Jerry Falwell

It's telling when one of the warmest and kindest comments regarding the death of Jerry Falwell comes from a pornographer:

I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling.

So said Larry Flynt. Flynt rose to prominence when Falwell sued him for a parody ad that Flynt published in Hustler. The ad was, shall we say, less than flattering of Falwell. It's considered a landmark First Amendment case, in the respect that it created a parody defense against libel and slander suits.

What else Flynt said is even more amazing:

My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends.

I find that an amazing comment on both men. Falwell clearly hated sin but, equally clear to an objective viewer, loved the sinner. In turn, that's almost exactly how Flynt saw Falwell.

The rabid left doesn't believe such an attitude is possible, and you can see the proof of that in their commentaries on Falwell's death. They are celebrating his death. For example, there was an anti-memorial held in San Francisco. They cheerily declare that Falwell is now roasting in Hell. Ah, such lovers of humanity.

For myself, I never paid enough attention to Falwell to have an opinion. However, I am moved by Joseph Loconte's obituary, which concludes:

Equally important, Falwell's political efforts united believers of wildly diverse religious views in common cause. America is defined by its pluralism, and yet it sustains a level of civic peace and democratic stability that is the envy of the world. It could be argued that Falwell's political activism is one of the reasons. Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Mormons, Jews, Hindus -- and, increasingly, Muslims -- work together peacefully on a range of social and moral issues. They've been doing so for the better part of a quarter century. That makes it less likely that they'll demonize one another in the future.

Falwell's critics -- such as Polly Toynbee of The Guardian or Susan Thistlethwaite of Chicago Theological Seminary -- like to compare his Christian fundamentalism to Islamic radicalism. They see the same brooding hatreds at work. "The world can no longer afford the kind of absolutist religion and politics Rev. Falwell helped to popularize," Thistlethwaite snapped. "It will literally be fatal."

Yet any calm reflection on Falwell's record exposes that characterization as pure sophistry. Falwell was strenuously opposed to abortion, for example, but he was quick to denounce any violence committed against abortion doctors and he supported programs for unwed mothers. He sometimes used inflammatory biblical language to describe the culture wars in America. But he utterly rejected any notion of a theocratic state or Christian jihad. What many of Falwell's critics find so offensive is the idea that religious ideals -- particularly those in the Judeo-Christian tradition -- should help shape our politics. That secularizing approach, so popular in so much of Europe, does not appear to be producing more humane or just societies. It cannot, in the end, sustain a democratic society.

Jerry Falwell had his faults, excesses, and ego. His style of politics has no doubt contributed to the public rancor over religion. But think about it: The most frightening outcome of his activism was not a cadre of suicide bombers, or a culture of nihilistic rage, or a network of terrorists plotting to destroy the foundations of Western civilization. The most frightening outcome of Falwell's activism was the mobilization of middle-class citizens to join school boards and city councils, to launch lobbying campaigns and voter-registration drives, to participate in local and national elections.

We call that democracy.

I doubt anyone can ask for a better epitaph than that.