RIP Jerry Falwell
I did a post over at TPMCafe about the death of Jerry Falwell, mainly dealing with my own perceptions of his less-than-titantic domination of his home town of Lynchburg, Virginia.
More generally, it's pretty clear that Falwell's national role as anything other than a symbol of, and as an occasional embarassment to, the Christian Right ended a long time ago. Still, he was indeed a pioneer in the fateful decision of far too many evangelical leaders to subordinate their spiritual missions to a largely secular agenda of cultural reaction and Republican factional politics. I hope that like anyone who's died, he rests in peace, but you also can't blame me for hoping that against Falwell's own beliefs, there's such a thing as purgatory, and that he spends some time--no more than a few million years--getting straightened out before getting past the pearly gates.
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