"Moral Majority"
Nicknames
Founded 1979
What Did They Practice?
Reverend Jerry Falwell
- Televangelists
- Movement Conservatives
- 60's radicalism
- Religious Right
By Reverend Jerry Falwell
- Evangelical Minister
- From Lynchburg, Virginia
Considered Themselves?
- Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr.
- August 11, 1933 - May 15, 2007
- Evangelical Southern Baptist pastor
- Segregationist, televangelist, and a conservative political commentator
What Else Did he Found?
- He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church
- Megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia
- Lynchburg Christian Academy (now Liberty Christian Academy) in 1967
- Liberty University in 1971
- Co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979
- Evangelist program "The Old-Time Gospel Hour" in the mid 1960s
How many followers?
What Does the Name Stand For?
- In first two years achieved 2 and 3 million voters
- Used: radio, direct-mail marketing, cable TV
- Meant to project strength by highlighting and validating the ethical and numerical supremacy of ordinary Americans, especially in rural areas and religious communities, over affluent, urban, and more educated people
Works Cited
Family History
More About Reverend Jerry
- His grandfather was a staunch atheist
- His father was an entrepreneur and one-time bootlegger who was agnostic
- Married the former Macel Pate on April 12, 1958
- Had two sons and a daughter (Jerry Falwell, Jr., a lawyer; Jonathan Falwell, a pastor; Jeannie, a surgeon)
- He graduated from Brookville High School in Lynchburg, Va., and from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri in 1956
- Jerry Falwell - Wikipedia
- Moral Majority Facts information, pictures l Encyclopedia.com articles about Moral Majority
What is it?
Tactics
- Two sides: New Right and New Left
- articulated positions in a language of rights and entitlements "Right-to-life" (anti-abortion movement)
- civil disobedience
- aggressive political advocates of conservative causes
Preaches against:
- sexual permissiveness
- abortion
- feminism
- spread of gay rights
Civil Rights Views
Ever Accomplish Their Goal?
Social and Political Views
In speaking of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling:
- "If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God's word and had desired to do the Lord's will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never had been made. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line."
What Else Did They Object?
- Strongly advocated beliefs and practices he believed were taught by the Bible
- Believed Church was cornerstone of successful family
- Believed Vietnam war was problematic due to "limited political objectives"
- June 10, 1989
- Falwell announced that "our mission is accomplished"
- Moral Majority dissolved August 31, 1989
- The surviving organization most resembling it was the Liberty Foundation
- Adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment
- Promotion and the protection of homosexual rights
- Nuclear disarmament agreements with the Soviet Union
- Two phases of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, SALT I and II