I was a teenager when Falwell's brand of olde tyme religion ruled the land and boy did we pay. At least we had fun wearing "Immoral Minority" buttons on our coats.

His beliefs were, in the opinion of many including me, a perversion of Christianity. But let's face his true legacy - he did more to firmly advance his beliefs than probably any of us who have posted here. He knew how to make an impact. He was shrewd and savvy - he played the game so well. He made an entire country feel his presence. He helped change the direction of a nation. Yes, for the worse, but still ... to paraphrase Eddie Izzard, I can hardly even get down to the gym!

There is something to admire in everyone. Yes, everyone.

RIP Jerry, you big jackass.

... pray for his soul when he never had one?

I grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia; my mother still lives there. Though she is not a member of Rev. Falwell's church, she is an evangelical Christian, and, as a dutiful son, I have escorted her to several events at Liberty and Thomas Road over the years, and actually once shook hands with Jerry. Trust me, when you have grown up on the borders of Falwell's empire, you learn to take things with a grain of salt. In the words of Elvis Costello: "I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused."

I have always despised Rev. Falwell for his tackiness, his duplicity and greed (ask Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker how Jerry practiced forgiveness), his Puritanical self-righteousness, and, above all else, his obsession with persecuting people who practice homosexual lifestyles (I'm sure Ellen Degeneres will have an extra hop to her step when she comes dancing onto the soundstage today). But I don't think it serves anyone's purpose to hyperbolically bash him with self-serving, inaccurate claims.

Falwell, the quintessential conservative Christian, was always more conservative than Christian. To the extent that history will remember him, it will be as a politician, not as a preacher.

What's the difference? Has there really ever been a time in American history when preachers weren't inserting themselves into political life? Falwell may have been one of the more divisive figures to extend his influence beyond the pulpit, but he is hardly exceptional. From our Puritan forefathers up through the antebellum reform movement, the Abolitionist Movement, and on into Billy Graham's 20th Century--in which every American President has put on a show of bowing his head to the powers of American Protestantism--Evangelical Christianity has challenged the separation of church and state. Anyone who sees Falwell as uniquely hypocritical should remember that a Baptist lay-preacher President--Harry S. Truman--called the detonation of an atomic bomb on a civilian target "the greatest thing in history."

Longing for Washington, he had to settle for Lynchburg, Va.

Trust me, Falwell was perfectly content in Lynchburg, as are most of the people who live in what Thomas Jefferson most referred to as "the most interesting spot in the state." All defenses of my home town aside: Falwell was as close to Washington as he ever wanted to be--a twenty minute hop from his private airfield on his private jet.

In the 90s, Falwell busied himself building a little fiefdom out there on Candler's Mountain Road, revolving around Liberty University. Which leads me to the next and most glaring of your textual errors, Mr. Wolfe:

Liberty University never achieved anything resembling serious academic status, although it did produce a decent enough basketball team.

Liberty University's collegiate debating team has finished the past three seasons ranked # 1 in the nation, ahead of Harvard, UC-Berkeley, and Dartmouth. There is some controversy around these rankings, but the point remains that a) Liberty has distinguished itself with its debate team and b) it's reasons for developing such a strong team--which is coached by former highly-placed Republican advisors--are rooted in Falwell's continuing battle for the soul of America.

Other inaccuracies in this piece abound:

With the maturation of American evangelicalism has come an interest in social justice, environmentalism and peace. The people who represent evangelical Protestantism's future want little or nothing to do with injustice, pollution and war.

Whah?!? Where are you getting this from? Have you ever been to one of those megachurches? Have you seen the oceanic parking lots filled with luxury SUVs and giant V-12 power-stroke engine pick-ups? Don't you know that Osteen and Dollar and Warren have built their empires by telling people that Jesus wants them to make more money?!?

Instead of pondering Jerry Falwell's legacy, we would be better off asking how this man ever became a public figure in the first place.

Oh, it's not that hard to understand--Jerry's always used the same concoction of titillation and righteousness that led to the second great awakening of evangelical fervor in North America, the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801, where a religious camp meeting gave birth to the modern Southern Baptist denomination, the great master stroke of which was the establishment of the belief in direct communication--that God hears the prayers of the faithful directly, and that he answers in kind. Direct communication enabled demagoguery with its murkiness, but it was attractive because of its democratizing effect on church congregations: the mostly common, unlanded farmers and immigrants who attended the Creedence Clearwater and Cane Ridge Revivals were instrumental in extending the idea of personal self-worth to the lower classes--enabling the rise of Jacksonian democracy--and in fomenting the great wave of antebellum reform movements, which bear clear and obvious resemblance to the logic and tactics of Falwell, the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, and the Christian Coalition.

Surprisingly, you fail to mention the other thing Jerry Falwell will be most remembered for: his legal battle with Larry Flynt. Perhaps Jerry's most ironic legacy is that he unwittingly transformed a reviled smut-peddler into a champion of the 1st amendment. Perhaps most ironic is the fact that, after the Supreme Court's decision, Falwell and Flynt stayed in touch and formed a peculiar friendship. They had a lot in common: both of their fathers were notorious bootleggers, and while the Kentucky-born Flynt used the entrepreneurial spirit he inherited from his father to found a strip club and, later, a dirty magazine, Falwell used the same tools to build his church empire.

In 1997, I attended the Virginia Festival of Film and saw Falwell and Flynt together on a panel with Milos Forman after a screening of his film, "The People Vs. Larry Flynt." It was quite a scene--the wheelchair-bound Flynt clowning around with his buddy Jerry, who smiled and tolerated Flynt's jokes like a proud uncle.

I wonder how Larry Flynt feels today. Somehow, I doubt that, like you, he's spitting on Jerry's grave. He knew the man, clearly a lot better than you do.