The brief lives of the intolerant and ineloquently spiritual pass with much fanfare but little substance. My personal Criswell predicts that, decades from now, we will still honor progressive thinkers such as William James, Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Irshad Manji, but will have relegated the likes of Falwell to the dutifully beskipped endnotes of religious history.
To quote the AP:
In 1999, he [Falwell] told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew who was probably already alive.
Well, yes, whynot... And he lives in Clinton, NJ, and wears Pumas and loves sour cream. (Come on, Jerry, be specific. The shadow government you propped up through the Eighties didn't invest in that hope-powered JewFinder for nothing.)
In a statement, President Bush said he and First Lady Laura Bush were ''deeply saddened'' by the loss of a man who ''cherished faith, family and freedom.''
''One of his lasting contributions was the establishment of Liberty University, where he taught young people to remain true to their convictions and rely upon God's word throughout each stage of their lives,'' Bush said.
(The Reader ponders this latter nugget for herself.)
Goodnight, Mr. Falwell; we luminists and humanists and Sufis and hippies and mothers and siblings and average Joes bid you only the softest goodnight. And we hope you find yourself somewhere pleasant but challenging, or at least as challenging as fin-de-siecle America must have been for you. The secret of death is now in your hands. One only hopes you wield it with more grace than you so potently wielded your backward convictions in life.
Falwell is survived by his wife, Macel, two sons, and a daughter, Jeannie Falwell Savas. He was 73.
1 comment:
Check out this hilarious Onion-esque article about Falwell. Scary how closely the jest begins to resemble the truth...
Also, check out this article about how Falwell was Al Sharpton's kindly grandfather. WTFBBQ?
Does planet earth get any fucking weirder?
Post a Comment