Falwell's legacy larger than life

It’s hard to believe that the Rev. Jerry Falwell has been gone from us for a year now.

But, yes — it was May 15, 2007, when the Thomas Road Baptist Church minister and Liberty University founder had his usual high-impact restaurant breakfast, went back to his office, and died there.

That’s really not enough elapsed time to begin talking definitively about Falwell’s legacy. Still, there are conclusions that can be drawn, and long-term trends that can be hinted at.

It’s become obvious, for instance, that Falwell’s church and university are not going to shrivel up and die in his absence. Just drive by the broad-shouldered new Thomas Road Baptist Church some Sunday around 11 and check out the gridlock in the parking lot. And son Jerry Jr. has presided over continued growth at LU.

Falwell’s two sons have a different style, and that’s only natural. Jerry Sr. came up the hard way, the son of a hard-drinking, hard-fisted father who sometimes crossed legal lines. He started his church with a tiny congregation that had walked away from a more-established church and built it into one of the largest in the nation, yet always felt disrespected by the Lynchburg establishment. Despite his jovial outward manner, he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Rustburg.

His sons, on the other hand, grew up in relative serenity and comfort. This hasn’t made them soft, but it’s made them more pragmatic. And as a bridge to the college-age generation, they know that even Christian college kids need to have fun.

They even converted their father, in some ways. The Rev. Jerry used to rail against rock music — even Christian rock music — as the siren song of the devil. If it had a beat, it was probably satanic. Now, Liberty University hosts one of the nation’s largest Christian rock festivals each December.

I catch Jonathan Falwell preaching on TV occasionally, and it seems he’s always talking about love. That wasn’t a word Jerry Sr. used much, although it’s clear that he loved his family and his church and his school and, no doubt, his congregation.

Moreover, I don’t see either Falwell son as being as political as their father, despite their brief flirtation with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee when the latter was running for president.

Even the elder Falwell, in his later days, seemed to become disenchanted with the men in dark suits who would snap on Jesus First pins and promise the Religious Right the moon and stars, only to turn out to be fallible and changeable politicians in the end, not holy warriors.

Without question, though, Falwell changed the political landscape by marrying religion and politics at a time when that was seldom done. He didn’t just ignore the line between church and state — he took a pickaxe to it.

Even so, it can be argued that his most lasting mark will be on the city in which he was born and died. It’s hard to imagine any other community being changed this much by one man.

Look at maps and photographs of Lynchburg 30 years ago, then look today. Not all of the changes can be directly traced to Falwell, but there’s no question that the mercantile sprawl along Wards Road and much of the frantic apartment and townhouse building around the periphery of the city is a factor of the explosive growth of his college.

At first, when the school was called Liberty Baptist College, its students tended to be zealous, close-minded and clannish. As it swelled in size, however, the student body became more of a cross-section, and LU graduates have become part and partners in just about every area of Central Virginia life.

Not long before Jerry Sr. died, he emblazoned his beloved Liberty Mountain with the letters “LU,” for all to see. The letters are larger than life, and so was he.