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Long before President Donald Trump formed a close bond with far-right white Christian nationalists and promoted the conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama was really born in Kenya instead of the United States, critics accused the religious right of being racist. The Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., founder of the Moral Majority, was a staunch defender of segregation and Jim Crow laws during the 1950s and 1960s — although he later reversed that position.

In a blistering article published on August 4, Salon's Amanda Marcotte argues that a major Trump ally in the MAGA movement—Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk — is using fundamentalist Christianity to obscure a racist agenda.

Kirk, Marcotte notes, said, in 2016, that he embraced a "secular worldview" — and in 2018, he criticized other Republicans for failing to respect the "separation of church and state."

"By 2022," Marcotte observes, "he was falsely claiming the separation of church and state is 'a fabrication' made up by 'secular humanists.' Kirk's commitment to theocracy isn’t half-baked. He believes in the Christian nationalist concept of the Seven Mountains Mandate, which calls on far-right Christians to control not just all government, but media, business and education. This idea drove many of the rioters to the Capitol on January 6, where some displayed Appeal to Heaven flags to demonstrate their belief in total Christian Right domination."

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Marcotte continues, "There are many reasons that Kirk underwent this change. Religious fanaticism is central to Donald Trump's base of support; the Capitol insurrection was evidence of this. And while the Religious Right has steered Republicans for decades, the situation grew worse during Joe Biden's presidency, as right-wing media churned out ever-more-radical content denouncing LGBTQ rights and women's equality."

The Salon journalist emphasizes that Kirk's transition from "secular" rhetoric to full-blown Christian nationalism goes beyond anti-gay and anti-feminist views and is "deeply rooted in the history of white evangelicalism" and its "racism."

"Kirk, like decades of Christian Right leaders before him, has found that loudly proclaiming your faith is an effective way to whitewash overt bigotry against people of color," Marcotte explains. "And he has much to answer for when it comes to race-baiting. As Ali Breland of Mother Jones reported in 2024, Kirk has 'hosted far-right and white supremacist figures on his podcast and has tweeted in support of whiteness, earning praise from white supremacists.' This isn't by accident, either. Kirk routinely expresses his own racist views."

Marcotte continues, "He suggested Black pilots are unqualified. He blamed a Black fire chief in Austin, Texas, for flooding deaths that occurred a three-hour drive away from the city. He denounced the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act and tried to discredit the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as 'awful' and 'not a good person.'"

Kirk, according to Marcotte, also praised the late evangelical pastor John MacArthur — who defended slavery as godly.

"MacArthur was no outlier in his views, which is why he’s received such an outpouring of praise from the Christian Right since his death," Marcotte warns. "As historian Randall Balmer detailed in an influential Politico Magazine article published in 2014, the modern Religious Right was formed for 'protecting segregated schools'…. Early in his career, Falwell gave a sermon in which he declared that integration 'will destroy our race eventually,' warning that after school desegregation, legalized interracial marriage would be next…. Since the racist cannot justify their views rationally, instead they blame God, who is conveniently never around to answer questions."

Marcotte adds, "It’s a pathetic excuse for small-minded people. No wonder Charlie Kirk embraced it so wholeheartedly."

*Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

REF

Kirk initially made his name by being the most obnoxious of the “debate me” bros. As far as titles go, it’s like winning “Most Stinky” at the Litter Box Olympics, but Republicans love men who are the worst, so it turned him into an overnight MAGA star. Kirk, who wanted to seem like a young and “hip” Republican when he started out, claimed in 2016 to have a “secular worldview.” Two years later, he criticized older Republicans for ignoring the “separation of church and state.” His organization, Turning Point USA, cited their values as “fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.”

More recently, however, Kirk and TPUSA have undergone a dramatic Christian right makeover. As NBC News reported, he has “become one of the nation’s most prominent voices calling on Christians to view conservative political activism as central to Jesus’ calling for their lives.” By 2022, he was falsely claiming the separation of church and state is “a fabrication” made up by “secular humanists.” (In fact, it was “made up” by Thomas Jefferson.)

Kirk’s commitment to theocracy isn’t half-baked. He believes in the Christian nationalist concept of the Seven Mountains Mandate, which calls on far-right Christians to control not just all government, but media, business and education. This idea drove many of the rioters to the Capitol on Jan. 6, where some displayed Appeal to Heaven flags to demonstrate their belief in total Christian right domination.

There are many reasons that Kirk underwent this change. Religious fanaticism is central to Donald Trump’s base of support; the Capitol insurrection was evidence of this. And while the religious right has steered Republicans for decades, the situation grew worse during Joe Biden’s presidency, as right-wing media churned out ever-more-radical content denouncing LGBTQ rights and women’s equality. By starting Turning Point Faith in 2021, Kirk was hopping on the “trad” trend. He denounced the “LGBTQ agenda,” and equated homosexuality with “grooming” children for sexual abuse. (He said this while partnering with a pastor who did time in federal prison for attempted “coercion and enticement” of a minor for sex.) He has called on women to forgo education and careers so they can instead focus on being submissive housewives.

But another reason is deeply rooted in the history of white evangelicalism: Racism. Kirk, like decades of Christian right leaders before him, has found that loudly proclaiming your faith is an effective way to whitewash overt bigotry against people of color. And he has much to answer for when it comes to race-baiting. As Ali Breland of Mother Jones reported in 2024, Kirk has “hosted far-right and white supremacist figures on his podcast and has tweeted in support of whiteness, earning praise from white supremacists.”

This isn’t by accident, either. Kirk routinely expresses his own racist views. He suggested Black pilots are unqualified. He blamed a Black fire chief in Austin, Texas, for flooding deaths that occurred a three-hour drive away from the city. He denounced the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act and tried to discredit the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as “awful” and “not a good person.”

“Daddy’s home”: Tucker Carlson’s bizarre troll distills Trump’s false promise to male voters

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Last month, Kirk to honoring the influential evangelical pastor John MacArthur, who passed away on July 14 at the age of 86. Kirk called him “one of the most influential Protestant minds since the Reformation,” and a “legend” who “never bowed to the gods of this age” and “never apologized for Scripture.” Soaring language — but it’s a euphemism. One of MacArthur’s most famous old-fashioned beliefs was that slavery was godly.

In 2001, MacArthur delivered an infamous sermon at his California megachurch. He argued that Black people are cursed by God to be “servile people” who are “doomed to perpetual slavery.” There have been twisted efforts to rationalize what he said here, but the context of his entire sermon made his meaning quite clear. He’s invoking an argument that white Southerners used in the 19th century, claiming Black people were descended from the biblical figure of Canaan, Noah’s grandson, who is cursed by God in the Book of Genesis to be a “servant of servants.” MacArthur claimed the descendants of Canaan populated Africa and carried this curse with them.

Eleven years later, he had not changed his mind. In an interview, MacArthur said, “It is a little strange that we have such an aversion to slavery.” He agreed that some slaveowners committed “abuses,” but then he noted our society hasn’t outlawed marriage or parenthood, institutions that have also had abuses. MacArthur argued that “working for a gentle, caring, loving master was the best of all possible worlds” for slaves who “had no other opportunity.” Then he equated being enslaved to a white man to being an obedient servant of Jesus.

MacArthur was no outlier in his views, which is why he’s received such an outpouring of praise from the Christian right since his death. As historian Randall Balmer detailed in an influential POLITICO Magazine article published in 2014, the modern religious right was formed for “protecting segregated schools.”

Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority, the preeminent Christian right organization of the 1980s, got his start as an outspoken segregationist. Like Kirk, Falwell was a staunch opponent of King, preaching against him and other civil rights leaders as “communists” who were “exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed.”

Early in his career, Falwell gave a sermon in which he declared that integration “will destroy our race eventually,” warning that after school desegregation, legalized interracial marriage would be next. “A pastor friend of mine tells me that a couple of opposite race live next door to his church as man and wife,” he declared, horrified.

Falwell was wrong on the morals, but right on the facts. After Richard Loving, a white man in Virginia, was arrested for marrying Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, the couple sued the Commonwealth. Virginia, of course, is where Falwell lived and pastored the Thomas Road Baptist Church. In 1967, the Supreme Court declared interracial marriage legal nationwide. In the early ’70s, he opposed the federal government’s efforts to integrate private religious schools, saying, “In some states it’s easier to open a massage parlor than to open a Christian school.”

As historian Anthea Butler has argued, “racism inflected almost every point of evangelicalism along the way.”

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That’s the tradition Kirk is plugging into as he embraces both Christian nationalism and racist politics, which have always been deeply intertwined. In 2020, he and his favorite far-right pastor, Rob McCoy, released a podcast in which they denounced Black Lives Matter as “malevolent,” “anti-American” and “anti-Christian.” He has that the proper Christian view on immigration is not to “welcome the stranger” because “foreigners can become your masters.” When New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani ate biryani with his fingers — which is a normal practice in India, where his parents are from — Kirk used it to imply that the Muslim politician cannot be a real American because “we have utensils.”

Using religion as a cover for racism has long held this appeal for a simple reason: It puts an ennobling gloss on ugly feelings. It dresses up bigotry as if it were about faith and philosophy, instead of cruelty. It’s also about escaping responsibility. Since the racist cannot justify their views rationally, instead they blame God, who is conveniently never around to answer questions. It’s a pathetic excuse for small-minded people. No wonder Charlie Kirk embraced it so wholeheartedly.

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Ever since the rise of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr. and the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Republican Party and Christian Right have been joined at the hip. President Donald Trump was a major ally of the far-right white evangelical movement during his four years in the White House, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, in July, claimed that she was “being attacked by the godless left” because she is “a proud Christian nationalist.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado recently complained that she is fed up with the separation of church and state. And former National Security Director Michael Flynn has called for the U.S. to “embrace one religion” and abandon all religions other than Christianity.

But in an article published by The New Republic on December 12, journalist Charlotte Kilpatrick stresses that not everyone on the “anti-woke right” is religious. Some opponents of “wokeness,” she writes, are fighting a “culture war” in a more “secular” way.

“When Trump announced his candidacy, the multiply-divorced, p*ssy-grabbing New York businessman didn’t inspire his followers by preaching about attacks on Christianity or ‘traditional values,’ as so many of his forebears had,” Kilpatrick notes. “Instead, he stirred fear of racial displacement and the need to preserve an ‘American’ identity. MAGA wasn’t fighting a crusade against the godless; it was fighting wokeness. Instead of a culture war rooted in Bible verses, this new revival of right-wing ideology is now grounded in a secular struggle that no longer requires Jesus to play a role in the fight against progressive values.”

Kilpatrick continues, “One reason for this ideological shift is that Americans of both political parties are becoming less religious. A Gallup poll from March of last year revealed that 47 percent all Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, which was down from 50 percent in 2018 and 70 percent in 1999. The decline is mostly due to an increasing number of Americans who claim no religious preference at all.”

Kilpatrick emphasizes that although Trump loudly courted white evangelicals, he was merely paying lip service to Christian fundamentalists and didn’t actually embrace their practices.

“During the 1970s, when Republicans were busy fighting affirmative action and public school busing, they also rode a wave of born-again Christianity that propelled evangelical preachers like Jerry Falwell into the national spotlight,” Kilpatrick notes. “Sunday sermons in newly built megachurches sounded very similar the rants heard on right-wing talk radio.”

Kilpatrick continues, “What has emerged over the last decade is what sociologist Donald Warren described in the 1970s as the rise of Middle American Radicals, or MARs. These voters are not necessarily the same who still attend church services. Their most distinguishing feature is that most of them are white middle to low-income earners without a four-year college degree who share a suspicion of big government and a fear that the middle class is under attack. They are the voters most likely to tune into Tucker Carlson ranting about immigrant Spanish speakers taking over small towns and liberals attempting to take guns from responsible owners. They are also the ones most likely to self-identify as ‘anti-woke.’”

Conservatives who openly identify as “atheist” are not impossible to find. CNN’s S.E. Cupp, for example, is a conservative atheist. But while Cupp is very much in the Never Trump camp and is a scathing critic of the MAGA movement, the secular parts of the “anti-woke right” that Kilpatrick describes are passionately MAGA.

“What this decoupling of religion and ideology reveals is that for many Republicans, a professed love for the teachings of Jesus were never about love and charity, but about the maintenance of antisocial ideals: dominion over the rights of others and the preservation of a social hierarchy pitting the preferred in-group against all disfavored out-groups,” Kilpatrick writes. “The United States of America may have been founded on puritanical values, but it now appears that those same values can persist and evolve even without the Puritans.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-evangelicals-2649541067/

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Christian Right is in mourning over President Donald Trump being voted out of office. Pat Robertson, the far-right evangelical who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network, has declared that the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, 2021 must be prevented, saying, "We will not give up this great country. And Satan, you cannot have it." But the irony is that the incoming president is much more religious than Trump, who has demonstrated how little he knows about Christianity and the Bible.

Although Trump was raised Presbyterian, religion was never a high priority in his life. But when he ran for president in 2016, Trump realized that the Christian Right was a prominent voting bloc in the GOP and went out of his way to pander to the far-right White evangelicals he had no connection to in the past. The Trump of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s was more of a Blue Dog Democrat than a GOP culture warrior, and he spent a lot more time in casinos than in churches.

Journalist Ed Kilgore, in an article published by New York Magazine on December 17, notes Trump's history of butchering Biblical references during his speeches.

Kilgore explains, "Before Donald Trump became the very favorite politician of White conservative evangelicals, he was regularly a figure of sport for displaying exceptional ignorance in all matters religious. A particularly rich example of his clumsiness occurred when he was campaigning at evangelical stronghold Liberty University early in 2016 and tried to quote a Bible verse that was very familiar to the audience, since it's etched on several buildings there."

Kilgore adds that there were many other "religious gaffes Trump committed while stumping for votes" in 2016.

"On another occasion along the campaign trail," Kilgore recalls, "Trump was asked about his favorite line of scripture. He delivered a word salad for a while and finally tried to recall 'an eye for an eye,' not the sort of thing Christians of any variety consider normative for the faith of the Prince of Peace…... Just prior to the Iowa caucuses, Trump was in a Council Bluffs church when a plate came down the pews with communion bread on it. The billionaire misidentified it as a collection plate and put a couple of bills on it."

Kilgore also notes that in 2017, Trump met with two Presbyterian minsters and was surprised to learn that they didn't consider themselves evangelicals but rather, described themselves as "Mainline Protestants."

Of course, anyone with even a basic knowledge of Christianity realizes that Presbyterians aren't evangelicals any more than Episcopalians or Lutherans — two other examples of Mainline Protestants — are evangelicals. And there's no way that either Biden, a devout Catholic, or former President Barack Obama, a Mainline Protestant, would have made that mistake or confused a communion plate with a collection plate. Unlike Trump, Biden and Obama both have a long history of being churchgoing Christians and obviously have an extensive knowledge of the Bible.

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if Pat Robertson were to sit down with Biden or Obama, they could have an in-depth conversation about scripture. Yet Robertson, like much of the Christian Right, adores Trump while hating Biden and Obama — which underscores the deeply tribalist nature of the Christian Right.

The Christian Right has long been a hate movement, and it is as much about White nationalism and far-right identity politics as it is about Protestant fundamentalism. The late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr., founder of Liberty University and co-founder of the Moral Majority, was a notorious segregationist during the 1950s and 1960s, when he vigorously defended Jim Crow laws in the pulpit and argued that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a not a true Christian because of his anti-segregation views. During the 1980s, Falwell defended the racist apartheid regime in South African and encouraged Christians to buy krugerrands to support it.

The late Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, known for being an arch-conservative in his day, was vehemently critical of Falwell and the Christian Right during the 1980s — describing them as dangerous fanatics and warning that the GOP was making a huge mistake by allying itself with that movement. But many Republicans ignored Goldwater, much to the GOP's detriment.

To the Christian Right and far-right White evangelicals, the fact that Biden and Obama are more religious than Trump is irrelevant. Robertson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family) and other evangelical Trump supporters are extreme tribalists, and they view Trump as part of their tribe — which is why Trump got a pass when, according to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, he had extramarital affairs with a porn star (Stormy Daniels) and a Playboy model (Karen McDougal) and paid them hush money to keep quiet.

Trump repeatedly attacked Biden as anti-Christian during his 2020 presidential campaign. But in 2017, Trump didn't even know the difference between Presbyterians and evangelicals.

The Christian Right will miss Trump dearly when he leaves off on January 20, 2021. And no matter how much Biden goes to church or accurately quotes the Bible, it won't matter to the far-right evangelical extremists who value White identity politics above all else.

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— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) August 20, 2018

Falwell's comments are part of his long history of open support for the authoritarian president, which included violent anti-Muslim rhetoric.

His most notorious comments came in 2015 when he supported right-wing gun positions by telling his students that guns were needed to kill Muslims.

“I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in,” Falwell said following the San Bernadino and Paris attacks.

Falwell formally endorsed Trump in 2016 and repeatedly praised the candidate throughout the campaign in counterfactual statements.

“In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment,” Falwell said shortly before endorsing Trump.

Falwell's support has continued unabated as sexual and corruption revelations mount during Trump's presidency.

In January of 2017, Falwell went so far as to positively compare Trump to a Roman dictator.

"Jesus said love our neighbors as ourselves but never told Caesar how to run Rome," Falwell wrote.

On Monday, Falwell finally turned his ire on right-wingers who refuse to bow to Trump.

"A lot of Never Trumpers on the right seem to think their sins are not as bad as other people’s," he said. "Boy, are they in for a rude awakening one day!"

gotv 2018

Jerry Falwell, Jr.

In the 1980s, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr.—the former segregationist who founded the Moral Majority and Liberty University—did a lot to make the Christian Right and the Republican Party inseparable. And just as Falwell (who died in 2007) campaigned aggressively for President Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, his son Jerry Falwell, Jr. (now 56) has been an unwavering Trump supporter. Falwell hasn’t been swayed a bit by Trump’s alleged extramarital affairs; he has even banned anti-Trump evangelist Jonathan Martin from Liberty University altogether. And as the leader of one of the Christian Right’s most profitable empires, Falwell can be counted on to give pro-Trump Republicans a great deal of support this year.

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After President Donald Trump rescinded an Obama-era executive order that offers work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, many religious communities responded with resounding disapproval. In addition to faith-based groups that physically protested the move, a staggering number of faith groups from across the theological spectrum issued statements condemning the decision, arguing it did not reflect a religious call to compassion and describing it as “immoral,” “reprehensible,” or “cruel.”

Members of Trump’s own evangelical advisory board — a loose band of more than 20 conservative Christian pastors and advocates who have advised the president since his campaign days — took a decidedly different stance.

Rev. Tony Suarez, a vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) and a member of the board, said Trump’s announcement was actually a victory for faith-based advocacy. He pointed to the president’s inclusion of a six-month window allowing recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to apply for an extension as evidence the White House had been convinced to moderate its stance on immigration policy.

“[The DACA decision] is a major win for the faith advisory council,” Suarez told ThinkProgress over the phone. “I thought it was vindication.”

The DACA decision was “a major win for the faith advisory council…I thought it was vindication.”

The yawning ideological gap between Trump’s faith advisers and the rest of the American religious community has been widening for some time. Pastors who publicly advised Trump’s campaign told ThinkProgress they have endured near-constant calls to step down from their consulting positions for months. Some reported a flood of angry emails and phone calls last month after the president compared white supremacists to counter-protesters who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. One described being heckled at baseball games. Nonetheless, only one board member has officially resigned.

Why have so few religious advisers abandoned Trump? While the loyalty of some faith leaders can be traced to the belief that America should be restored as a “Christian nation,” many board members cite a far more practical reason: unprecedented access to a notoriously independent president.

The precise list of faith leaders who serve on the board is unclear even to participants. But advisers who spoke to ThinkProgress paint a complicated picture of Trump’s inner circle of religious confidantes, where conservative evangelical faith leaders vie for the attention of the president and his staff.

President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, May 4, 2017, before signing his "religious liberty" executive order. From second from left are, Cardinal Donald Wuerl is the Archbishop of Washington, Pastor Jack Graham, Paula White, senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center and Vice President Mike

Layers of access to the president

Trump’s faith board is technically unofficial. Whereas the lists of people serving on the real estate mogul’s various business councils were made public — and some CEOs made news for publicly resigning from their posts after Charlottesville — the faith board exists largely outside of official government structures.

Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, told ThinkProgress this informal status is likely an attempt to avoid violating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of any state religion.

“I don’t think the [faith] council could have any official role in the U.S. government consistent with the First Amendment of the Constitution,” Painter said, referring to the fact that the board is entirely evangelical.

Nevertheless, board members have managed to carve out a considerable level of access to the president and his staff.

“Some people like politics, I don’t,” the advisory group’s de facto spokesman, Johnnie Moore, told ThinkProgress in an email. “I love people, and — unfortunately — politics is the only way to influence the systems that effect people.”

Moore doesn’t carry the name recognition of some conservative Christian megapastors on the board. But the 33-year-old is well-known in evangelical circles, where he has built a pedigree that includes stints as a vice president at the right-wing Liberty University, an advocate for persecuted Christians abroad, and a faith adviser to Dr. Ben Carson’s campaign for president. His involvement with Trump’s evangelical advisory board dates back to its inception in 2016, when campaign officials asked him to help organize it.

Johnnie Moore ?

@JohnnieM

Such an honor to pray within the Oval Office for @POTUS & @VP .

5:08 PM - Jul 11, 2017

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Since then, the scope of the board’s potential influence on policy decisions has become strikingly broad. In addition to serving several officials in a ministerial capacity, groups of pastors have met with representatives and policy experts from the White House, State Department, and the National Security Council, among other government groups. Moore said these conversations can be exhaustive.

“Some have lasted an hour and one lasted seven hours,” Moore said, referring to a meeting with the White House Public Liaison office. “In each meeting certain staff members from the executive office of the president have attended, addressed the group, or taken questions.”

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She clarified that she believes Trump is anointed, but so was Barack Obama.

The board’s wide reach reflects Trump’s longstanding reliance on evangelical Christians to shore up his coalition. Faith-based resistance to Trump was common before and after his rise to power, but many conservative Christian leaders stood by him despite numerous controversies that dogged his campaign. Some even endorsed Trump after a tape emerged of him bragging about sexual assault, and roughly 80 percent of white evangelical Protestants ultimately backed Trump on Election Day in 2016.

That support has been reciprocal.

“After the strong support of evangelicals during the campaign, the White House surely pays a great deal of attention to what issues evangelicals are passionate about,” Suarez said. “We found that when we can voice our praise or concern directly to the president, he certainly considers it, takes it to heart, and takes it to prayer.”

“If we were in relationship and I was your pastor… I could call you, or you could call me.”

Getting things “directly to the president” isn’t always easy. Most board meetings are with administration officials, not the president himself. But at least one member is understood to have special access to Trump: Florida-based megapastor Paula White.

Sometimes referred to as the president’s “God whisperer,” White often recounts how Trump called her on a whim roughly 15 years ago after seeing her on a Christian television show, telling her she was “fantastic.” White, who stumped for Trump on the campaign and prayed at his inauguration, says the two have been close ever since, and right-wing pastor Jim Bakker recently declared that White can walk into the White House “anytime she wants.”

The claim seemed audacious. But when asked by reporters at the 2017 Religion News Association (RNA) conference about the quip, White did not dispel the notion that she has special access to the president, reiterating that she has a “long-term relationship” with Trump.

Later, White privately insisted to ThinkProgress that her advisory role is the product of a genuine connection with the president — and one rooted in ministry.

“Obviously there are many times [I advise the president] in person. Many times there are phone calls,” White said. “If we were in relationship and I was your pastor… I could call you, or you could call me.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a church service at Great Faith Ministries, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

DONALD TRUMP SPEAKS DURING A CHURCH SERVICE AT GREAT FAITH MINISTRIES IN 2016.

Using the DACA fight to test lobbying muscles

In the aftermath of tensions in Charlottesville and controversy over how the president responded to the events there, the fight over DACA turned out to be a key moment for the evangelical board to flex its muscle and win back some good favor with the public.

According to polling firm PRRI, a majority of evangelicals—including white evangelicals—support policies similar to DACA. Members of Trump’s advisory board, particularly Latino evangelicals, were already vocal supporters of the program.

So after Texas and several other states threatened to sue the Trump administration if it did not end DACA by September 5, and the White House signaled that Trump planned to acquiesce, Suarez reportedly worked with other faith leaders — including NHCLC head Samuel Rodriguez, Georgia megapastor Jentezen Franklin, and Paula White — to press Trump into rethinking his pledge to abolish the program.

Most details of these discussions with Trump have not been divulged, but board members claim in-person conversations between the president and advisers were key to steering him towards a less hardline position.

Meanwhile, Suarez and Rodriguez also used their positions to lift up more traditional forms of activism. Suarez told ThinkProgress the two pastors made sure administration officials were aware of letters signed in defense of DACA by thousands of faith leaders organized by groups such as the Evangelical Immigration Table and the NHCLC.

Taken together, Suarez says the team was able to convince the White House to include the six-month delay that allows Congress time to pass a legislative solution for DACA recipients, often called DREAMers.

“The DACA issue proved what Rev. Rodriguez said, which is ‘Access leads to conversations which leads to conviction which leads to compassion; with God’s Spirit, hearts and minds can be changed,’” Suarez said. “We were able to humanize the plight of these DREAMers, and the president’s reaction was that of a father and grandfather. And he showed great compassion.”

Meet the Latino evangelical pastor who just endorsed Trump

“I believe he is a Christian.”

But the moment also shows the profound limits of the faith board’s ability to persuade Trump.

At the end of the day, DACA was still rescinded—a deeply unpopular decision that puts hundreds of thousands of DREAMers in jeopardy—and Franklin couldn’t even assure the Washington Post that Trump would sign a DACA-like bill if Congress ends up passing one.

Faith advisers were also hardly the only voice demanding that Trump maintain DACA, as they were joined by a chorus of activists and even GOP lawmakers who encouraged the president to keep the policy in place.

In this photo taken May 13, 2017, President Donald Trump stands with Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. in Lynchburg, Va. Falwell, and an early backer of Trump, said the president had made a “bold truthful statement” about the demonstration. Falwell said the president’s remarks were a clear repudiation of white supremacists, Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP STANDS WITH LIBERTY UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT JERRY FALWELL JR. IN MAY 2017 IN LYNCHBURG, VA.

What happens when agendas clash?

Although virtually all members of the loose board are evangelicals, they hail from different and sometimes competing faith traditions, and often have conflicting priorities when it comes to domestic and foreign policy.

The board is not unanimous when it comes to DACA, for instance. While speaking to reporters at the RNA conference, Moore noted there were “people who agree, people who disagree” on the issue.

Trump’s decision to ban transgender Americans from the military represents another policy clash. The New York Times reported in September that Tony Perkins, the head of the right-wing Family Research Council, was one of the driving forces behind Trump’s decision to announce this ban. Perkins’ relationship to the board, like many others who attend their meetings, is somewhat amorphous. But he reportedly broached the topic of the ban in a meeting of faith advisory board members just days before Trump announced the change on Twitter. Other members of the board such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., Robert Jeffress, and James Dobson publicly praised the transgender ban.

The emerging alliance between Putin and Trump’s God squad

The unlikely partnership is years in the making.

Moore, meanwhile, insisted to ThinkProgress that board members “weren’t involved in the transgender issue,” saying, “We have been consulted on dozens of issues, and we have spent more time on criminal justice reform and religious liberty issues, for instance, than any social issue.”

Moore later explained to ThinkProgress that the board has almost functioned as a “network,” where a group that is “more than double or maybe triple” the original list is often invited into meetings.

No matter who initiated the conversation, the episode exposes the potential for tension.

“I think everyone has different issues that are their priority. My priority is immigration,” Saurez told ThinkProgress. “Someone else’s battle might not be my priority. That doesn’t mean someone is going to block or work against what someone else is working on, but they might not be an active voice for that issue.”

Paula White, for example, is hardly the ideal champion of the traditional Religious Right priorities long trumpeted by other board members such as Falwell and Faith and Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed.

Though she has at times tried to distance herself from this characterization, White—along with fellow faith advisers Mark Burns and Gloria and Kenneth Copeland—is widely considered to be a preacher of the so-called “prosperity gospel,” a religious movement that teaches followers they can become wealthy and successful through faith?, often by giving money to their church. Other members of the board have been deeply critical of the theology.

How Trump’s presidency reveals the true nature of Christian nationalism

Scholars say Christian nationalism isn’t dead yet. It could be more powerful than ever.

Still, board members work to show a united front. In the aftermath of Charlottesville, most of them published statements condemning racism, but stopped short of criticizing Trump — and a few, such as Jerry Falwell, Jr., leaped to his defense. And when New York megapastor A.R. Bernard left the council over the media firestorm, his fellow members were careful not to cast aspersions on their ministerial colleague.

They also often protect and promote each other. Moore, for instance, owns the KAIROS Company, a media relations group that specializes in “elevating reputations and growing circles of influence.” He’s made ample use of his media savvy to help craft the board’s public-facing image: Though the KAIROS website does not list clients, Moore said he represents several evangelical board members, including Robert Jeffress, James Dobson, and Paula White.

Moore’s public relations skills were on full display earlier this month during the RNA conference. The multi-day event included a panel discussion with White, who rarely engages with reporters and who was still reeling from a deeply controversial exchange on the Jim Bakker show. (Many interpreted her on-air remarks as implying that resistance to Trump is an affront to God. She has since worked to clarify her comments, telling ThinkProgress she regretted some of her words.) Moore repeatedly spoke on White’s behalf during exchanges with the press, sometimes amending her comments with his own thoughts.

“[When] she was on the Jim Bakker Show… she wasn’t prepared, she wasn’t thinking through that moment,” Moore said to a gaggle of reporters as White nodded along. “She called me [after the show] and said, ‘I said what?’ And I said, ‘Go watch the video!'”

Members also say differences in opinion are less important than shared ideals.

“I think there is more agreement than disagreement, because everyone realizes the special moment that this is for evangelicals, for faith leaders,” Suarez said. “We’ve come together with the sense that we’re going to make America great again. That group has laid doctrinal differences aside to help the country.”

Faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

Access comes at a cost

Even with the evangelical advisory board’s power, it would be a mistake to equate proximity to the president with broad influence over his decision making. As several former White House staffers can attest, access does not always equal desired levels of influence, nor does it guarantee long-term loyalty from Trump.

It’s also possible that short-term “wins” can cost board members access in other places. In the wake of the DACA decision, reports emerged of Rodriguez, Suarez, and other NHCLC members being blocked from White House meetings about Hispanic issues not exclusively tied to faith.

It remains to be seen how the faith council will change over time. The White House has met with a number of faith leaders that have never claimed affiliation with the board since Trump was inaugurated, and key influencers will likely shift depending on what issue is up for debate.

No matter what happens, evangelical faith leaders are unlikely to give up seats at Trump’s table. And Trump, who still needs the support of their followers, is equally unlikely to dismiss their concerns–even if he doesn’t always end up turning them into policy.

For many, a listening ear is what matters most.

“I personally believe Christians have always had an influence on politics,” White told reporters at RNA. She later added: “Our president is…an incredible listener."

Many conservative evangelicals, however, did not hesitate to criticize Barack Obama or Bill Clinton when they objected to their policies or felt their presidencies were tainted, so the reluctance of Trump's advisers to address his comments has been noteworthy. Some have had nothing at all to say about either the Charlottesville rally or Trump's response to it, while several others rushed to the president's defense.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, praised the president for his "bold truthful statement" about Charlottesville. Mark Burns, pastor of Harvest Praise and Worship Center in South Carolina, retweeted a link to a television interview in which he declared his support for Trump and criticized the counterprotesters. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, blamed the news media for misrepresenting Trump's comments.

DOE devos JR

Jerry Falwell Jr. Brings A Handful Of Conflicts And Concerns To The Department

Jerry Falwell Jr. is the son of televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. and the president of Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia founded by Falwell Sr. in 1971. He has also been tapped to head a "task force on higher education” in the Trump administration, reportedly at the insistence of senior White House official and former Breitbart.com executive Stephen Bannon. Falwell Jr. has encouraged students to carry concealed weapons on campus in order to “end those Muslims,” and defended President Donald Trump’s 2005 comments boasting about sexually assaulting women. Liberty University also offers insight into Falwell Jr.’s leadership and priorities -- the school is closely tied to the Liberty Counsel, an anti-LGBTQ hate group, hosts extremist groups and individuals for campus events, and prohibits “sexual relations outside of a biblically ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman.”

Little information has come to light about Falwell’s plans for the higher education task force, but reports indicate that he is “particularly interested in curbing rules that require schools to investigate campus sexual assault under Title IX, a federal law that bans discrimination in education.” Falwell has also said that he wants the task force to “re-evaluate ‘overreaching regulation’ by the federal government,” reportedly in areas such as college accreditation and federal loan cancellation for defrauded students, leading to calls for more information from Senate Democrats who see potential for conflicts of interest. “Mr. Falwell’s personal and financial interests on issues affecting student loan debt, recruitment, and distance education are extensive,” the lawmakers wrote, noting that Liberty University was the third-largest recipient of federal student loans in 2016.

no link img

Falwell: "[C]ashless society," "one-world government" will happen near Rapture

Video ››› August 28, 2006 6:46 PM EDT ››› KURT DONALDSON

Rev. Jerry Falwell stated that the United Nations is "the infrastructure, the stage on which the Antichrist will build his one-world government." Falwell also asserted that the prevalence of online bill-paying is a sign that "God is setting the stage for ... a cashless society," and that "the day will come" when "the only way you can get cash and trade and to do business is to have the mark of the beast."

Predicting events that will happen around the time that many Christians believe will be the second coming of Christ, Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder and chairman of the Moral Majority Coalition, stated during his August 27 televised sermon that the United Nations is "the infrastructure, the stage on which the Antichrist will build his one-world government." Falwell also asserted that the prevalence of online bill-paying is a sign that "God is setting the stage for ... a cashless society," and that "the day will come" when "the only way you can get cash and trade and to do business is to have the mark of the beast." Falwell also stated that "I expect the Lord to return in the 21st century ... because there are no more predicted events that need to happen," adding: "I can't prove that."

As Media Matters for America has noted, some members of the conservative media have seen signs of the Apocalypse in the recent escalation of conflicts in the Middle East and Asia. In a July 22 commentary posted on the conservative news website WorldNetDaily.com titled "On the threshold of Armageddon?," Falwell wrote: "It is apparent, in light of the rebirth of the state of Israel, that the present-day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ."

The interpretation that a "cashless society" is a sign of the Antichrist derives from a verse in the Book of Revelation: "He [the Antichrist] also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." Some religious conservatives view the United Nations as a precursor to a "one-world government" also alluded to in Revelation; for instance, in the Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins -- which uses the Book of Revelation as a "framework" to tell a story of the End Times -- the Antichrist character, Nicolae Carpathia, uses his position as United Nations secretary-general to create a world government with himself as ruler.

From Falwell's August 27 sermon at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he serves as senior pastor:

FALWELL: I expect the Lord to return in the 21st century to Rapture at his church. Now, I can't prove that. I cannot prove that the Lord is gonna come in this century. No one knows the day or the hour, but in my heart I believe it because there are no more predicted events that need to happen before our Lord can return

[...]

I expect a global economy in the 21st century, which first will manifest itself as a cashless society. I believe that plastic will take the place of cash, and that while this will only be fulfilled during the tribulation period at the Rapture, I believe that God is setting the stage for, and laying the infrastructure for, a cashless society right now. Most people, many pay their bills online already. And the day will come, I believe, when there will be no cash, and the only way you can get cash and trade and to do business is to [points to his forehead] have the mark of the beast.

And then I expect the nations of the world in the 21st century to move rapidly towards a one-world government. We already have the U.N. -- it's a useless bunch. But we've already got the U.N., and they will not be the one-world government, but they are the infrastructure, the stage on which the Antichrist will build his one-world government.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2006/08/28/falwell-cashless-society-one-world-government-w/136491

http://reflections.yale.edu/article/end-times-and-end-gamesis-scripture-being-left-behind/give-me-end-time-religion

Give Me that End-Time Religion: The Politicization of Prophetic Belief in Contemporary America

Author: Paul Boyer

took trip to korea to meet w/ moonreps hunt 141

promoted anti clinton videos 143

nichols threatened clinton in front of militia group 145

stephens inc ref deleted from videos (bankers for falwell? 157

anti-clinton crap led to Contract for Am hunt 158

Liberty U:

Liberty University is a private Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Between residential and online students, Liberty has an enrollment of over 60,000 students and offers more than 60 different academic programs.[4][5] LU is currently the largest Evangelical Christian university in the world.[6]

It was founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 by Jerry Falwell, who was also the Senior Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church. The name was changed to Liberty Baptist College in 1976 before settling on its current name (Liberty University) in 1984, when it obtained university status.

1972 Securities and Exchange Commission investigation

Jerry Falwell started Lynchburg Baptist College by selling bonds to a small group of private investors. However, in 1972, the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the bonds alleging Falwell's church committed "fraud and deceit" in the issuance of $6.5 million in unsecured church bonds.[44] The church won a 1973 federal court case prosecuted at the behest of the SEC, in which the Court exonerated the church and ruled that there had been no intentional wrong-doing.[45]

[edit] 1989 bond issue

In 1989, Liberty University applied for $60 million in low interest bonds through the Lynchburg Industrial Development Authority. After the required public hearing period the bond issue was voted upon by the IDA and approved. Shortly thereafter litigation was brought against the IDA and Liberty University by Americans United (AU) and a decision (Habel vs. Lynchburg Industrial Development Authority) was handed down in 1991 denying Liberty the bond issuance. It was ruled that Liberty was too pervasively religious and therefore was not eligible for the bonds.

This case dealt a severe financial blow to the University which was unable to fund its construction projects needed to sustain its rapid growth. A subsequent case a few years later involving Regent University was decided in a similar manner, but was later overturned. The Virginia Supreme Court reviewed the case and based its decision on a more recent US Supreme Court ruling concerning issues of Separation and Sectarianism. Since then, Regent has received approval for bond funding with the stipulation that it may not fund the Divinity School.

[edit] 1994 debt buy-out

Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church and the Washington Times, and his wife Hak Ja Han helped to financially stabilize the University through two of his organizations: News World Communications (an international media conglomerate which owns the Times and other news media), which provided a $400,000 loan to the University at 6% interest; and the Women's Federation for World Peace, which indirectly contributed $3.5 million toward the school's debt.[46] Liberty University spokesman Mark DeMoss said the school was not aware of News World's connection to Moon when it obtained the loan through a broker. "I'm not going to be pious and tell you we would have turned it down," DeMoss said. "Because it was a business transaction, we probably would have moved forward even if Falwell or somebody in the organization knew who News World Communications was."[46] Liberty University founder Jerry Falwell stated that the source of the funds does not influence his ministry: "If the American Atheists Society or Saddam Hussein himself ever sent an unrestricted gift to any of my ministries, be assured I will operate on Billy Sunday's philosophy: The Devil's had it long enough, and quickly cash the check."[47]

[edit] 2005 Equality Ride

Liberty made news in 2005 when students from the Equality Ride visited the university and spoke informally with Liberty students.[48] According to organizers, they were turned away from the library when they tried to donate books about homosexuality. The organizers were also unable to turn over to Jerry Falwell, the founder and chancellor of the university, anonymous letters from alleged current students at Liberty who claim they are gay. They were, however, able to speak with some of the students who attend the school. In March 2006, the Equality Ride returned, resulting in 24 arrests for trespassing when they attempted to cross into campus property after being warned not to.[49]

Don Egle, director of public relations at Liberty, said, "We don’t feel that this situation warrants a comment."[48] When asked about the school's policies toward gay students Egle said only "we follow Scripture."[48] Falwell reiterated the University's stance when confronted with the issue, "We do not believe in gay marriage or polygamy or any other family form than a man marrying a woman singly."[50] Jake Reitan, director of youth programs for Soulforce, said that the group requested the library accept books that could be added "that students could decide to read or not", and called for the University to designate some place on campus where students could talk about being gay without fear of being expelled or having their parents informed.

In early 2005, SoulForce asked to return and was granted permission by Liberty University to sit in quiet protest in one of Liberty University's weekly convocations.

In April 2006, Falwell allowed Reform Rabbi Eric Yoffie to speak at the university on behalf of gay rights citing legal protections for gay couples.[51] "You oppose gay marriage while we believe in legal protection for gay couples. We understand your reading of the Biblical texts, even if we read those texts in a different way." Falwell said Yoffie's tone was as important as his message. "He came across in a loving, respectful way." Students were not responsive, welcoming Rabbi Yioffie with "shocked murmurs, scattered hisses, and boos at the packed campus stadium in Lynchburg, Va. Falwell chastised his students, telling them he had never been booed in a synagogue. and expressed interest in common ground."[50]

[edit] Biology and fossils

Liberty University teaches Young Earth Creationism as an explanation for the appearance of life on earth. The university works with Young Earth creationist organizations including Answers in Genesis.[52][53][54][55] In biology classes students are taught both creationism and evolution and that creationism offers a better explanation of biological diversity than evolution.[56][57]

In October, 2006 the university published an advertisement in The Chronicle of Higher Education in an attempt to recruit staff to its biology department. The advertisement stated that the university was "seeking faculty who can demonstrate a personal faith commitment to its evangelical Christian purpose" and specified that "compatibility with a young-earth creationist philosophy [is] required."[58]

In the same month, Richard Dawkins was quoted saying the following about Liberty University; "If it's really true that the museum of Liberty University has dinosaur fossils which are labeled as being 3,000 years old, then that is an educational disgrace. It is debauching the whole idea of a university, and I would strongly encourage any members of Liberty University who may be here, to leave and go to a proper university."

In December, 1991 Creation reported, Arlton C. Murray "excavated a dinosaur for Liberty University’s museum", which proclaimed "this dinosaur was the first of its kind in any creationist museum."[59]

Liberty professor Marcus R. Ross was featured in a report on creationism.[60] Ross "believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old." This is in contrast to his previous position as reflected when he earned his Ph.D. in geosciences from University of Rhode Island with a dissertation about "the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago."[60] Ross explains in his Creation Science classes that it was necessary for him to "follow the rules" of secular science while earning his degrees for the sake of recognition of the validity of his scientific research and methods among the secular scientific community. He explains that he has held a young earth creationist view since he was very young, but few secular scientists are willing to listen to the arguments of anyone who has not gained academic recognition within the world of secular science. Ross has been criticized by some for taking this academic route, but Ross claims that it only firmed his belief in young earth creationism and has enabled him to find academic ground upon which to base the argument for his scientific credentials.[61]

[edit] Political clubs

On May 15, 2009, vice president of student affairs Mark Hine sent an e-mail to the president of LU's College Democrats, Brian O'nill Diaz, revoking the university's recognition of the club. "The Democratic Party platform is contrary to the mission of Liberty University and to Christian doctrine," Hine's e-mail stated, citing the party's positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, hate crimes, LGBT civil rights, and socialism as justification for the dissolution. While the club can still meet on campus, it cannot use the university's name or reserve university facilities.[62]

At a meeting with Administration officials, the group was asked to publicly apologize for statements they had made to the media about this controversy. The head of the LU College Democrats, Brian O'nill Diaz, was quoted as saying he was baffled by the administration's decision, "I want to be able to share the love of Christ, but I guess I can't do that on campus because I'm a Democrat as well." [63]

Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic ex-governor Tim Kaine and former gubernatorial candidates Terry McAuliffe, Brian Moran and Creigh Deeds called on the college to rescind the ban.[64][65] Republican governor Robert McDonnell stated that he "personally disagrees" with Liberty's decision, but that because it is a private school, its leaders can make their own decisions.[64]

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., subsequently stated that The University had not banned Democrats from campus nor had the club been banned from meeting. Neither the University nor its officials said that a person cannot be both a Christian and a Democrat.[66] On May 28, 2009, members of the Club met with officials at Liberty University, and Falwell stated that he was “optimistic that if the university can work directly with the students that a compromise can be reached.” [67] Dean Hine said that, while the e mail was not clear, he did explain to the College Democrats leadership at the time he sent the e mail that the group could continue to meet in common areas on campus. [68]

Liberty's decision has led some to question the University's tax-exempt status, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service, asking for a review of the university’s tax status. Liberty University in turn filed a complaint with the IRS regarding the tax-exempt status of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.[69][70][71]

In late June, Liberty University announced a new policy dealing with all political clubs on campus. The new policy removes official recognition from all political clubs on campus, relegating them to unofficial status. Chancellor Falwell said the previously suspended College Democrats “wouldn’t have to do anything” to be recognized under the new policy. Along with other stipulations, the policy allows unofficial clubs to use the university’s name, but they will not receive any college funding.[72] Democratic Governor Tim Kaine was quoted as saying that Liberty University solved the club controversy "perfectly." [73]

[edit] Ergun Caner

On May 10, 2010, Liberty University announced that it would launch a formal inquiry into allegations of discrepancies in the claimed background of Ergun Caner, the Dean and President of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and Graduate School.[74][74][75][76] The move came in response to media allegations pointing to several factual discrepancies about Caner's supposed upbringing as a devout Sunni Muslim in Turkey, and his claims of debating several Muslim apologists.[77] The divorce records of Caner's parents show that his family moved to Ohio when he was 3 or 4, contradicting Caner's claim of living as a teenager in Turkey.[78] Ergun Caner has stated "I am thrilled that Liberty University is forming this committee, and I look forward to this entire process coming to a close."[79] On June 25, 2010, Liberty University removed Caner from his position as Dean of the seminary, after finding "discrepancies related to the matters such as dates, names and places of residence." Liberty University did however decide to retain Caner as a full time faculty member of the seminary for the 2010-2011 school year.[80] Liberty University released a statement on July 2, 2010, appointing Dr. Dan Mitchell as Interim Dean of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and Graduate School.[81] On August 25, 2010 Liberty University announced that co-founder of Liberty University, Dr. Elmer Towns would take over as Dean of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary while maintaining his status as Dean of the B.R. Lakin School of Religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_University

Name Known for Relationship to Liberty University

Jerry Falwell, Jr. Current Chancellor of Liberty University Son of founder, Jerry Falwell

Jonathan Falwell Senior Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church Son of founder, Jerry Falwell

Shannon Bream Fox News' Supreme Court reporter

Kevin Beary Former Sheriff of Orange County, Florida

William Franklin Graham IV Evangelist; Billy Graham's grandson

Bethann Shaffer [89] Former News Anchor 540WFLA, Orlando Alumnus

Angela Elwell Hunt Christian author Alumnus

Ben Parkhill Political consultant; Sr. advisor to Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour Correspondence student

Tony Perkins Family Research Council president and former Louisiana State Representative (1996–2004)

The Moral Majority was a political organization of the United States which had an agenda of evangelical Christian-oriented political lobbying. It was founded in 1979 and dissolved in the late 1980s.

Contents

[hide]

1 History

1.1 Pre-Establishment

1.2 Establishment and Organizational Activity

1.3 Dissolution

2 Organizational Goals and Composition

3 Organizational structure

4 Political Involvement

4.1 Presidential Elections

4.1.1 1980

4.1.2 1984

4.1.3 1988

5 Challenges to the Moral Majority

6 The Moral Majority Coalition

7 Notable people within the movement

8 See also

9 References

10 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-Establishment

The origins of the Moral Majority can be traced to 1976. They also built a huge complex on Macinaw Island (upper Michigan) in the 1950's, when Jerry Falwell embarked on a series of “I Love America” rallies across the country to raise awareness of social issues important to Falwell.[1] These rallies were an extension of Falwell’s decision to go against the traditional Baptist principle of separating religion and politics, a change of heart Falwell says he had when he perceived the decay of the nation’s morality.[2] Through hosting these rallies, Falwell was able to gauge national support for a formal organization and also raise his profile as a leader. Having already been a part of a well-established network of ministers and ministries, within a few years Falwell was favorably positioned to launch the Moral Majority.

The Moral Majority was formally initiated as a result of a struggle for control of an American conservative Christian advocacy group known as Christian Voice during 1978. During a news conference by Christian Voice's founder, Robert Grant, he claimed that the Religious Right was a "sham... controlled by three Catholics and a Jew." Paul Weyrich, Terry Dolan, Richard Viguerie (the Catholics) and Howard Phillips (the Jew) left Christian Voice. During a 1979 meeting, they urged televangelist Jerry Falwell to found Moral Majority ( a phrase coined by Weyrich[3] ). This was also the beginning of the New Christian Right.[4][5]

[edit] Establishment and Organizational Activity

Falwell and Weyrich founded the Moral Majority in the summer of 1979. The Moral Majority was a southern-oriented organization of the Christian Right, although the Moral Majority’s state chapters and political activity extended beyond the South.[1] After the Moral Majority’s establishment, the state chapters grew quickly, with organizations in eighteen states by 1980.[6][7] The variety of resources available to the Moral Majority at its founding facilitated this rapid expansion, which included Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” mailing list. In addition, the Moral Majority took control of the “Old Time Gospel Hour’s” publication, Journal Champion, which had been distributed to the show’s donors.[8] Falwell was the organization's best known spokesperson throughout the 1980s. By 1982, Moral Majority surpassed Christian Voice in size and influence.

The Moral Majority’s headquarters were in Lynchburg, Virginia, the same city where Falwell was the presiding minister of the nation’s largest independent Baptist church, Thomas Road Baptist Church. Virginia has been a seat of Christian Right politics, being the state where the Christian Coalition’s first headquarters were established. Falwell was at the head of the Moral Majority and maintained an advisory board, constituting the organization’s primary leadership. This leadership was drawn heavily from Falwell’s fellow members of the Baptist Bible Fellowship. Falwell insisted the Moral Majority leadership also include Catholics and Jews, although not all members of the leadership approved of this inclusion.[9]

The Moral Majority was an organization made up of conservative Christian political action committees which campaigned on issues its personnel believed were important to maintaining its Christian conception of moral law, a conception they believed represented the opinions of the majority of Americans (hence the movement's name). With a membership of millions, the Moral Majority was one of the largest conservative lobby groups in the United States and at its height, the Moral Majority claimed over four million members and over two million donors.[10] These members were spread out over about twenty state organizations, of which Washington State was the largest. The Moral Majority was incorporated into the Liberty Federation in 1985, remaining a distinct entity but falling under the Liberty Federation’s larger jurisdiction. By 1987, Falwell retired as the formal head of the Moral Majority, although he maintained an active and visible role within the organization.

[edit] Dissolution

By the end of Ronald Reagan's presidential administration, Christian Right organizations were generally in a phase of decline. After Reagan’s two terms in office, donations were decreasing, possibly because after eight years of Christian Right-supported leadership, the nation did not appear to donators to be in the same state of moral peril as they perceived it to be when Reagan first took office.[11] The Moral Majority’s financial base seriously eroded when it became part of the Liberty Federation and financial difficulties ultimately were a major factor in the decision to disband the organization.[12] Falwell, though, gave a more optimistic public opinion about the Moral Majority’s dissolution. Announcing the disbandment of the Moral Majority in 1989 in Las Vegas, Falwell declared, “Our goal has been achieved…The religious right is solidly in place and…religious conservatives in America are now in for the duration.”[13] After the Moral Majority was disbanded, elements of the organization were transferred to the Christian Coalition network initiated by Pat Robertson.[14]

[edit] Organizational Goals and Composition

The Moral Majority sought to mobilize conservative Americans to become politically active on issues they thought were important. A variety of tactics were used to garner support. These tactics included direct-mail campaigns, telephone hot lines, rallies, and religious television broadcasts.[15] Although the Moral Majority only existed for a decade, the Moral Majority became a visible political force very shortly after its founding and was relatively effective in its mobilization goals. According to Robert Liebman and Robert Wuthnow, common explanations for this success include:[16]

The Moral Majority was founded with strong financial backing already in place.

The Moral Majority’s leaders were in frequent communication with its constituents, enabling consistent messages to resonate throughout all levels of hierarchy.

The Moral Majority’s leaders generally had previous organizational experience.

The general public was amenable to the issues the Moral Majority emphasized.

Some issues for which the Moral Majority campaigned included:[17]

Censorship of media outlets that promote an "anti-family" agenda

Enforcement of a traditional vision of family life

Opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

Opposition to state recognition and acceptance of homosexual acts

Outlawing abortion in all cases, even to save a woman's life

Targeting Jews and other non-Christians for conversion to conservative Christianity

The Moral Majority had adherents in the two major United States political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, although it exercised far more influence on the former.

[edit] Organizational structure

The Moral Majority comprised four distinct organizations:[18]

Moral Majority Inc. – the organization’s lobbying division, which addressed issues on local, state, and national levels.

Moral Majority Foundation – the organization’s educational component, through which the Moral Majority educated ministers and lay people on political issues and conducted voter registration drives.

Moral Majority Legal Defense Fund – the organization’s legal instrument, used primarily to challenge the ACLU and secular humanist issues in court.

Moral Majority Political Action Committee – the organization’s mechanism for supporting the candidacy of people whose political platforms reflected Moral Majority values.

The state chapters of the Moral Majority were financially independent from the national organization and relied on local resources to conduct their activities. Consequently, the national organization encouraged local chapters to cooperate with their policies but had little control over local chapters’ activities.[19] Political activity of the Moral Majority divided accordingly, with the national Moral Majority office usually focused on addressing multiple issues through Congress while local branches tended to work on a single issue within their respective states.[20]

[edit] Political Involvement

The Moral Majority engaged in political activity in a variety of ways, including national media campaigns and grassroots organization aimed at supporting particular candidates in elections and using mail and phone calls to reach office-holders.[21] The Moral Majority’s initial political actions were aimed at supporting Jesse Helms’ proposed legislation on school prayer.[22] Before long, the Moral Majority became heavily invested in presidential elections and national politics; although at the state level branches of the Moral Majority continued to pursue specific issues at lower levels of government. As far as elections, state Moral Majority chapters tended to deliberately focus their efforts towards particular candidates. For example, state chapters participated in campaigns to oust liberal members of Congress during the 1980 election. Also, in 1981, the Moral Majority mobilized delegates to the Virginia Republican state nominating convention in order to support Guy Farley, an evangelical candidate for lieutenant governor.[23]

Nationally, the Moral Majority encouraged electoral participation among its members and used registration drives to register church-goers to vote, with the logic that Moral Majority members would be likely to vote for Moral Majority-endorsed candidates, thus strengthening the organization’s electoral efficacy and strengthening its endorsements. Leaders within the Moral Majority asked ministers give their congregants political direction, reminding congregants when to vote, who to vote for, and why the Moral Majority held particular positions on issues.[24] The Moral Majority, however, is probably best known for its involvement in presidential elections, specifically those of Ronald Reagan.

[edit] Presidential Elections

The 1976 election of Jimmy Carter as President of the United States marked a milestone for evangelical Christians. For the first time, a self-professed evangelical Christian had been elected to the nation’s highest office, bringing the national awareness of evangelical Christianity to a new level. Despite commonality in religious identification, however, evangelical Christians in general and eventually the newly-formed Moral Majority in particular would come to be disappointed with Carter’s policies. Carter did not share the Moral Majority’s political imperative to unify personal and political positions and would instead support the positions of his own party, the Democratic Party, that were at odds with his personal religious stances. In particular, Carter did not actively oppose his party’s general pro-choice platform on abortion, nor did Carter work to bridge the church-state divide, both factors in the Moral Majority’s decision to support Ronald Reagan’s candidacy in 1980.[2]

[edit] 1980

The Moral Majority was a relatively early supporter of Reagan, with Falwell announcing the organization’s endorsement of Reagan before the Republican convention.[25] Naturally, the Moral Majority continued working on behalf of Reagan after he gained the Republican nomination. Following the organization’s heed, more than one-fifth of Moral Majority supporters voted for Reagan in 1980 that had supported Carter in 1976.[26] After Reagan’s victory, Falwell announced Reagan’s success was directly due to the Moral Majority and others registering and encouraging church-goers to vote who had never before been politically active.[27] Empirical evidence suggests that Falwell’s claim about the role of Christian Right organizations in Reagan’s victory has some truth, thought difficult to determine definitively.[28]

Reagan sought the input from the Moral Majority leadership during his campaign and appointed the Rev. Robert Billings, the Moral Majority’s first executive director, to be a religious advisor to the campaign.[29] Later, Reagan appointed Billings to a position the Department of Education. This appointment was particularly significant for the Moral Majority, which had lobbied on education policy issues, especially those regarding private schools.[30]

[edit] 1984

The Moral Majority maintained their support for Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign and, alongside other Christian Right organizations, influenced the Republican platform for the election, shaping the party’s campaign stances on school prayer and abortion.[31] The nation’s political climate, however, had changed since Reagan’s first campaign. Although Reagan won reelection, the role of the Moral Majority in the victory had changed since 1980. A study of voters in the 1984 election showed that more anti-Moral Majority voters voted for Walter Mondale than pro-Moral Majority voters voted for Reagan, suggesting the Moral Majority may have actually had a negative effect on Reagan’s campaign.[32]

[edit] 1988

1988 was the last presidential election for which the Moral Majority was an active organization. Reagan having reached his two-term limit, the Republican nomination was open to a variety of primary contenders. The evangelical minister and televangelist Rev. Pat Robertson sought the Republican nomination and would have been, at first glance, a natural choice for the Moral Majority’s support. Although Robertson’s political platforms were extremely similar to the ones the Moral Majority supported, Falwell gave his organization’s endorsement to contender George H. W. Bush instead. Falwell’s decision highlighted the rivalry between Falwell and Robertson as televangelists but also revealed the deep-seated tension that still persisted between competing evangelical traditions – Falwell’s fundamentalist tradition was at odds with Robertson’s charismatic tradition.[33]

[edit] Challenges to the Moral Majority

By the late 1980's the views of the Moral Majority were challenged widely and the organization started to crumble. With its waning support, critics started to call the organization "neither moral nor a majority". By 1988 there were serious cash flow problems and Falwell dismantled the organization in 1989.[34]

During its existence the Moral Majority experienced friction with other evangelical leaders and organizations as well as liberal leaders and organizations. For example, Bob Jones particularly sought to challenge the public position of the Moral Majority and was known to make public statements that the Moral Majority was an instrument of Satan.[9] Such rivalries affected the Moral Majority’s grassroots efforts, like in South Carolina where the Moral Majority had no presence because Bob Jones University’s religious network had already organized the state’s independent Baptists.[35] The tension between Falwell and Pat Robertson also affected the Moral Majority, as noted in the presidential elections section of this article. On the ideologically opposed side, Norman Lear’s liberal organization People for the American Way was formed with the specific intention of opposing the platforms of the Moral Majority and other Christian Right organizations.[36]

[edit] The Moral Majority Coalition

In November 2004, Falwell revived the Moral Majority name for a new organization, the Moral Majority Coalition. The intent of the organization is to continue the "evangelical revolution" to help conservative politicians get elected. Referring to the Coalition as a "21st century resurrection of the Moral Majority," Falwell, a father of the modern "religious right" political movement, committed to leading the organization for four years[37], but died on May 15, 2007.[38]

[edit] Notable people within the movement

Jerry Falwell (Founder)

Robert Grant

Jesse Helms

James Kennedy

Beverly LaHaye

Tim LaHaye

Trent Lott

Judith A. Reisman

Pat Robertson

James Robison

Charles Stanley

Richard Viguerie

Paul Weyrich

[edit] See also

Christian Coalition of America

Christian Right

Moral Majority

From SourceWatch

The Moral Majority, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth Edition, 2001), is a "U.S. political action group composed of conservative, fundamentalist Christians. Founded (1979) and led (1979-87) by evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell, the group played a significant role in the 1980 elections through its strong support of conservative candidates. It lobbied for prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools, while opposing the Equal Rights Amendment, homosexual rights, abortion, and the U.S.-Soviet SALT treaties. The Moral Majority was dissolved in 1989." [1]

SourceWatch Resources

Religious Right

External links

"Moral Majority", St James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture.

Blackwell ... trained a teen-aged Karl Rove as a field organizer ...

Rove Consults With Blackwell on Political Strategy. At the 2000 convention, Bush strategist Karl Rove consulted with Morton Blackwell of Virginia, who supported a plan that emphasized primaries in small states when the Republican Party selects its presidential nominee.y. 'Finally, on the verge of realizing his right-wing utopia, Weyrich harvested what his friend Morton Blackwell termed the greatest track of virgin timber on the political landscape: evangelicals. Out there is what you might call a moral majority, he told Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979. That's it, Falwell exclaimed. That's the name of the organiz

The Moral Majority was a political organization of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D...

which had an agenda

Agenda

Agenda may refer to:* Agenda , points to be discussed; sometimes refers to the list of topics itself* Political agenda, the set of goals of an ideological group; also used as above, the topics under discussion by a government...

of evangelical

Evangelism

Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity, where the scriptures often describe "evangelism" as "spreading the Gospel".Christians who specialise in...

Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament....

-oriented political lobbying

Lobbying

Lobbying is a form of advocacy with the intention of influencing decisions made by legislators and officials in the government by individuals, other legislators, constituents, or advocacy groups. A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest or a member...

. It was founded in 1979 and dissolved in the late 1980s.

Pre-Establishment

The origins of the Moral Majority can be traced to 1976 when Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was a Christian evangelical fundamentalist Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the U.S. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...

embarked on a series of “I Love America” rallies across the country to raise awareness of social issues important to Falwell. These rallies were an extension of Falwell’s decision to go against the traditional Baptist

Baptist

Baptists are a group of Christian denominations, churches, and individuals who subscribe to a theology of believer's baptism , salvation through faith alone, Scripture alone as the rule of faith and practice, and the autonomy of the local church...

principle of separating religion and politics, a change of heart Falwell says he had when he perceived the decay of the nation’s morality. Through hosting these rallies, Falwell was able to gauge national support for a formal organization and also raise his profile as a leader. Having already been a part of a well-established network of ministers and ministries, within a few years Falwell was favorably positioned to launch the Moral Majority.

The Moral Majority was formally initiated as a result of a struggle for control of an American conservative Christian advocacy group known as Christian Voice

Christian Voice (USA)

Christian Voice is an American conservative Christian right advocacy group. In 1980, this group had 107,000 members including 37,000 pastors from 45 denominations. It is a project of the American Service Council...

during 1978. During a news conference by Christian Voice's founder, Robert Grant

Robert Grant (Christian Leader)

Dr. Robert G. Grant is one of the early leaders of the Christian Right in America. He served as the chairman of Christian Voice and the American Freedom Coalition....

, he claimed that the Religious Right

Christian right

The Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States of America to describe a spectrum of right-wing Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of conservative social and political values...

was a "sham... controlled by three Catholics and a Jew." Paul Weyrich

Paul Weyrich

Paul M. Weyrich was an American conservativepolitical activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the New Right and for his quote "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are...

, Terry Dolan

Terry Dolan (US political figure)

John Terrence "Terry" Dolan was an American New Right political operative who was co-founder and chairman of the National Conservative Political Action Committee ....

, Richard Viguerie

Richard Viguerie

Richard Art Viguerie is a conservative figure, pioneer of political direct mail and writer on American politics...

(the Catholics) and Howard Phillips (the Jew) left Christian Voice. During a 1979 meeting, they urged televangelist Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell

to found Moral Majority ( a phrase coined by Weyrich ). This was also the beginning of the New Christian Right

New Right

New Right is used in several countries as a descriptive term for various policies and/or groups that are right-wing. It has also been used to describe the emergence of Eastern European parties after the collapse of communism.-Australia:...

Establishment and Organizational Activity

Falwell and Weyrich founded the Moral Majority in the summer of 1979. The Moral Majority was a southern-oriented organization of the Christian Right, although the Moral Majority’s state chapters and political activity extended beyond the South. After the Moral Majority’s establishment, the state chapters grew quickly, with organizations in eighteen states by 1980. The variety of resources available to the Moral Majority at its founding facilitated this rapid expansion, which included Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” mailing list. In addition, the Moral Majority took control of the “Old Time Gospel Hour’s” publication, Journal Champion, which had been distributed to the show’s donors. Falwell was the organization's best known spokesperson throughout the 1980s. By 1982, Moral Majority surpassed Christian Voice

Christian Voice (USA)

in size and influence.

The Moral Majority’s headquarters were in Lynchburg, Virginia

Lynchburg, Virginia

Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 73,933 at the 2009 U.S. census estimate. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills", "The Hill City" and sometimes...

, the same city where Falwell was the presiding minister of the nation’s largest independent Baptist church, Thomas Road Baptist Church

Thomas Road Baptist Church

Thomas Road Baptist Church is a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. It currently claims 24,000 members and is headed by Jonathan Falwell.-History:Started in 1956 by a group of 35, including Jerry Falwell, Thomas Road now claims over 24,000 members...

. Virginia has been a seat of Christian Right politics, being the state where the Christian Coalition’s first headquarters were established. Falwell was at the head of the Moral Majority and maintained an advisory board, constituting the organization’s primary leadership. This leadership was drawn heavily from Falwell’s fellow members of the Baptist Bible Fellowship. Falwell insisted the Moral Majority leadership also include Catholics and Jews, although not all members of the leadership approved of this inclusion.

The Moral Majority was an organization made up of conservative Christian political action committee

Political action committee

In the United States, a Political Action Committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...

s which campaigned on issues its personnel believed were important to maintaining its Christian conception of moral law, a conception they believed represented the opinions of the majority of Americans (hence the movement's name). With a membership of millions, the Moral Majority was one of the largest conservative lobby groups in the United States

United States

and at its height, the Moral Majority claimed over four million members and over two million donors. These members were spread out over about twenty state organizations, of which Washington State was the largest. The Moral Majority was incorporated into the Liberty Federation in 1985, remaining a distinct entity but falling under the Liberty Federation’s larger jurisdiction. By 1987, Falwell retired as the formal head of the Moral Majority, although he maintained an active and visible role within the organization.

Dissolution

By the end of Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California . Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in 1937...

's presidential administration, Christian Right organizations were generally in a phase of decline. After Reagan’s two terms in office, donations were decreasing, possibly because after eight years of Christian Right-supported leadership, the nation did not appear to donators to be in the same state of moral peril as they perceived it to be when Reagan first took office. The Moral Majority’s financial base seriously eroded when it became part of the Liberty Federation and financial difficulties ultimately were a major factor in the decision to disband the organization. Falwell, though, gave a more optimistic public opinion about the Moral Majority’s dissolution. Announcing the disbandment of the Moral Majority in 1989 in Las Vegas

Las Vegas metropolitan area

The Las Vegas metropolitan area, also known as the Las Vegas-Paradise-Henderson Metropolitan Statistical Area, is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, consisting of Clark County. A central part of the metropolitan area is the Las Vegas Valley, a basin in which is...

, Falwell declared, “Our goal has been achieved…The religious right is solidly in place and…religious conservatives in America are now in for the duration.” After the Moral Majority was disbanded, elements of the organization were transferred to the Christian Coalition network initiated by Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a prominent political spokesman for the Christian right in American politics and a highly visible spokesman in the media for Fundamentalist religion...

Organizational Goals and Composition

The Moral Majority sought to mobilize conservative Americans to become politically active on issues they thought were important. A variety of tactics were used to garner support. These tactics included direct-mail campaigns, telephone hot lines, rallies, and religious television broadcasts. Although the Moral Majority only existed for a decade, the Moral Majority became a visible political force very shortly after its founding and was relatively effective in its mobilization goals. According to Robert Liebman and Robert Wuthnow

Robert Wuthnow

Robert Wuthnow is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor of Sociology, Director of the Princeton University Center for the Study of Religion, and Chair of the Department of Sociology at that institution....

, common explanations for this success include:

The Moral Majority was founded with strong financial backing already in place.

The Moral Majority’s leaders were in frequent communication with its constituents, enabling consistent messages to resonate throughout all levels of hierarchy.

The Moral Majority’s leaders generally had previous organizational experience.

The general public was amenable to the issues the Moral Majority emphasized.

Some issues for which the Moral Majority campaigned included:

outlawing abortion

Abortion

Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo, resulting in or caused by its death. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced, in humans and other species...

in all cases

opposition to state recognition and acceptance of homosexual acts

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior among members of the same sex. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions primarily to" people of the same sex; "it also refers to an...

opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment

Equal Rights Amendment

The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution which was intended to guarantee that equal rights under any federal, state, or local law could not be denied on account of sex. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul...

and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union - the Cold War superpowers - on the issue of armament control. There were two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II...

enforcement of a traditional vision of family life

censorship

Censorship

Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.-Rationale:...

of media outlets that promote an "anti-family" agenda

The Moral Majority had adherents in the two major United States political parties, the Republicans

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. The party's...

and the Democrats

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party boasts the lengthiest record of continuous operation in the...

, although it exercised far more influence on the former.

Organizational Structure

The Moral Majority comprised four distinct organizations:

Moral Majority Inc. – the organization’s lobbying division, which addressed issues on local, state, and national levels.

Moral Majority Legal Defense Fund – the organization’s legal instrument, used primarily to challenge the ACLU and secular humanist

Secular humanism

Secular Humanism is a secular philosophy that espouses reason, ethics, and justice, and specifically rejects supernatural and religious dogma as the basis of morality and decision-making. Secular Humanism is a life stance that focuses on the way human beings can lead good, happy and functional...

issues in court.

Moral Majority Political Action Committee – the organization’s mechanism for supporting the candidacy of people whose political platforms reflected Moral Majority values.

The state chapters of the Moral Majority were financially independent from the national organization and relied on local resources to conduct their activities. Consequently, the national organization encouraged local chapters to cooperate with their policies but had little control over local chapters’ activities. Political activity of the Moral Majority divided accordingly, with the national Moral Majority office usually focused on addressing multiple issues through Congress while local branches tended to work on a single issue within their respective states.

Political Involvement

The Moral Majority engaged in political activity in a variety of ways, including national media campaigns and grassroots

Grassroots

A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...

organization aimed at supporting particular candidates in elections and using mail and phone calls to reach office-holders. The Moral Majority’s initial political actions were aimed at supporting Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms

Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001...

’ proposed legislation on school prayer

School prayer

School prayer in its common usage refers to state-approved prayer by students in state schools. Depending on the country and the type of school, organized prayer may be required, permitted, or proscribed...

. Before long, the Moral Majority became heavily invested in presidential elections and national politics; although at the state level branches of the Moral Majority continued to pursue specific issues at lower levels of government. As far as elections, state Moral Majority chapters tended to deliberately focus their efforts towards particular candidates. For example, state chapters participated in campaigns to oust liberal members of Congress during the 1980 election. Also, in 1981, the Moral Majority mobilized delegates to the Virginia Republican state nominating convention in order to support Guy Farley, an evangelical candidate for lieutenant governor.

Nationally, the Moral Majority encouraged electoral participation among its members and used registration drives to register church-goers to vote, with the logic that Moral Majority members would be likely to vote for Moral Majority-endorsed candidates, thus strengthening the organization’s electoral efficacy and strengthening its endorsements. Leaders within the Moral Majority asked ministers give their congregants political direction, reminding congregants when to vote, who to vote for, and why the Moral Majority held particular positions on issues. The Moral Majority, however, is probably best known for its involvement in presidential elections, specifically those of Ronald Reagan.

Presidential Elections

The 1976 election of Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

as President of the United States marked a milestone for evangelical Christians. For the first time, a self-professed evangelical Christian had been elected to the nation’s highest office, bringing the national awareness of evangelical Christianity to a new level. Despite commonality in religious identification, however, evangelical Christians in general and eventually the newly-formed Moral Majority in particular would come to be disappointed with Carter’s policies. Carter did not share the Moral Majority’s political imperative to unify personal and political positions and would instead support the positions of his own party, the Democratic Party, that were at odds with his personal religious stances. In particular, Carter did not actively oppose his party’s general pro-choice platform on abortion, nor did Carter work to bridge the church-state divide, both factors in the Moral Majority’s decision to support Ronald Reagan’s candidacy in 1980.

1980

The Moral Majority was a relatively early supporter of Reagan, with Falwell announcing the organization’s endorsement of Reagan before the Republican convention. Naturally, the Moral Majority continued working on behalf of Reagan after he gained the Republican nomination. Following the organization’s heed, more than one-fifth of Moral Majority supporters voted for Reagan in 1980 that had supported Carter in 1976. After Reagan’s victory, Falwell announced Reagan’s success was directly due to the Moral Majority and others registering and encouraging church-goers to vote who had never before been politically active. Empirical evidence suggests that Falwell’s claim about the role of Christian Right organizations in Reagan’s victory has some truth, thought difficult to determine definitively.

Reagan sought the input from the Moral Majority leadership during his campaign and appointed the Rev. Robert Billings, the Moral Majority’s first executive director, to be a religious advisor to the campaign. Later, Reagan appointed Billings to a position the Department of Education. This appointment was particularly significant for the Moral Majority, which had lobbied on education policy issues, especially those regarding private schools.

1984

The Moral Majority maintained their support for Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign and, alongside other Christian Right organizations, influenced the Republican platform for the election, shaping the party’s campaign stances on school prayer and abortion. The nation’s political climate, however, had changed since Reagan’s first campaign. Although Reagan won reelection, the role of the Moral Majority in the victory had changed since 1980. A study of voters in the 1984 election showed that more anti-Moral Majority voters voted for Walter Mondale

Walter Mondale

Walter Frederick Mondale is an American politician and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. He was the 42nd Vice President of the United States under President Jimmy Carter, a two-term United States Senator from Minnesota, and the Democratic Party nominee for president in 1984...

than pro-Moral Majority voters voted for Reagan, suggesting the Moral Majority may have actually had a negative effect on Reagan’s campaign.

1988

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States . He was also Ronald Reagan's Vice President , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence....

instead. Falwell’s decision highlighted the rivalry between Falwell and Robertson as televangelists but also revealed the deep-seated tension that still persisted between competing evangelical traditions – Falwell’s fundamentalist

Fundamentalist Christianity

Fundamentalist Christianity, also known as Christian fundamentalism or fundamentalist evangelicalism, is a movement that arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among conservative evangelical Christians, who, in a reaction to liberal theology,...

tradition was at odds with Robertson’s charismatic

Charismatic Christianity

Charismatic Christianity is a Christian doctrine that maintains that modern-day believers experience miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, and other spiritual gifts as described in of the Bible...

tradition.

Challenges to the Moral Majority

The Moral Majority experienced friction with other evangelical leaders and organizations as well as liberal leaders and organizations. For example, Bob Jones

Bob Jones III

Robert Reynolds Jones III , third president of Bob Jones University. The son of Bob Jones, Jr., and the grandson of Bob Jones, Sr., the university's founder, Jones III served as president of BJU from 1971 to 2005.-Biography:...

particularly sought to challenge the public position of the Moral Majority and was known to make public statements that the Moral Majority was an instrument of Satan. Such rivalries affected the Moral Majority’s grassroots efforts, like in South Carolina where the Moral Majority had no presence because Bob Jones University

Bob Jones University

Bob Jones University is a private, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina. It is the largest private liberal arts university in South Carolina and has a reputation for being one of the most conservative of religious schools in the United States.The university was...

’s religious network had already organized the state’s independent Baptists. The tension between Falwell and Pat Robertson also affected the Moral Majority, as noted in the presidential elections section of this article. On the ideologically opposed side, Norman Lear

Norman Lear

Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...

’s liberal organization People for the American Way

People For the American Way

People For the American Way is a politically liberal advocacy group in the United States. Under U.S. tax code, People For is organized as a tax-exempt 501 non-profit organization...

was formed with the specific intention of opposing the platforms of the Moral Majority and other Christian Right organizations.

The Moral Majority Coalition

Notable people within the movement

Jerry Falwell

(Founder)

Richard Viguerie

Richard Art Viguerie is a conservative figure, pioneer of political direct mail and writer on American politics...

Paul Weyrich

Robert Grant

Robert Grant (Christian Leader)

Dr. Robert G. Grant is one of the early leaders of the Christian Right in America. He served as the chairman of Christian Voice and the American Freedom Coalition....

Pat Robertson

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a prominent political spokesman for the Christian right in American politics and a highly visible spokesman in the media for Fundamentalist religion...

Tim LaHaye

Timothy F. LaHaye is an American evangelical Christian minister, author, and speaker. He is best-known for the Left Behind series of apocalyptic fiction, which he co-wrote with Jerry B. Jenkins. He has written over 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction.-Early life:LaHaye's mother was the former...

Beverly LaHaye

Beverly LaHaye is an American Christian conservative activist and author.Beverly LaHaye is best known for The Act of Marriage, a Christian sex self-help bestseller she co-authored in 1976 with her husband Tim LaHaye, and for founding Concerned Women for America in 1979 in San Diego, California to...

Judith A. Reisman

Judith A. Reisman is a writer best known for her criticism of the work of Alfred Kinsey. She argues that many of Kinsey's sexual viewpoints are not appropriate in the context of modern sex education....

Charles Stanley

James Kennedy

James Kennedy (televangelist)

Dennis James Kennedy, , better known as D. James Kennedy, was an American televangelist, church pastor, and founder of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was senior pastor from 1960 until his death in 2007. Kennedy also founded the Westminster Academy in Ft...

Trent Lott

Chester Trent Lott, Sr. , is a former United States Senator from Mississippi and has served in numerous leadership positions in the House of Representatives and the Senate....

Jesse Helms

Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001...