Rev. Falwell’s Greatest Hits

But before anyone thinks I’m getting all gooey-eyed over Jerry Falwell’s passing, or wonders why anyone would feel any animus toward the fellow, Les points (a couple of links in) to this fine list of some of Rev. Falwell’s utterances, including:

I had a student ask me, “Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?” Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed.
— Rev Jerry Falwell, cited in Cary McMullen, “Falwell: Now Is the Time for Gospel,” in the Lakeland (Florida) Ledger (November 12, 2001), quoted from Randy Cassingham, This is True (18 November 2001). Falwell added: “We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to society.”

And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, “You helped this happen.”
— Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, quoted from John F Harris, “God Gave US ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says,” The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this.
— Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed, quoted from AANEWS #958 by American Atheists (September 14, 2001)

I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist, [but America’s] secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord’s [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture … the result is not good.
— Rev Jerry Falwell, backpedaling amidst criticism of his statement blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, quoted from John F Harris, “God Gave US ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says,” The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
— Rev Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
— Rev Jerry Falwell, Sermon, July 4, 1976

The Bible is the inerrant … word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
— Jerry Falwell, Finding Inner Peace and Strength

But these things speak evil of those things, verse 10 [reading from Jude] which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Look at the Metropolitan Community Church today, the gay church, almost accepted into the World Council of Churches. Almost, the vote was against them. But they will try again and again until they get in, and the tragedy is that they would get one vote. Because they are spoken of here in Jude as being brute beasts, that is going to the baser lust of the flesh to live immorally, and so Jude describes this as apostasy. But thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there’ll be a celebration in heaven.
— Rev Jerry Falwell, “Old Time Gospel Hour” broadcast, March 11, 1984, quoted by Rev Jerry Sloan, “Is Jerry Falwell a liar?” Freedom Writer, September, 1994

Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.
— Jerry Falwell, on CNN’s Crossfire, May 17, 1997