It will be interesting to see how much money his estate is worth. I bet he's worth millions - all based on years of donations from TV watchers who thought the money was going to a good cause

I wish I'd said that.

I was heartbroken to hear about the death of this great American televangelist.

Stay strong, America! Don’t worry, soon another self-righteous blowhard will come along to get rich off of instilling the fear of hell into ignorant people while using religion for political manipulation.

I’m not a betting man, because Falwell taught me that gambling is immoral, but if I were I’d put my money on a full blown Falwell resurrection. A road trip to Lynchburg for the funeral may be in order - even if I don’t get to witness Jerry rising from the grave, I can still get in one last good-luck flick of the chicken goblet of fat that hangs off his neck.

The nation is better off with one fewer theocrat!

If he was from the Middle East we would have him labeled as a terrorist and maybe he would have been sitting in Guantanamo Bay right now.

I would like to remind you of Fallwell's Islamic brother in closed mindedness and hatemongering; Sayed al Qtub, whose thinking gave us Al-Qaeda. You can just picture these two side by side near a pile of stones egging their rabid followers on to execute a hapless sinner (of course they were not man enough to pick up the stones themselves).

The thought of Republican politicians that surely will be vying for some fundamentalist votes by heaping praise on Fallwell's corpse is exquisitely nauseating but very fitting in these apocalyptic times, don't you think?

Charles Philippe Landmann

Jerry Falwell: A frightening example of a closeted gay male. Angry, eight-chinned, striking out at cartoon figures, could anything be sadder? So how about we STOP! forcing people into closets from where their venom can ooze out and infect us all? Suppression is the killer... especially the ugly "religious" kind exhibited by poor old Jerry. Jody Scott

Jerry Falwell was the proof of the quotation from Ghandi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."

If Falwell had actually preached the need to lead a "Christlike" life, this would be a much better world. Instead, he played to the insecurities of those who want to be assured that they are "better" than others because they profess to believe certain things. It's always easy to profess to believe things--the hard part is living that belief.

Falwell did not live a "Christlike" life and those who emulate him do not live that way either--regardless of what they profess to believe.

OK, so I'm reading along on Jerry Falwell, thinking the author appears a little superficial, and then I reallize Mr. Wolfe is truly simply ignorant.

"Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Bill Hybels -- these inclusive preachers inherited the mantle of Billy Graham, not Falwell and his great rival Pat Robertson. 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."

You have got to be kidding--Warren and Osteen preach different but equally shalllow theology, and to call either of them "inclusive" is ludicrous in the extreme. Jim Wallis of Sojourners talks about justice, and environmentalism (they call it "creation care"); Rick Warren just discovered AIDS kills. Welcome to the party. And quite frankly they act as if they were the first to discover these things. You don't see them partnering w/organizations that have been doing this work for years. Instead one is led to believe that somehow their mission is "special". Hogwash!

In the end, almost all evangelicals rely on belief in inerrant interpretation of the Bible, and are no different than Falwell, except in that he spoke openly and bluntly. These men use sweeter words, and are more smoothly spoken, but their poison is all the same.

If you want to see those who truly carry the mantle of Christ, look to people like the former Episcopal Bishop John Spong, the Rev Jim Forbes of Riverside Church, The United Church of Christ--these are the people and groups that are truly and fully inclusive.

Mr. Wolfe, and most of the rest of the press need to get their heads out of their asses and realize there is more to Christianity than evangelical fundamentalism and to recognize that miniscule differences in how the preaching is done, does not change the fact that the message of the evangelicals is fundamentally the same--exclusion, separation, us (the saved) vs. them (the unsaved, whom we must save), and damnation for those who do not believe as they do.

Thank you, St. John. Late it was when I posted, after which I re-read my letter and noticed after publication the error with regard to the source of an eye for an eye. Thank you also for the rest of your piece. Soothing it was to read and re-read, then print. Rare it is that any blog or letter touches something deep in my soul. But your words indeed did just that. So sad it is that so very many over the course of two millennia have operated as though they hold the patent on god, Jesus, and divinity. Sad too is it that, in the process, so very many have lost sight of what I view as true spirituality. Seeing it as something outside of themselves, what becomes lost is an effort to look within; and within each of us is a potential for darkness or for light; and the more all of us reach for the light, the closer we are as a whole to realizing god. The historical Jesus seemed to have a grasp on this given his rather enlightened way of creating an inclusive, rather than exclusive, sense of spirituality and, subsequently, sense of oneness with all. Interesting that such a notion is apparently as radical an idea to the power and politics polluting today's organized religions as it was two millennia ago. Why, I wonder again and again and again, are the concepts of inclusiveness, oneness, and love perceived as such a threat to those who purport to be closer to god than 'the others?' When, I wonder again and again and again, will humanity as a whole recognize the interconnectedness of us all?