell was known to give money -- sometimes emptying his pockets -- to needy folk he met in his travels. He once gave a homeless man the overcoat off his back on a cold day. His actions spoke louder than his words to those who had eyes to observe.   

Still, he knew that spiritual impoverishment is of more concern than physical poverty. When Jesus commanded us not to be anxious about our daily needs and to seek his kingdom above all, he was speaking to everyone, regardless of station. The poor often understand this best of all.

A popular tactic of late, used to marginalize all evangelicals of Falwell’s stripe, is that of focusing only on Jesus’ life and words (both spoken and unspoken) in the four gospels to the exclusion of all other inconvenient truths in the Bible. I think we can safely assume that Jesus meant for the entire Bible and not just his recorded words to be our touchstone. He often quoted the Old Testament and certainly ordained Paul, the writer of the exhortative epistles to the early churches, as an apostle in his Damascus appearance.

We will be asked to examine the “Red” versus the “Blue” gospel as the 2008 election approaches. Democratic presidential hopefuls already have held the first “Faith, Values and Politics” forum, with a similar Republican candidate forum to follow. Better get used to hearing more about the Bible Falwell knew backward and forward in campaign dialogue.

Debbie Thurman is an award-winning commentator and author who writes from Monroe, Va. Her e-mail address is debbie@debbiethurman.com.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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