AMERICA AS A NATION UNDER GOD
Jerry Falwell, Ph.D.
August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007
Founder of Liberty University, Thomas Road Baptist Church & the Moral Majority www.falwell.com
Although Jerry Falwell died in 2007, his name is still synonymous with Liberty University, Thomas Road Baptist Church, and the Moral Majority. He was married to Macel Pate and they had two sons and a daughter. Jerry was named Virginia’s most influential clergyman of the 20th Century by the Virginia Historical Society.
At the age of 22, he started Thomas Road Baptist Church in his hometown of Lynchburg, VA. That church now has 24,000 members. He began the Old-Time Gospel Hour radio program in 1956 and now it is seen and heard on six continents. Over three million persons have communicated to the Falwell ministries that they received Christ as Lord and Saviour as a result of this radio and television ministry.
He found Liberty University in 1971. It has been Dr. Falwell’s vision to build a Christian educational system beginning with pre-school and ending with a Ph.D. program where every teacher the student had was a commited follower of Jesus Christ.
Falwell published the National Liberty Journal read by pastors and Christian workers and the Falwell Confidential for pastors and Christian activists. In 1979, Jerry Falwell organized the Moral Majority, a conservative political lobbying movement dubbed by the press as the Religious Right. Millions of people of faith voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and many conservative congressmen and senators as well as George W. Bush due to the influence of the Moral Majority.
Outside of Lynchburg, Falwell was known as a political activist, but his passion was for the ministry and education. He was the author of fourteen books, a speaker, met with presidents and world leaders, and led missionary and humanitarian efforts in nations around the world.
