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Falwell, Jerry - Timeline Biography

Time Period

08-11-1933 - 05-15-2007

Description

Jerry Falwell ministered for almost all of his career in the same place he was born and died, Lynchburg, Virginia, and where he founded Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1956. That same year, he began broadcasting "The Old-Time Gospel Hour," a program that reached millions of households by the 1980s.

Falwell's first documented foray into politics was ostensibly a repudiation of clerical involvement of politics; in March 1965, Falwell's sermon "Ministers and Marches" excoriated ministers who supported civil rights for African-Americans. Falwell later apologized for the message, but his political involvement ramped up in response to the legalization of abortion. In 1979, Falwell helped found the Moral Majority, an organization to unite Christians in support of conservative political causes which played a key role in Ronald Reagan's victory in 1980.

In 1971, Falwell founded Liberty University, the largest evangelical school in the nation with nearly 100,000 online and residential students.

Interactive Timeline(s)

Baptist Events and People

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Baptist Events and People
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Religious Groups

Baptist Family: Other ARDA Links
Baptist Family: Religious Family Tree
Timeline Entries for the same religious group: Independent Fundamentalist Family
Independent Fundamentalist Family: Other ARDA Links

Events

Bible Baptist Fellowship
Election of Jimmy Carter
Jerry Falwell Helps Found the Moral Majority
Liberty University

Movements

Christian Fundamentalism
Religious Right

Related Dictionary Terms

Baptist, Christianity, Moral Majority

Photographs

Jerry Falwell portrait- Wikimedia Commons- from Liberty University (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Jerry Falwell portrait- Wikimedia Commons- from Liberty University (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Jerry Falwell preaching- National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution- Gift of Time Magazine
Jerry Falwell preaching- National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution- Gift of Time Magazine

Book/Journal Source(s)

Larson, Timothy and David Bebbington and Mark Noll, 2003. Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois.
Harding, Susan, 2001. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Web Page Contributor

Paul Matzko
Affliated with: Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D. in History

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