LYNCHBURG, Va. (ABP) — Although Jerry Falwell did more than about anybody else to identify conservative evangelical Christians with the Republican Party in the last 30 years, top GOP leaders were notably absent at his May 22 funeral in Virginia.
According to news reports, an overflow crowd of 10,000-plus mourners packed Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church. Those who could not squeeze inside the 6,000-seat sanctuary watched the service via closed-circuit television from sports facilities next door at Liberty University. Falwell founded both the church and the school, turning both into powerhouse institutions of fundamentalist Christianity and secular politics.
But none of the GOP presidential candidates showed. Neither did President Bush, who experts say owes his margin of victory in the 2000 and 2004 elections to the kind of voters Falwell first mobilized in the 1980s.
Although Bush had no public events on his schedule May 22, he sent a mid-level White House aide who deals with conservative special-interest groups to read a statement in his stead. Tim Goeglein, Bush's deputy director of public liaison, told the crowd that Falwell “was a great friend to this administration” and that the Bush family extended their sympathies to Falwell's family, church and school. The service was broadcast on the Internet.
“On behalf of all of us in the Bush-Cheney White House, please know that we are holding you up in prayer, that we hold the Falwell family in very high regard,” Goeglein said. “I have to say that in all my time in the White House, I have never met a man who loved God and country more than Jerry Falwell.”
Several luminaries of the Religious Right attended. In a eulogy, Franklin Graham — son of evangelist Billy Graham — called Falwell a “prophet” and said that when people asked if he agreed with the controversial pastor, he replied, “Every time he opened the Bible, I agreed with Jerry Falwell.”
Jerry Vines, a former Southern Baptist Convention president, gave the closing remarks. Vines is pastor emeritus of the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., and a former chair of the Liberty University board. He and Falwell have been described as being close friends.
Vines said Falwell had been “criticized and he was vilified and he was unfairly misquoted, but he kept on smiling and he kept on speaking the message of Jesus Christ to our culture, and the political landscape of America has been different since that day.”
He also said the pastor and media personality, known for his fiery oratory, did not get into politics merely “to dabble” but that Falwell “did it out of deep conviction.”
Falwell died of congestive heart failure after being found unconscious in his office May 15. He was 73.
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Read more:
Are Analysis: For polarizing figure, Falwell leaves complex legacy (5/16)
Falwell, symbol of Religious Right's influence and excesses, dead at 73 (5/15)