Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Jerry Falwell Dies
Today I found that Rev. Jerry Falwell of Lynchburg, Virginia, died (2007 May 15). A lot of people revered him, judging from comments by Pat Robertson, Virginia governor Tim Kaine, and others. But what type of legacy does he leave?
A rather misleading one, I would believe. He became a leader of the Christian religion, which believes that a man 2000 years ago somehow rose into the sky, and that you must believe in him as a savior or you will get damnation. Many Christian scholars believe in this only metaphorically, but this character believed in it as literal truth, with absolutely no evidence to support it. Falwell set up a "University" in Lynchburg, in which some truth is mixed with the falsities of Falwell's beliefs, for example, that somehow we were "created" thousands of years ago, that homosexuals are immoral and sinful, and so forth. After 2001 September 11, he blamed feminists for the attacks. Boy, he really wanted to set women back in their place. I saw absolutely no feminists take part in any way shape or form the attacks of that day. He advocated assassinating Hugo Chávez of Venezuela; although this leader is a big blowhard, this is not the way we should be carrying out our foreign policy. He tried to influence politics with his "Moral Majority" which sought to send our nation back to the age of the Holy Roman Empire, especially considering that like that empire, Moral Majority is not any of the terms in it.
To me he was not really that different from some of the mullahs in the Middle East that call for Salmon Rushdie's and Danish cartoonists' deaths. He promoted a radical, fundamental religion which sought to denigrate people and divide them into two halves, good and evil. Such people are severely exacerbating the crises of our time. So well it is sad that he died, just like it is sad when any of us departs. But his passing gives the students and faculty of Liberty University an opportunity to seek truth, not the misogynist and Christianist propaganda that he promulgated.
A rather misleading one, I would believe. He became a leader of the Christian religion, which believes that a man 2000 years ago somehow rose into the sky, and that you must believe in him as a savior or you will get damnation. Many Christian scholars believe in this only metaphorically, but this character believed in it as literal truth, with absolutely no evidence to support it. Falwell set up a "University" in Lynchburg, in which some truth is mixed with the falsities of Falwell's beliefs, for example, that somehow we were "created" thousands of years ago, that homosexuals are immoral and sinful, and so forth. After 2001 September 11, he blamed feminists for the attacks. Boy, he really wanted to set women back in their place. I saw absolutely no feminists take part in any way shape or form the attacks of that day. He advocated assassinating Hugo Chávez of Venezuela; although this leader is a big blowhard, this is not the way we should be carrying out our foreign policy. He tried to influence politics with his "Moral Majority" which sought to send our nation back to the age of the Holy Roman Empire, especially considering that like that empire, Moral Majority is not any of the terms in it.
To me he was not really that different from some of the mullahs in the Middle East that call for Salmon Rushdie's and Danish cartoonists' deaths. He promoted a radical, fundamental religion which sought to denigrate people and divide them into two halves, good and evil. Such people are severely exacerbating the crises of our time. So well it is sad that he died, just like it is sad when any of us departs. But his passing gives the students and faculty of Liberty University an opportunity to seek truth, not the misogynist and Christianist propaganda that he promulgated.
