Christian Leader Rev. Jerry Falwell Dies

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, a pioneer among televangelists who later became a leading voice in the national debate over Christian values, has died at the age of 73. He was born Aug. 11, 1933, and grew up in Lynchburg. Falwell heard the call while listening to a radio preacher. He built a church from scratch — Thomas Road Baptist — in Lynchburg. It grew to a mega-church of well over 20,000 members. He started a Christian school, then a college and most recently a law school, raising much of the money from his television ministry.

Falwell was instrumental in bringing Christians back into public life in America, after an absence stretching across most of the 20th Century. He founded the Moral Majority in 1979, which brought millions of born-again Christians into the center of political activism. His suffering has now ended; his journey has just begun; and we are all better for his sojourn among us.

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