Moral Majority

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J. Dylan Sandifer is now a sociology professor at the University of the District of Columbia, but Sandifer didn't grow up in the U.S. capitol. Sandier was raised in East Texas and had a strict evangelical fundamentalist upbringing — and now rejects that ideology.

In a biting think piece published by The New Republic on January 13, Sandifer emphasizes that one of most troubling characteristics of far-right evangelical Christian fundamentalists is their disdain for "critical thinking." And that disdain, Sandifer warns, poses a threat to democracy itself.

"Growing up in the evangelical church in the piney woods of East Texas, the world felt circumscribed by an ever-present fear — not just of sin but of ideas that might challenge the worldview handed down to those of us in the pews," Sandifer explains. "Everything outside the Christian framework — including secular music, television, and books — was discouraged. Just as I signed multiple purity pledges throughout my preteen and teen years, promising to avoid not just sex, but even impure thoughts, we were taught to practice absolute abstinence from dangerous ideas."

READ MORE:['Utterly inadequate': Conservative warns Trump 'major war' is looming — and he’s not ready

The "evangelical distrust of intellectual inquiry," Sandifer observes, "has found a powerful ally in American right-wing politics" — going back to the late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr.'s alliance with President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.

"The rise of Jerry Falwell Sr.'s Moral Majority and its embrace by the Reagan campaign provided organizational structure to these fears, helping translate religious anxieties about intellectual corruption into political action," the sociology professor observes. "Building on the foundation laid during the Reagan Administration, figures like Pat Robertson continued to leverage this partnership in the 1990s through organizations like the Christian Coalition of America."

Sandifer adds, "They capitalized on fears of moral decline to mobilize voters and influence policy, solidifying evangelical influence within the Republican Party."

With President-elect Donald Trump's encouragement, Sandifer warns, the "alliance between evangelical Christianity and conservative politics" has "fostered a cultural paranoia that seeks to limit the range of acceptable ideas."

READ MORE:[Revealed: Allies are grilling career intel staff to ensure total loyalty to Trump

"In an era of rising authoritarianism and deepening social division," the sociology profess writes, "our capacity to think critically about ideas rather than fear them may well determine whether democracy survives. The question isn't whether we can protect ourselves from ideas, but whether we can develop the intellectual resources to evaluate ideas thoughtfully."

READ MORE:['It is tremendous': Kremlin insiders explain how Trump is already helping advance Putin’s goals

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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.”

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Even as word of the genocide leaked out, Ríos Montt maintained friendships with prominent U.S. evangelical ChristiansJerry Falwelland Pat Robertson. Ronald Reagan had won the presidency in 1980 by flipping the evangelical vote away from the Democrats, who had helped elect Carter four years before. In 1982, Reagan traveled to Guatemala during the genocide and dismissed reports of abuses, saying that Ríos Montt was “totally dedicated to democracy in Guatemala.” Reagan said “frankly I’m inclined to believe” Ríos Montt has been “getting a bum rap.”

Scofield’s Biblebecame spectacularly popular among American fundamentalists soon after its publication, partly because it was the first annotated bible that sought to interpret the text for the reader as well as because it became the central text of several influential seminaries that were set up after its 1909 publication. Among Scofield’s many annotations are claims that have since become central to Christian Zionism, such as Scofield’s annotation of Genesis12:3 that those who curse Israel (interpreted by Christian Zionists to mean the state of Israel since its founding in 1948) will be cursed by God and those that bless Israel will similarly be blessed.

Modern Christian Zionists, like Pastor John Hagee of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), have frequently cited this interpretation that originated with Scofield in defending extreme pro-Israel stances. For instance, Hagee made the following statement in 2014:

You have to go back to basics, with the fact that in Genesis (chapter 1), God created the world and made a very solemn promise (brought in Gen. 12:3), ‘I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.’ From that moment on, every nation that ever blessed Israel has been blessed by God. And every nation that has ever persecuted the Jewish people, God crushed. And so He will continue.”

Falwell and Likud: a friendship or something else?

Despite the widespread dissemination of the Scofield Reference Bible and its popularization among American evangelical churches and seminaries, the public influence ofdispensationalist eschatology and Christian Zionism on American politics was relatively limited for much of the 20th century. However, the private influence of Christian dispensationalists was nonetheless present, as seen through the role of **dispensationalist preacher**and Third Temple advocate Billy Grahamandhis close relationships to several presidents including Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Then the political power of dispensationalist theology dramatically moved from the private quarters of the halls of power into the mainstream American political discourse with the founding of the Moral Majority by evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell in 1979.

In the early 1970s, Falwell’s growing ministry was bringing in millions of dollars annually, especially his nationally broadcast program “The Old Time Gospel Hour,” which ran on several major cable networks at the time.Despite — or perhaps because of — the spike in donations, Falwell was soon targeted by the federal government, specifically the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for “fraud and deceit” and “gross insolvency” in the financial management of his ministry, particularly the ministry’s sale of $6.6 million in church bonds. The SEC lawsuit was eventually settled when a group of businessmen in Lynchburg, Virginia — where Falwell’s ministry was based — took over the ministry’s finances for the next several years, until 1977. Falwell blamed his ministry’s financial problems on his “financial ignorance.”

Jerry Falwell travels with his son Jonathan, right, aboard his private jet in 2004. Todd Hunley | Thomas Road Baptist Church

One year after his ministry appeared to be on a better financial footing, Falwell received an invitation to visit the state of Israel and was personally invited on the all-expenses-paid trip by Menachem Begin, then the prime minister of Israel and leader of the Likud Party. The trip would mark the beginning of a long friendship and close relationship between Falwell and Begin and, more broadly, a relationship between American evangelical leaders and Israel’s Likud Party. As Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg notes in his book The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, the Begin administration “was the first to tap evangelical enthusiasm for Israel and turn it into political and economic support.”

Soon after returning from Israel, Falwell’s finances again came under federal scrutiny after a federal investigation found that Falwell had transferred the health insurance policies of his employees to an unlicensed shell company with just $128 in assets and hundreds of thousands in dollars in unpaid claims. Just as Falwell’s financial troubles began to mount yet again, he received a generous gift from none other than Begin in the form of**a private Learjet valued at $4 million**. Shortly thereafter, Falwell went on to found the Moral Majority organization, “after consultations with theologians and political strategists.”

The Moral Majority is widely credited with turning the Christian evangelical right into a major political force in the United States, promoting extremely pro-Israel policies, increased defense spending, a Reaganite approach to the challenges of the Cold War, as well as conservative domestic policies. Falwell frequently utilized his gift from Begin in traveling and promoting the new organization, as well as himself as a major public figure.

The Moral Majority marks a clear turning point in the Israel-U.S. evangelical relationship, as it made fervent support for Israel an area of major importance to evangelical voters and also led many evangelical voters to pay closer attention to events going on in the Middle East. Yet, given Falwell’s strong promotion of Christian Zionism, many evangelicals who became increasingly politically active following the organization’s founding not only supported Israel’s policies of the era but also supported many of the future ambitions of Begin and the Likud Party. This supportwas solidified by the beginning of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism’s ongoing practice of offering U.S. evangelical leaders free “familiarization” tours to Israel in the early 1980s.

Begin’s vision of “Greater Israel” — the complete annexation of Palestine as well as large parts of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt by Israel— was also shared and promoted by Falwell. In 1983, Falwell stated that “Begin will quickly tell you, ‘We don’t have all the land yet we’re going to have,’” and further predicted that Israel would never relinquish control over the occupied West Bank because Begin was determined to keep the land “which has been delivered to them (the Israelis).”

Falwell framed Begin’s expansionist ambitions as a religious belief in “the inerrancy of the Old Testament,” a sentiment Falwell shared. Falwell also pushed for a U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and felt that construction of a Third Temple on the Temple Mount was necessary to usher in the end times and the second coming of Christ.

As Falwell helped turn Christian Zionism into a major political force in the United States, he also made himself a key political figure in the Reagan era and an important go-between for U.S.-Israel relations. In 1981 Begin informed Falwell of his plans to bomb an Iraqi nuclear facility**before**he informed the Reagan administrationwith the hopes that Falwell would “explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombing.” According to Canadian academic David S. New, Begin told Falwell during that phone call: “Get to work for me.”

In addition, Falwell frequently met with Begin, whom he later called a personal friend, and these meetings often overlapped with Begin’s official meetings with Reagan. A year later, Begin gave Falwell Israel’s Jabotinsky award, making Falwell the first non-Jew to receive the honor for his advocacy on behalf of Israel and, more specifically, Likud policies and ambitions.

Though the Moral Majority officially shuttered its doors in 1989, its political legacy persisted long after, as did Falwell’s political clout. Indeed, following Begin’s model, Benjamin Netanyahu, during his first term as prime minister, also made a habit of visiting Falwell, meeting with the controversial pastor even before he met with political officials in his visits to Washington.

[Netanyahu, left, meets Falwell at a hotel in Washington, Jan. 19, 1998. Greg Gibson | AP

During one trip to D.C. in 1998, Netanyahu’s first visit was to an event co-hosted by Falwell, where the pastor praised Netanyahu as “the Ronald Reagan of Israel.” *The New York Times*described the purpose of Netanyahu’s U.S. visit not as a visit aimed at meeting with government officials, but rather one intended “to shore up his base of traditional support in the United States. Conservative Christian groups have long been ardent supporters of Israel because of its religious importance to Christianity.”

However, this relationship between Christian Zionists like Falwell and prominent right-wing Israeli politicians has not been without its controversy, especially given that pro-Israel evangelicals like Falwell have a history of making anti-semitic statements.

For example, during a 1999 sermon, Falwell discussed his interpretation of end-times prophecy, widely shared by Christian Zionist evangelicals, that the Second Coming would follow not just the creation of the state of Israel but the construction of a Third Temple on the Temple Mount, from which a figure known to Christians as the “Antichrist” would reign. In responding to his own rhetorical question as to whether the Antichrist is “alive and well today,” Falwell stated that “Probably because when he appears during the tribulation period he will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course, he’ll be Jewish.”

Falwell’s comments were immediately condemned by a variety of Jewish groups, including the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Rabbi Leon Klenicki, then-director of interfaith affairs for the ADL, noted that Falwell’s view is a “common theological position” among American evangelicals and that Falwell was “an influential voice among evangelical and charismatic Christians” who “only supports Israel for his own Christological ends.” “He sees us only as the ones who prepare the coming of Jesus,” Klenicki statedat the time. “It is a great disappointment after more than 30 years of dialogue; he’s still in the Middle Ages.”

Another prominent dispensationalist with great political and literary influence is Hal Lindsey, the author and co-author of several books, including the popularLeft Behind book series. Lindsey’s work greatly influenced many prominent U.S. politicians like Ronald Reagan, who was so moved by Lindsey’s books that he invitedLindsey to address a National Security Council meeting on nuclear war plans and helped make Lindsey an influential consultant with several members of Congress and the Pentagon.

As noted by Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg, Lindsey sees Jews as serving “two central roles” in Christian dispensationalist eschatology:

[T]he first — despite his insistence of love for Jews — is the classic one of Christian anti-Jewish polemic: They are ‘the Jewish people who crucified Jesus’ and the archetype of those who ignore the truth of prophecy. The second role is to fulfill prophecy despite themselves.”

Gorenberg further notes that Lindsey believes that Jews have fulfilled two of the three crucial prophecies that will usher in the end times,with the first being the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the second being the Israeli conquest and occupation of Jerusalem after the Six Day War in 1967. According to Lindsey: “There remains but one more event to completely set the stage for Israel’s part in the last great act of her historical drama. That is to rebuild the ancient Temple…”

As Falwell’s and Lindsey’s comments reveal, the eschatological views of dispensationalism frequently perceive the Jewish people as little more than pawns that must fulfill certain requirements — e.g., establishing the state of Israel, conquering Jerusalem, building a Third Temple — in order to hasten the salvation and “rapture” of evangelical Christians. Meanwhile, Jews in Israel who do not convert to Christianity are expected to die horrible deaths, though some Christian Zionists in recent years, as will be seen shortly, have sought to adjust this still common theological position.

Despite the anti-semitic motivations underlying evangelical support for the state of Israel and the Likud-supported vision of “Greater Israel,” the politically active Christian Zionist movement that Falwell helped create translated into a strong support base for Israel and right-wing Likud policy that has made it crucial to prominent Israeli politicians.

For instance, significantly more American Christians (55 percent) than American Jews (40 percent) believe that God gave Israel to the Jews while that sentiment is shared by only 19 percent of Israeli Christians. In addition, with regards to the Trump administration’s pro-Israel policies, only 15 percent of evangelical Christians believe that President Trump favors Israel too strongly while 42 percent of American Jews hold the view that Trump is biased in favor of Israel.

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]](http://www.bartleby.com/65/e-/E-MoralMajo.html "http://www.bartleby.com/65/e-/E-MoralMajo.html")

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 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

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

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

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

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, but died on May 15, 2007.

Notable people within the movement

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell

(Founder)

Richard Viguerie

Richard Viguerie

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

Paul Weyrich

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

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

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

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

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

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 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...

Moral Majority

see main falwell

Falwell and Likud: a friendship or something else?

Moral Majority

From SourceWatch

SourceWatch Resources

External links

Pre-Establishment

Establishment and Organizational Activity

Dissolution

Organizational Goals and Composition

Organizational Structure

Political Involvement

Presidential Elections

1980

1984

1988

Challenges to the Moral Majority

The Moral Majority Coalition

Notable people within the movement

See also