{"id":4936,"date":"2005-08-10T10:54:43","date_gmt":"2005-08-10T14:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=4936"},"modified":"2005-08-10T10:54:43","modified_gmt":"2005-08-10T14:54:43","slug":"for-jerry-falwell-it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-christian-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/for-jerry-falwell-it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-christian-is\/","title":{"rendered":"For Jerry Falwell, it depends on what the meaning of ‘Christian’ is"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can always count on TV preacher Jerry Falwell to know exactly how to bring people together.<\/p>\n

Falwell recently urged his followers to “vote Christian in 2008<\/a>,” and to help drive the point home, sent what’s left of his supporters an “I Vote Christian” bumpersticker.<\/p>\n

In a fundraising letter, Mr. Falwell wrote that he hoped “to utilize the momentum of the sweeping conservative mandate of the November 2, 2004, elections to maintain a faith and values revolution of voters who will continue to go to the polls to ‘vote Christian’ and call America back to God.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Anti-Defamation League isn’t happy<\/a> with what it sees as Falwell urging voters to disciminate based on religion.<\/p>\n

Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, said Falwell’s statements are “directly at odds with the American ideal and should be rejected.”<\/p>\n

“Understanding the danger of combining religion and politics, our founding fathers wisely created a political system based on individual merit and religious inclusiveness,” Foxman said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Falwell said he’s been misunderstood.<\/p>\n

Falwell told The News & Advance of Lynchburg Tuesday that his statement was misunderstood.<\/p>\n

“What I was saying was for conservative Christian voters to vote their values, which are pro-life and pro-family,” Falwell said. “I had no intention of being anti-Jewish at all.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, it apparently depends on what the meaning of “Christian” is.<\/p>\n

Still, if Falwell expects to get the benefit of the doubt, and he wants us to believe he doesn’t support discrimination, he’s going to have to hope we forget his record<\/a>.
\n
\n* In 1980, for example, Falwell told reporters, “I do not believe that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.”<\/p>\n

* In 1984, after losing a contractual lawsuit with a critic, Falwell’s lawyer appealled, arguing that the the Jewish judge in the case was prejudiced.<\/p>\n

* In 1994, Falwell’s newspaper ran an article calling TV preacher John Hagee a heretic for saying Jews can be saved without accepting Jesus.<\/p>\n

* In 1999, Falwell told a pastors’ conference that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and “of course he’ll be Jewish.”<\/p>\n

And now he’s arguing that his “vote Christian” message shouldn’t be seen as discriminatory. That Falwell, he’s so misunderstood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can always count on TV preacher Jerry Falwell to know exactly how to bring people together. Falwell recently urged his followers to “vote Christian in 2008,” and to help drive the point home, sent what’s left of his supporters an “I Vote Christian” bumpersticker. In a fundraising letter, Mr. Falwell wrote that he hoped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}