Newsbuckit reports that liberals on the blogosphere are celebrating as if Rev. Jerry Falwell had died. Well, actually, he has died, and they are beside themselves with joy, or as Newsbuckit puts it, they are experiencing a "leftospheric engorgement." One gets the distinct impression that if they were given the choice of feeding all the world's hungry kids or indulging in their own feeding frenzy over Falwell's grave they would all turn into carrion. The same liberal hypocrites that vilified Cuban exiles for celebrating Castro's moribundity (hopefully soon to be consummated) are now unabashfully venting their ire at a man who never killed or imprisoned even one of them. I don't know what their brand of Christianity is but it sure gives Falwell's brand a good name.
Here are a few representative sentiments from Digg:
"Fuck Jerry Falwell, too bad he didn't die years earlier. Enjoy your time in hell, you racist, homophobic asshole. Hopefully somebody runs a train over your corpse."
"Morning [sic] the death of Jerry Falwell is like morning [sic] the death of Hitler."
"Screw you, Jerry, and the whole Christian Taliban community."
Imagine if anyone had dared to express such sentiments upon the death of John Paul II. Well, liberals hated him as much or more than Falwell, but they had to maintain some level of decorum or be considered fanatics, whereas with Falwell they are encouraged in every way by the liberal establishment to unbosom themselves of all the hate and vileness in them.
Falwell, unlike Pat Robertson, never gloated over anybody's death (not even the great public sinners like Castro or Chávez who should be dead) perhaps because death was closer to him than to most men.
Twenty years ago or more Falwell sent me his Autobiography. Why, I don't know, as I had never mentioned him in print. I tried to read it but couldn't get beyond the first page. It was not better or worse than any other ghostwritten affair. What put me off was the story of how Falwell's father had killed his own brother (Falwell's uncle). Or did the father kill Falwell's brother? In any case, those are stories one only reads in the Bible, and Falwell's life, in these externals certainly, was worthy of an Old Testament prophet.
Ironically, it was not in religion but in politics that Rev. Falwell left his greatest mark. If there had been no Jerry Falwell there would have been no Ronald Reagan. And, of course, if there had been no Reagan, the world would still be what it was in Jimmy Carter's time. It was Falwell more than anybody else who brought blue-collar church-going Americans to the Republican Party. The solid Republican South, something unthought of before Falwell came on the scene, was the miracle that this preacher performed. His enemies are right to hate him because he was the cloud that wouldn't lift from their parade or allow their rainbow to shine.
He was, of course, an enemy of Communism as any man of God must be if he has any hope of being one. And he hated Castro as intensely as we do and more commendably so because it was not a duty in him but a tribute to humanity.
His role in defeating Communism by marshalling the forces of Christianity in this country against it at the crucial moment was as significant in my opinion as Pope John Paul II's timely embrace of Solidarity. Without a strong and resolute America willing to confront Communism and support its renegade-states all the brave exertions of the Eastern Europeans would have been as productive as Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. Yes, Falwell has indeed done his country a service, and not just his country but mankind.
There was something else that I liked about Falwell. Unlike other Christian leaders of his day, he never praised "Che" Guevara or held hands with Castro. He might not be a future "saint," but Falwell knew between right and wrong, not just right and left.
http://newsbuckit.blogspot.com/2007/05/jerry-falwell-dies.html#links
Here are a few representative sentiments from Digg:
"Fuck Jerry Falwell, too bad he didn't die years earlier. Enjoy your time in hell, you racist, homophobic asshole. Hopefully somebody runs a train over your corpse."
"Morning [sic] the death of Jerry Falwell is like morning [sic] the death of Hitler."
"Screw you, Jerry, and the whole Christian Taliban community."
Imagine if anyone had dared to express such sentiments upon the death of John Paul II. Well, liberals hated him as much or more than Falwell, but they had to maintain some level of decorum or be considered fanatics, whereas with Falwell they are encouraged in every way by the liberal establishment to unbosom themselves of all the hate and vileness in them.
Falwell, unlike Pat Robertson, never gloated over anybody's death (not even the great public sinners like Castro or Chávez who should be dead) perhaps because death was closer to him than to most men.
Twenty years ago or more Falwell sent me his Autobiography. Why, I don't know, as I had never mentioned him in print. I tried to read it but couldn't get beyond the first page. It was not better or worse than any other ghostwritten affair. What put me off was the story of how Falwell's father had killed his own brother (Falwell's uncle). Or did the father kill Falwell's brother? In any case, those are stories one only reads in the Bible, and Falwell's life, in these externals certainly, was worthy of an Old Testament prophet.
Ironically, it was not in religion but in politics that Rev. Falwell left his greatest mark. If there had been no Jerry Falwell there would have been no Ronald Reagan. And, of course, if there had been no Reagan, the world would still be what it was in Jimmy Carter's time. It was Falwell more than anybody else who brought blue-collar church-going Americans to the Republican Party. The solid Republican South, something unthought of before Falwell came on the scene, was the miracle that this preacher performed. His enemies are right to hate him because he was the cloud that wouldn't lift from their parade or allow their rainbow to shine.
He was, of course, an enemy of Communism as any man of God must be if he has any hope of being one. And he hated Castro as intensely as we do and more commendably so because it was not a duty in him but a tribute to humanity.
His role in defeating Communism by marshalling the forces of Christianity in this country against it at the crucial moment was as significant in my opinion as Pope John Paul II's timely embrace of Solidarity. Without a strong and resolute America willing to confront Communism and support its renegade-states all the brave exertions of the Eastern Europeans would have been as productive as Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. Yes, Falwell has indeed done his country a service, and not just his country but mankind.
There was something else that I liked about Falwell. Unlike other Christian leaders of his day, he never praised "Che" Guevara or held hands with Castro. He might not be a future "saint," but Falwell knew between right and wrong, not just right and left.
http://newsbuckit.blogspot.com/2007/05/jerry-falwell-dies.html#links
Color me festive, Manny: I danced at both deathwatch parties! My only regret is that when the shit balloon finally pops, he's officially past earthly adjudication.
ReplyDeleteFalwell's pronounced ignorance after 911 was so ghastly even the White House backed away. Best thing I can say for him is he kept his pants on in the chapel, and his hands off little boys. One sets the bar low when dealing with such vermin.
Guess my little obit never made it to Digg. Oh, well.
Steve:
ReplyDeleteThere was much about Falwell that I found less than appealing. It is possible, I think, to be righteous without being self-righteous but not, as he claimed, to hate the sin without hating the sinner. In any case, morality is a personal matter, and though I do believe that moral people are in the majority, I do not see the need to put genitals and what adults do with them amongst themselves at the center of the debate on morality.
I do not give Falwell special credit for "keeping his hands off little boys," because his church did not mandate of him or any of its ministers a pledge of lifelong celibacy, which is the surest way of fostering immorality and perversion. I do credit him for a marriage of 50 years and lifelong fidelity to his wife.
Falwell, as I said, was a better politician than preacher. His part in assuring Reagan's election and freeing (most of) the world from Communism is worthy of commendation and substantially validates his life, which in other respects may have been flawed, as all our lives are.
P.S.: As for 9/11, if you believed, as Falwell did, that God punishes people in ways totally unrelated to their acts, innocent the same as guilty, then it would have made perfect sense to see 9/11 as divine retribution for America's moral decay. But there are better theologies than Falwell's.
ReplyDeleteMy belief (for what it's worth) is that when God gave man autonomy he really meant it. Our acts, good or bad, originate with us as do their consequences. God is a passive onlooker who rejoices at our virtues and frowns at our vices, but let's us be ourselves. That is also the greatest proof of God's love for us, the fact that He lets us live our own lives.
I agree with you Manuel...in my mother's words, Dios no se mete en las cosas de la tierra, we will have to deal with our transgessions in our next life
ReplyDelete