Some men change their parties for the sake of principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.
—Winston Churchill
IN 1973, WHEN THE SUPREME COURT DECIDED, BY A 7–2 MARGIN, that state laws restricting or outlawing abortion were unconstitutional, some on the secular, religious, and political left believed they had once again socked it to the religious and political right. As with the Scopes “monkey trial” fifty years earlier, Roe v. Wade (and the companion Doe v. Bolton decision) was a triumph of reason over faith and a victory for personal choice of the many over dictatorship by the few. But unlike Scopes, when religious conservatives left the political playing field in favor of the “catacombs,” this time they began to mobilize with the intention of fighting back.
The left failed to anticipate this revolt by religious conservatives because most liberals do not “hang out” among those they view as uneducated. To the secular and religious left, religious conservatives were unwashed, trailer-park-living, pickup-truck-driving, white-socks-wearing, nondancing, nondrinking, nonmoviegoing, noncardplaying know-nothings who believed if you were having a good time you must be engaging in sinful activity.
The problem for these disgruntled conservatives was that they lacked a leader. Politically, there was no one who excited them. Richard Nixon cared little about culture or what came to be known as “social issues,” and his charisma level had the depth of floor wax, but without the shine. Nixon had his own problems in 1972 that would ultimately lead to his resignation. Gerald Ford, who replaced him, was regarded by conservative Republicans as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who, along with his wife, Betty, was pro-choice.
By 1976 many conservative Christians saw in Jimmy Carter a presidential candidate around whom they could rally. Carter spoke their language. He had been a Southern governor and was a Baptist who openly told of having been born again. He attended church and even taught Sunday school. Enough conservative Christians voted for Carter in the 1976 election to give him a narrow victory over Gerald Ford (Carter got 50.1 percent of the vote to Ford’s 48 percent with slightly more than one and a half million votes dividing them). Had Ronald Reagan managed to beat Ford for the nomination, he might still have lost to Carter, who could talk in the religious language that appeals to evangelicals probably better than Reagan did at the time.
Conservatives were quickly disappointed in Carter when he failed to convert his religious language into political action. He hired Sarah Weddington—the attorney who argued in favor of abortion before the Supreme Court in the Roe case—to be one of his top aides. He also stocked his administration with people who were mostly secular liberals. Conservative Christians were appalled and many felt they had been duped by Carter. They expected something more from him because they incorrectly believed that the language of faith translates into agreement on their policy issues and political agenda.
The frustration level continued to build among this still-unorganized group. As inflation and interest rates grew, along with unemployment, conservatives began looking again at Ronald Reagan, a divorced man whose church attendance record was spotty compared to Carter’s, but who could arouse them as no potential candidate had in their lifetime. It was with Reagan that the shift began. Evangelical Christians were about to accept someone who may have been personally flawed, but who they believed could deliver them to the electoral promised land and give them the respect they felt they had not received from the elites. Reagan’s most serious flaw in the eyes of evangelical voters was that he had been divorced. That could be easily forgiven because increasing numbers of Christians had experienced marital breakup and evangelicals were becoming pragmatic. Reagan’s second flaw was a bigger obstacle to overcome.
As governor of California, Reagan signed a bill on June 15, 1967, liberalizing that state’s abortion laws, six years before Roe. Reagan later said he regretted that decision and many conservatives were happy to forgive him and accept his “repentance.” This was an important and strategic shift for conservatives, who until then would put a “mark of Cain” on someone they believed was outside “biblical norms.”
Political sophisticates knew it was not enough to have secular and economic conservatives for Reagan. They needed another demographic, one that could be brought into the arena only if one of their own gave them permission.
Enter Jerry Falwell, a relatively young pastor of what the press and even Falwell called a “fundamentalist” congregation in Lynchburg, Virginia. Lynchburg is located about 180 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., but in the late 1970s, it was another world in terms of culture and political sophistication. Old homes dot tree-lined streets, and the trees are older than most residents. Sleepy would be an appropriate adjective. This was old Virginia (as in “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia”), where people knew one another’s names, folks didn’t move too often, and lots of people went to church on Sunday. It was also the home to several well-known colleges and universities, including Randolph Macon Women’s College, Lynchburg College, Sweet Briar, and the soon-to-be-famous Liberty University (then called Liberty Baptist College).
Falwell had preached for years against a too-close association with politics. For the Christian, he taught and believed at the time, politics was about another “kingdom” headed in another direction. It was also about a “King” who doesn’t stand for election. One of Falwell’s most famous sermons was delivered in 1965. It was titled “Ministers and Marches” and was a response to the civil rights movement and the pronouncements and political activism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In that sermon, Falwell laid out a seemingly uncompromising position on the relationship between church and state. It is worth quoting one of its most important lines because it shows how far Falwell would have to turn (a complete 180 degrees) in order to lead the Moral Majority fourteen years later. Falwell said at the time, “We have a message of redeeming grace through a crucified and risen Lord. Nowhere are we told to reform the externals. We are not told [in the Bible] to wage war against bootleggers, liquor stores, gamblers, murderers, prostitutes, racketeers, prejudiced persons or institutions, or any other existing evil as such. The gospel does not clean up the outside but rather regenerates the inside.”
That seemed about as clear as one could get. The greater power came from a King and Kingdom not of this world. Politics was a lesser power, and besides, according to Falwell circa 1965, it wasn’t something in which real Christians should be involved anyway. Not only were they not “called” to be in politics, getting into politics would sully their primary message and do little, if anything, to reform the culture.
By early 1979, Falwell had become increasingly frustrated with the social and moral direction of America. His “Liberty Singers” were involved in patriotic rallies around the country and Falwell himself was speaking more from the pulpit and on his televised Old Time Gospel Hour program (which was mostly a broadcast of his Sunday-morning church service) about cultural and social issues.
Two men who were known less for their religious ties than their political experience decided to meet with Falwell to see if an alliance might be formed to change the political direction of the country. They were Paul Weyrich, a Roman Catholic, and also president of the conservative Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, and Howard Phillips, at the time a Jew, who was president of the Conservative Caucus.
All three agreed that something had to be done and, in fact, could be done if a new alliance might be established between the fundamentalist and conservative churches of America and the conservative political movement, mostly embodied within the Republican Party. Conservatism within the GOP had not been much of a force since the disastrous defeat of Barry Goldwater at the hands of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, but the rise of Ronald Reagan and his near miss at capturing the Republican nomination from Gerald Ford in 1976 gave them hope that in 1980 the conservative triumph might be achieved. But it would not be complete without religious voters abandoning their reluctance and tearing down the wall they had helped to construct between church and state.
Falwell agreed to lead, or at least be a part, of such a movement. What to call it? It was Weyrich who suggested there was a “moral majority out there in the country.”
“That’s it,” responded Falwell. “We’ll call it ‘The Moral Majority.’” The organization hired direct-mail wizard Richard Viguerie to help raise funds and Falwell abandoned whatever reluctance he once had to preach on politics and began devoting entire sermons to political issues—from abortion, to the Supreme Court, to Jimmy Carter, to the homosexual rights movement. People began to send him money in response to those sermons and a sophisticated direct-mail campaign.
In August 1980, Falwell joined with a large group of pastors and political activists in Dallas, Texas. Reagan attended and delivered his famous line, “You can’t endorse me, but I can endorse you.” Bill Moyers of Public Television was at that gathering and wondered on his program “where all these people had come from.” Like many other Americans who didn’t “hang out” where these people did, Moyers had failed to see the movement coming. Like other liberals, he thought of religious conservatives as an endangered species who had been extinguished in the 1920s. That they were back and ticked off was a surprise to him and much of the rest of the media.
Some fundamentalists—like Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina—stuck to their belief that Christians should stay out of partisan politics for all the reasons Falwell once stated. But others joined the movement. Fifty state Moral Majority chapters were set up. What most of the media didn’t know (because, again, they didn’t hang out among these people) was that Falwell was perpetrating a giant hoax on the media and the political establishment. Many of these “chapters” were little more than a separate phone line on a pastor’s desk. And none of the money raised by the national organization would “trickle down” to the state level. That was kept in Lynchburg. State chairmen (and they were all men) were expected to raise their own funds.
Training sessions were held in many states to teach people how to talk on television and how to dress. This was a crash course in entry-level politics for a people who mostly knew they were mad and weren’t going to take it anymore, but needed direction to channel that anger. That meant getting behind Ronald Reagan and pushing.
It wasn’t long after Reagan’s inauguration that the compromising of principles an earlier Falwell had warned would come for conservative Christians were they to marry into politics took place. But Falwell and those who would make the leap with him would soon be high on the narcotic of political power and there would be no turning back. He would continue to back Reagan even though Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whom Reagan named as the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, turned out to be the swing vote upholding Roe. Reagan had assured Falwell in two phone calls that O’Connor would be okay on abortion. To Falwell, that meant she would vote to overturn Roe. When she did not, Falwell held his tongue.
Since Falwell had repeatedly called abortion “America’s national sin,” it was difficult for some to reconcile such a statement with his uncritical support of Reagan. What it was about, of course, was access. Like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers—Ginger gave Fred sex and Fred gave Ginger class—Reagan gave Falwell access, which is power, and Falwell gave Reagan a “moral covering” for his policies, even some policies that many conservative Christians did not like. They mostly remained silent, because by then it didn’t matter. They had the illusion of power (which fueled fund-raising) rather than power itself, and that was enough.
Falwell died in May 2007. His legacy will not be politics but his university and the people he introduced to God through his pastoral ministry.