Jerry Falwell Dies
Moral Majority founder Falwell dies - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com
Moral Majority founder Falwell dies
Evangelical leader was found in his university office
BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 12:41 p.m. CT May 15, 2007
LYNCHBURG, Va. - The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73.
Ron Godwin, Liberty's executive vice president, said Falwell had been found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and was taken to Lynchburg General Hospital.
Godwin said he was not sure what caused the collapse, but noted that Falwell had a history of heart challenges.
I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast, Godwin said. He went to his office, I went to mine and they found him unresponsive.
Falwell, a television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority in 1979, became the face of the religious right in the 1980s. He later founded the conservative Liberty University and served as its chancellor.
Politically powerful
Born on Aug. 11, 1933, Falwell was not particularly religious until his sophomore year of college in 1952, when Falwell said he underwent a religious conversion. Instead of accepting an offer to play professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals, he transferred to the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo.
Four years later, Falwell returned to Lynchburg, where he founded Thomas Road Baptist Church, which started with 35 members. Today, the church has 24,000 members and the annual revenues of all of his ministries total more than $200 million, according to his biography on Liberty University's Web site.
Falwell started taking on political causes in the late 1970s. He stood for voluntary prayer in schools, balanced budgets, military strength and aid to Israel. And he stood against against the Equal Rights Amendment, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, gambling and rock music.
Falwell believed that the Bible was "the inerrant Word of God, and totally accurate in all respects."
He took that conviction in the Bible to his rallies. "If a man stands by this book, vote for him," he was quoted by Time magazine as saying at one rally in 1979. "If he doesn't, don't."
The Moral Majority's stated mission was to "reverse the politicization of immorality in our society." In the 1980s, Falwell's group claimed 6.5 million members, raising millions of dollars for conservative politicians and helping to elect Ronald Reagan president in 1980.
In 1986 Falwell founded the Liberty Foundation as a way to broaden his base. Other victories attributed to his influence include the election of President Bush in 1988, several conservative Supreme Court decisions and influencing the creation of the powerful Christian Coalition.
The Moral Majority's influence dropped sharply following sex scandals in the late-1980s involving two other television evangelists, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart.
Falwell dissolved the Moral Majority in 1989, saying that its political aims had been achieved.
But he re-entered the political arena by the mid-1990s, selling a video that accused then President Clinton of crimes and calling him an "ungodly liar."
Falwell delivered the benediction at the Republican National Convention in 1996.
In 1999, he claimed that a "Teletubby" cartoon character was transsexual, warning parents to keep their children from watching the TV show. He also told fellow ministers that the Antichrist was a Jewish male living in the world today.
Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Falwell said he held gays and feminists among those partially responsible. He later apologized.
Earlier health problems
Falwell survived two serious health scares in early 2005. He was hospitalized in February for two weeks with what was described as a viral infection, then hospitalized again in March with congestive heart failure after being found unconscious. At that time he had to be resuscitated by EMTs at the hospital emergency room.
A native of Lynchburg, Falwell and his wife, Macel, had three children and eight grandchildren.
This report will be updated as information becomes available.
© 2007 MSNBC InteractiveThe Associated Press contributed to this report.
Still corrupting young minds
Originally Posted by Patrick
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