Jerry Falwell died. To the few of you who regularly read my little blog here, it will come as no surprise that I was not a big fan Mr. Falwell. Rather than list any number of quotes handpicked to illustrate my views and make him look bad, I want to instead mention his contributions to the American religious landscape.
Falwell was at best a mediocre theologian. He rarely discussed issues of poverty and the poor, something that is fundamental to the Christian faith and teachings. He actually disregarded global warming and therefore was opposed to the concept that Christians should play an active role in conservation and act as stewards of the earth. He instead focused on essentially two political issues: abortion and homosexuality.
Falwell’s contribution was to bring evangelicals into the public square. He was more a politician that theologian. He courted politicians who he felt could further his political agenda. I am not opposed to religion playing a place in politics. One role of a religious leader is to inform and shape the moral views of their community. Falwell was, in my opinion, well within his rights to do and say the things that he did, as offensive as they may have been to me personally. My issue with him was he let his personally held political ideology inform his theology rather than vice versa. If a religious leader is going to use religious texts and theory to form a political opinion then that opinion needs to come from solid, good theology. Falwell did not do that. He was a practitioner of pick-and-choose theology, ignoring an abundance of text and Christian thought in order to further his political ideology. That is, at best, disingenuous.
It is a shame that whenever a news organization needs a “Christian opinion” on a given issue people such as Falwell, Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed are called on. These people are political operatives, not great theological thinkers. I hope people realize that Christianity is made up of more than this.