He Gave Religion A Bad Name
My well-mannered 89-year-old mother taught me not to speak ill of the dead, but even she was laughing when she heard that Jerry Falwell had died.
“I guess not too many people are going to miss him,” she said.
Not being a Christian has its advantages, and one of them has been the ability to sit back and watch in disbelief as self-serving hypocrites befoul all that is decent and tender about the Christian religion.
Calumny? Rev. Jerry Falwell loved it.
In fact, he will long be remembered for saying, just after Sept. 11, 2001, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, 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.’”
Furious, the director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lorri L. Jean, demanded an apology.
“The terrible tragedy that has befallen our nation, and indeed the entire global community, is the sad byproduct of fanaticism,” she said. “It has its roots in the same fanaticism that enables people like Jerry Falwell to preach hate against those who do not think, live, or love in the exact same way he does.”
As soon as he was called out (and even the White House rebuked him), Falwell, as all bullies do, backed down. He told CNN:
“I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize.”
Remember the Bible talking about those without sin casting the first stone? And about mercy and loving kindness? Not this guy.
“AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals,” he said.
And when a gay church came close to being accepted into the World Council of Churches, Falwell said, “Thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there’ll be a celebration in heaven.”
How many angry and deluded people used Falwell’s words as permission to commit violence? How much blood is on Falwell’s hands?
Thou shalt not kill? Not one of Falwell’s favorite commandments. “We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to society.”
Respect for women? Not a chance.
“It appears that America’s anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men’s movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening,” he said.
And another time, “I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One’s misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status.”
Well, that’s just ignorant, Rev. Falwell. Women are the majority on the planet. And we’re certainly a majority in the United States. Maybe that’s what God ordained?
Falwell took his prejudices to such an extreme that at times you wondered if the man was sane. Take this quote about the American Civil Liberties Union: “The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.” All those ACLU concentration camps, with their poison showers and crematoriums? How have they managed to hide them so well?
And speaking of his stupidity, “The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America’s free enterprise system and our economic stability.”
Falwell was not, as he claimed, a theologian. When you examine his belief system, it becomes evident that his god wasn’t God, or Jesus. It was only the status quo. He supported patriarchy; it gave him his power. He supported capitalism as though God had a preferred economic policy. He supported the death penalty because revenge is easier than turning the other cheek. He supported the destruction of the environment because he couldn’t even think so far out of the box as to treasure the Garden of Eden and be concerned about its fouling.
Anti-Semitism? “The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior,” Falwell said. Another time, he announced that the Antichrist is alive and living as a Jewish male.
No, Falwell was not a man of God. Falwell was a snake oil salesman, a hustler of the first water.
It must feel so good to be able to hate like that. To be so self-righteous. So egotistical. So proud. So sure of your own damned, small-minded prejudices that you feel no shame in attributing them to God himself.
Bullies, hustlers, hypocrites, fanatics and the rest of the rats who hide behind the Bible must be called out. Falwell is only one of a pack. Pat Robertson is another. George W. Bush is one, too. There may be too many to name. And don’t forget their followers.
All hiding behind Christianity in the pursuit of power. All interested only in their own self-aggrandizement. All ignorant. All uncreative. All lacking in empathy. All happy to pick on those they perceive as weaker than themselves. All indifferent to the pain of others.
There are many moral Christians in this world, as there are many moral Jews, moral Muslims and moral atheists. People like Jerry Falwell give religion a bad name.
Joyce Marcel is a journalist and columnist based in Vermont. A collection of her columns, “A Thousand Words or Less,” is available through joycemarcel.com. And write her at joycemarcel@yahoo.com.
right ON!
As a devout, liberal progressive Christian, people like Falwell just make me sad. They make me look bad.
I admit to deriving a great deal of consolation that Falwell will soon be asked by his Creator to account for himself and his words. I wonder how he will defend himself?
The author is absolutely right.
Religion (look it up) is nothing but an interest in discovering and reconnecting with the ground of one’s being. Blinking one’s eyes open upon the bizarre and wondrous world in which we find ourselves and wanting to know what, apart from survival and political games, is really happening here. I don’t have a problem with religion. I don’t have a problem, actually, with organized religion, frequently a ritualized caricature of those original burning questions but for the most part benign and exhortive of decent behavior, notwithstanding Richard Dawkins’ tiresome polemics. If Mrs. Garcia wants to go down to St. Helen’s on Friday evening to say her rosaries, that really is just fine with me.
But Falwell and Robertson and the rest of these power hungry, pro-death, pro-war absolutists are not religious people, any more than crusaders or inquisitors or militant muslims are religious people. It is an unfortunate aspect of our dumbed down, media saturated age that simplistic associations replace real thinking. It’s those gangs, those drugs, those fairies, those sex crazed movie actors, those damned religious lunatics that are responsible for our problems, so all we gotta do is stamp ‘em out. Yes, Falwell gave religion a bad name, and many of us are his accomplices in this.
There is a problem, no doubt about it. And it is very complex and deeply ingrained in human nature, yours and mine and Jerry Falwell’s.
Falwell et al didn’t hide behind Christianity, they took it to its logical conclusion. Seems to me too many so called “liberal” Christians hide behind the excuse of “hiding behind Christianity” to explain and excuse people like Falwell. Instead, they should just be honest in seeing religion for what it is and inevitably becomes. Jesus was a great person with wonderful ideas. You don’t need the overhead of organized Christianity to “believe” in him. In fact, I’d bet if Jesus came back today he’d be a Secular Humanist.
KaneJeeves,
If Jesus came back today, he wouldn’t believe in or pray to his Father?
We should no more judge all religious people by Jerry Falwell than we should judge all Democrats by Joe Lieberman. Some people are just aberrations.
Bravo, Joyce! Cee-cee: aberrations are one thing, a huge televised network that gives cover (religious diabolical deception based) to hatred is quite another, especially at a time when it IS the religious who are fueling what could become a third world war. Where is OUR (secular) vote in this inanity of epoch and dangerous proportions? Although if the military is turning from expanding the war in this time of absurdity upon absurdity, I’ll take that over a religiously deluded half-wit president and his “one oil under ‘god’ cronies,” wishing to promote it!
I can’t help but think Gandhi was right when he said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
We have had severe thunderstorms in the area for the past 24 hours. I like to think that it is God reading the riot act to Jerry Falwell.
“So sure of your own damned, small-minded prejudices that you feel no shame in attributing them to God himself.”
Actually in a manner of speaking, Falwell’s god DID have those attributes. Several people have pointed out that it wasn’t God that created man in His image, but the other way around.
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. -Susan B Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never
worshipped anything but himself. -Richard Francis Burton, explorer and
writer (1821-1890)
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
-Robert A. Heinlein
People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards.
-Oscar Wilde
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
-Voltaire
I thought everybody here wanted to end the war!
I think too many people here just want revenge. All I see for us is a future of chaos, and we will never get everybody on the same page; it’s pretty depressing to me.
You are doing the same thing Farwell did to others, it doesn’t matter “who is the better person” judging others, leads to blindness of what we want to accomplish.
Say good-bye to the Christians being on your side, you just polarized things and trashed any understanding.
You could say I’m secular, I believe in the Great Spirit that I see in nature, the universe and in us. I see where religions are trying to go and the truths they portray. We should follow no person as though they are perfect.
I you want to fix the world, each and every one of us holds a key to the puzzle. Until we understand Jerry Farwell, with all his faults; AND HOW HE GOT THAT WAY; we will repeat the same mistake in ourselves. That’s just common logic; nothing to do with religion!
Maybe bringing hypocrisy to light was his purpose here; you are to understand it; or you will repeat the same mistake in a way that you are blind to.
Yes he did and I for one am glad he has moved on. . .he will now be judged by Christ.
Good quotes dkm, and I believe everyone of them.. Benjamin Franklin was a diest, and I am interested in that line of belief.
I read in Slate magazine today the Jimmy Carter once said of Jerry Falwell, that he could go to hell as far as he was concerned.
You must be really bad to have someone like Jimmy Carter say something like that about you.
NM Bill, you can’t say to anyone here, “say goodbye to the Christians being on your side, you just polarized things and trashed any understanding….” there are different kinds of Christians, and those of Falwell’s ilk have no desire to gain any understanding. The other kinds of Christians understand where we’re coming from.
There comes a time when you just have to accept the reality of closed minds…
Thank you Joyce Marcel. You are a credit to the progressive community and to tolerance and diversity.
aquietman,
I understand what you mean to some extent in your response to NM Bill, but to say “the other kinds of Christians understand where we’re coming from” assumes a lot. Words can hurt and divide. If one comes here and says “I am a progressive, and I am a Christian” and another says “yes, yes but we aren’t criticizing YOU…, we mean those OTHER Christians…” how long can one continue to participate in a conversation and not feel excluded by that attitude?
I have noticed over the last few years that I need to be very careful around my male friends not to make thoughtless jokes about men being clueless, not doing their share of work around the home, etc, because many men are very progressive and they are sensitive about this topic. Perhaps the same is true for Christians - they become sensitive to being painted with a very broad brush.
I happened to hear a bit of Rush Limbaugh’s show today, and I just felt sick to my stomach… it was something about the war, and I asked my steering wheel “When are enough people ever going to die to satisfy these people?” I know that some of what’s been on this site today is just venting and/or is tongue-in-cheek, and that’s fine. But we, too, have to ask ourselves “When are we going to be satisfied, when even a foe’s death is not good enough for us, but we have to think up torments for him beyond the grave?”
“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.” — Thomas Jefferson
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson
So long Jerky, best of luck during your final judgement. Somehow I doubt you will find the great Creator as gullible and ignorant as your earthly flock.
Beautiful, tcanfield! Beautiful!
Jerry Falwell was no more a man of his god or religion than Osama bin Laden is of his. Their respective preachings of faith and “belief” are founded in the same insidious kernel of hatred.
So much of what passes as religion has no relationship to anything spiritual or good. Another good article from JM
We can all feel some relief at the news of one less bigot. On the other hand, whoever is waiting in the wings may be even worse. It’s not time to dance yet.
@ dkm, here’s another quote for you:
“We define God daily in the manner our lives interact with the world and the human and other beings we share it with.”
– Crazy Bird
Quiet Man, You are right, I imagined running off the folks who were interested in Common Dreams discussion, and were alienated by their church recently.
I saw them as being deeply offended and never to return. The Bible teaches wisdom but I find few churches that apply that in ways people can use and understand. So coming here would be a little confusing, like maybe they were committing a sin.
ceecee_em, on the other hand can take it, without taking it personally!
Rev. Jerry Falwell,
Only in America, could such an ignorant blow hard become so well known. They say if you can’t say anything nice about the dead, best to say nothing at all. End of story.
I consider myself a Christian, though I do find my spiritual beliefs are often mirrored by people like souixrose, at least conceptually and emotionally.
Really though, all the Christian bashing does sting, even though I REALLY REALLY understand where it comes from. I rant about it too, but I use the right terms (I think) - fake christians or Mammon worshippers or satanists in denial (read LeVay’s Bible and tell me it’s not a guide to corporate America wrapped in spooky imagery) or (my favorite) Followers of Jebus. Jebus, you see, is a blond haired, blue eyed, machine gun toting, American flag waving capitalist.
In the posted quotes I didn’t see MLK. Why? Because the original premise is flawed, and MLK shows you why. Religion is not an outlet of hate (well, some are, but in and of itself religion is not), scapegoating is an outlet of hate, and control structures with a vested interest in keeping a handy scapegoat (or 12) around have made sure that organized religions REGARDLESS OF THE WORDS, DEEDS, OR INTENTIONS OF THE FOUNDERS are rife with scapegoat making potential.
That being said, I’m pretty much what you’d call a red letter Christian. Jesus was a progressive politically and philosophically. Besides that, the “supernatural” (I don’t agree with the term, but I’m speaking to a demographic) aspects of my faith are not at all, from my point of view, at odds with science. Science hasn’t yet found the nature of consciousness besides to realize that observation is necessary for anything to be. Christ taught lessons about that too, if you look at it from a certain point of view. Miracles? Why yes, I do believe that it’s possible for things with very low probabilities to manifest if conditions are right.
Before this turns into some theological thesis in defense of rational spirituality (and there IS such a beast, and it’s more common than some of you think, it just doesn’t get much TV time) I’ll end with something to bring us together, hoping I haven’t driven the wedge between us too far… You’re absolutely right in feeling angry that a bunch of crackpots who like to think about people burning forever need to be stripped of the power they’ve been able to accumulate. They need to be called out for what they represent, not grouped by their cover story of faith.
In fact, I think it would be easier to strip them out if called out more often on how they are so anti-Christian instead of screaming look what Christianity gets you.
“read LeVay’s Bible and tell me it’s not a guide to corporate America wrapped in spooky imagery”
Man, I have been saying for years that The Right is ultimately Satanic. And people think I’m crazy for believing that.
I’m not a very religious person either, but I find the bashing of Christianity very old hat to say the least. I keep saying this, every culture, religion, nation, etc. has its underbelly. You can’t judge a religion by that alone. Falwell was just a resident of that underbelly. He used religion and homophobia as a hustle. The man was swimming in money when he died. No true Christian would want to make a fortune while promoting hate.
Pat Robertson is a hustler.
Louis Farrakhan is a hustler.
Anton LaVey was a hustler.
Also, keep in mind that religion has been a catalyst for positive social change. Certainly it has been used to divide and denigrate, but it has also helped bring about the best in people and has helped turned lives around.
People need to stop holding up televangelists as examples of Christianity. If that’s the case, then I suppose that Osama Bin Laden is the face is Islam? Ben Netanhayu a good jew?
iwarrior: your thoughts are basically the other half of my rant that got cut for brevity.
You’re nowhere near alone, most people just accept at face value what the mainstream media presents satanism as, or Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc.
The part that disparages me the most though is that the venom is coming from people who should already know that the mainstream media have a vested interest in keeping people misinformed and at odds with the people they should be united with.
As far as my personal religious experience having anything to do with my hate, well, they are completely at odds. I have to admit to a certain anger I have at times that I can see would be associated with the hateful rhetoric that the slimes throughout the years have spewed… But when I hold it up to the light of my religious understanding, it starts to crumble, certainly never grows. The one possible exception to this is that real, true, blasphemy (ya know, using God (whatever the name) as a con artist’s prop) offends me. It doesn’t cause the same level of anger though, it’s more of a disgust, like I have for people who’s only coping mechanism is making other people feel bad. At the end of the day though, real spirituality doesn’t inspire hate, it shows it’s futility.
For some reason, a few choice lyrics from Godspell popped into my mind after I heard that Falwell had died.
As I am also somewhat hamstrung with the desire to avoid “speaking ill of the dead” myself, this might serve as my eulogy for a modern day pharisee who undoubtedly hated Godspell anyway.
(sung by Jesus)
Alas, alas for you
Lawyers and Pharisees
Hypocrites that you are
Sure that the kingdom of heaven awaits you
You will not venture half so far
Other men who might enter the gates you
Keep from passing through;
Drag them down with you
You snakes, you vipers brood
You cannot escape being devil’s food
I send you prophets and I send you preachers
Sages in rages and ages of teachers
Nothing can mar your mood