May 18, 2007--Fanaticism LXXXII--R.I.P. Jerry Falwell

Though always reluctant to speak ill of the departed, allow me to make an exception in the case of Jerry Falwell. Much has been said about the trajectory of his life--how he, a small-time preacher came to give voice to the resentments and feelings of dislocation of the so-called Silent Majority in America who, through the 1960s, became increasingly fed up with the cultural shifts that occurred, among other things, as the result of various rulings of the Warren Supreme Court. Decisions such as the one that cited the Constitution's provision that church and state must remain separate and thus prayer in public schools was unconstitutional, or that the right to have an abortion was protected by the Constitution guaranteeing citizens the right to privacy, including, in this case, to one's body.

And in this presidential election season even more has been said about how he was able to mobilize his followers into a potent political force--how Evangelical Christians came to form the famous "base" of the Republican Party. It is, for example, generally agreed that if it weren't for the Rev. Falwell, there would be no President George W. Bush. (Below, see the NY Times obituary as one example of how he is being remembered.)

Not enough, though, has been said about Falwell's pernicious impact on our foreign policy--particularly in the Middle East. In spite of the fact that Falwell periodically was known to vent anti-Semitic views, he was known to be among Israel’s most fervent supporters. Why would such a bigot be one of America’s most influential friends of the State of Israel? So much so that he was widely and frequently honored by the government there and organized Jewry in the U.S.
This is because, as a Premillennialist, Falwall saw Israel to be an essential part of his version of of how life on earth will resolve itself. In this view, Israel not only needs to exist within its current borders but, to assure the Second Coming of Christ, it needs to expand its territory to include all of Greater Israel—from the Nile River on its west to the Tigris and Euphrates to its east. In other words—from Egypt through Iraq.

In order to fulfill this End of Times agenda, and to assure that Armageddon will occur and true believers will then be able to ascend to heaven, all Jews are required to return to Israel and become the vanguard for the conversion of all non-Christians, including the Jews, to Christianity. To help bring this about, Falwell joined forces with equally millennialist Jews, who have their own end-game ideas--they are still waiting for the first coming of their Messiah—to bring Jews in the Diaspora to Israel.

To help accomplish this repatriation, he was one of the founders of the Wings of Eagles Program, which raises money ($450 per Jew) to buy one-way tickets to Israel for the left-behind Jews of Russia who do not have enough rubles to pay their own way. Thus far, thousands have benefited from this program.

While Falwell saw the need to use Jews this way, conservative Jews thought they would have the last laugh by playing along with him, drawing upon his willingness to be their best political friend.

For the rest of us, we are left with the messy residue of the Bush administration’s reckless crusade in the Middle East. Maybe Bush, too, is one of Falwell’s dupes.

And so I say, Rest in peace, Jerry.