About Liberty

Executive Biographies
 

Dr. Jerry Falwell

Founder of Liberty University

At the age of 22, having just graduated from college in June of 1956, Jerry Falwell returned to his hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia and started Thomas Road Baptist Church with 35 members. The offering that first Sunday totaled $135. Falwell often said about the first collection, “we thought we had conquered the world”. Today Thomas Road Church has 24,000 members and the total annual revenues of all the Jerry Falwell ministries total over $200 million.

Within weeks of founding his new church in 1956, Falwell began the Old-Time Gospel Hour, a daily local radio ministry and a weekly local television ministry. Nearly five decades later, this Old-Time Gospel Hour is now seen and heard in every American home and on every continent except Antarctica. Through the years, over three million persons have communicated to the Falwell ministries that they received Christ as Lord and Savior as a result of this radio and television ministry.

In 1967, Falwell implemented his vision to build a Christian educational system for evangelical youth. He began with the creation of Lynchburg Christian Academy, a Christ-centered, academically excellent, fully accredited Christian day school providing kindergarten, elementary and high school. In 1971, Liberty University was founded. Today, over 27,000 students from 50 states and 80 nations attend this accredited, liberal arts Christian university. Falwell’s dream has become a reality. A pre-school child can now enter the school system at age 3, and 20 or more years later, leave the same campus with a Ph.D., without ever sitting in a classroom where the teacher was not a committed follower of Jesus Christ.

Falwell was also publisher of the National Liberty Journal, a monthly newspaper which is read by over 200,000 pastors and Christian workers, and the Falwell Confidential, a weekly e-mail newsletter to over 500,000 pastors and Christian activists.

In June 1979, Falwell organized the Moral Majority, a conservative political lobbying movement which the press soon dubbed the "Religious Right." During the first two years of its existence, the Moral Majority attracted over 100,000 pastors, priests, and rabbis and nearly seven million religious conservatives who mobilized as a pro-life, pro-family, pro-Israel, and pro-strong national defense lobbying organization. The Moral Majority chose California Governor Ronald Reagan as "their candidate" for President in 1980, registered millions of new voters, and set about to inform and activate a sleeping giant - 80 million Americans committed to faith, family, and Judeo-Christian values.

With the impetus of the newly organized Moral Majority, millions of people of faith voted for the first time in 1980 and helped elect Ronald Reagan and many conservative congressmen and senators. Since 1979, about 30% of the American electorate has been identified by media polls as the "Religious Right". Most recent major media surveys have acknowledged that these "faith and values" voters re-elected George W. Bush in November 2004.

Though perhaps better known outside Lynchburg for political activism, Jerry Falwell's personal schedule confirmed his passion for being a pastor and a Christian educator. He often stated that his heartbeat was for training young people for every walk of life.

Falwell was married to Macel for 49 years and they have three grown children and eight grandchildren.

Falwell passed away on the morning of May 15, 2007. He was 73.

HONORARY DEGREES

Tennessee Temple Theological Seminary, Doctor of Divinity
California Graduate School of Theology, Doctor of Letters
Central University, Seoul, Korea, Doctor of Laws

VOCATIONS AND POSTS

Thomas Road Baptist Church: Founder and Senior Pastor from 1956
Old Time Gospel Hour, Inc.: President from 1956
Elim Home for Alcoholics: from 1959
Lynchburg Christian Academy, K-12: from 1967
Liberty University: Chancellor from 1971
Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary: Chancellor from 1973
Liberty Bible Institute: Chancellor from 1972
Moral Majority, Inc.: 1979-1989
Liberty Godparent Home for Unwed Mothers: from 1982
Liberty Broadcasting Network: President from 1985
Clergyman of the Year in America, Religious Heritage of America, 1979
Jabotinsky Centennial Medal, for friendship to Israel; presented by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, 1980
Christian Humanitarian of the Year, Food for the Hungry International, 1981
Most Admired Man Not in Congress, Conservative Digest, 1983
Voted several times among the 10 Most Admired Men in America, Good Housekeeping Poll
Named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, U.S. News & World Report, 1983
Debated New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, defending the "Western Nuclear Alliance," at Oxford Debating Society, 1985
Named the Most Influential Central Virginian of the 20th Century in a survey conducted by the News and Advance in Lynchburg, Virginia, Dec. 1999
Named Virginia 's most influential clergyman of the 20th Century by the Virginia Historical Society
Featured on the covers of Newsweek and Time, and on countless print and broadcast outlets
Speaker at dozens of colleges and universities including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, UCLA, and Notre Dame
Met privately numerous times with Presidents George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon. Met with world leaders such as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, South African President F.W. DeKlerk, Jordan's King Hussein, and Israeli Prime Ministers Begin, Shamir, Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Sharon.
Led missionary and humanitarian efforts in nations around the world, including the former Soviet Union

BOOKS

Church Aflame - Impact, 1971
Capturing a Town for Christ - Revell, 1973
Listen, America! - Doubleday, 1980
The Fundamentalist Phenomenon - Doubleday, 1981
Finding Inner Peace and Strength - Doubleday, 1982
When it Hurts Too Much to Cry - Tyndale, 1984
Wisdom for Living - Victor Books, 1984
Stepping Out on Faith - Tyndale, 1984
Champions for God - Victor Books, 1985
If I Should Die Before I Wake - Thomas Nelson,
Strength for the Journey - Simon & Schuster, 1987
The New American Family - Word, 1992
Falwell: An Autobiography - Liberty House, 1997
Fasting Can Change Your Life - Regal, 1998
Building Dynamic Faith – Thomas Nelson, 2005

FAMILY

Wife, Macel Pate Falwell, married 4/12/58
Son, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Attorney and Chancellor of Liberty University, Lynchburg, Va
Son, Jonathan Falwell, Senior Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Va
Daughter, Jeannie Falwell Savas, Surgeon, Richmond, Va