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By Lloyd Mackey
IN MARCH 2004, I wrote a piece about a visit to Toronto by Jerry Falwell, who died last week at the age of 73. I updated the piece, eliminating some of the material that would be confusing or extraneous, and putting some of the things Falwell told me into the current context.
So here goes.
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In past columns, I have characterized the recently deceased Jerry Falwell as speaking into the most socially conservative segment of American evangelical Christianity.
Periodically, Falwell teamed up with the Canada Family Action Coalition to publicize various life and family issues, particularly if he thought that what is happening in Canada will influence American social policy. And the CFAC is currently headed by Charles McVety, president of Toronto's Canada Christian College.
In early 2004, I received an e-mail invitation to attend an event at the college, featuring, you guessed it, Jerry Falwell.
He flew through a snowstorm from Lynchburg, Virginia, in his private jet to spend the day in Toronto.
Well, if Falwell could make such a sacrifice to speak for his friend, McVety, the least I could do was hop in a Rent-a-Wreck and make the four hour drive from Ottawa to hear -- and interview -- him.
The day, I must say, was professionally managed and, as with anything McVety does, drew together an eclectic coalition of about 500 people. And the message they heard was the need to defeat the principalities and powers he believes are in firm control in Ottawa.
McVety told me a few years ago that he sees his role, as being apart from the "old guard" of the Toronto evangelical scene -- institutions such as the Evangelical Fellowship, The Peoples Church and Tyndale University College. He would hope that the people he brings together, from various parts of the fundamentalist and charismatic segments of evangelicalism, would be able to be both bold and combative about the issues dear to them. And he is an astute practitioner of the use of sophisticated communication and media strategies to get his message out -- whether that message be support of traditional marriage or the state of Israel -- or opposition to earth worship.
And it was that last theme, earth worship, which set the pace for what would happen at CCC on what I have affectionately dubbed "McVety-Falwell Day."
McVety started by asking, rhetorically, why Canada is: - Redefining marriage.
- Criminalizing free speech against immoral sexual behavior.
- Criminalizing spanking.
- Legalizing stem cell research
- Decriminalizing marijuana.
His answer: Canadian "elitists" have committed this nation to the new spiritual vision of the "earth charter", a new "global ethic" and the "new ten commandments" that expects to transcend all religions and countries.
And, who is he talking about?
Why Paul Martin, of course.
Our then prime minister was fully committed to the implementation of the precepts of the Earth Charter, McVety suggested, maintaining that "this spiritual vision was drafted by Mr. Martin's now senior advisor and long term mentor, Maurice Strong."
And McVety's take on Strong is that he is "deeply committed to earth worship. At his Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio, he stated that 'we must therefore transform our attitudes and values, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature.' Later he guided the Kyoto Accord to implement these 'superior laws'."
McVety names several institutions that he says Strong uses to advance his ideas -- among them the University of Peace in Costa Rica and Baca Rand, his 100,000 acre "spiritual centre" in Colorado.
And he also pointed out that Strong was the United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan's special advisor and thus able to influence international law and ethics.
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Strong, as it happened, had secured a residence in Ottawa at that time, co-incidental with the ascendancy of Martin to the prime ministership.
McVety told the crowd that Bible believers are on the earth worshippers' hit lists and suggested that Christians who will not join in the battle "are complicit in the destruction of morality in Canada."
The enemy thus defined, McVety brought on the big gun, who, as it happened, was as laid back as a jolly teddy bear. At 70, Falwell suggested, he only hoped and prayed that he would live long enough to see his 11,000 student Liberty University become to evangelicalism what Brigham Young was to the Mormons and Notre Dame, to Catholics. (Falwell needed to get in line on that wish. I have heard the same comparison applied, by other Christian leaders, to Baylor University, of Texas Baptist fame.)
Falwell told of his conversion to Christ, in 1952, through listening to Charles E. Fuller, a radio evangelist of the '30s and '40s. He started Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg four years later. Today, it has 24,000 worshippers, including as it happens, a leading evangelical gay activist, Mel White.
In my five minutes one-on-one with Falwell, I asked him about the studied rapprochement developed in 1999, between White and himself.
White had been, for years, a ghostwriter-author for such evangelical leaders as Falwell, Billy Graham and Pat Robertson. About a decade ago he declared himself a practicing gay man and was ordained a dean in the pro-gay Metropolitan Community Churches of America.
Falwell was most open-faced and undefensive about the rapport. He says it occurred after the anti-gay motivated murder of Matthew Shepard, which received international publicity.
White approached him about having a meeting to talk about reducing the anti-gay and anti-Christian rhetoric, Falwell recalled. The result was a "summit" held in Thomas Road Church, attended by 200 people from each side of the fence. After the summit, the talks continued regularly, as often as necessary. Further, White was, for some years, in church at Thomas Road almost every Sunday. He and his partner lived across the street from the church.
Was it a conundrum for Falwell? Yes and no, he suggested. "Loving the sinner and hating the sin" is a cliche, he recognized, but it nevertheless described the position he tried to maintain. White knew he could not join Thomas Road Church, let alone teach Sunday School or sing in the choir. And Falwell knew that White would call him on it if he unfairly bashed gays in his defence of the gospel or traditional morality.
Falwell, at 70, seemed comfortable that he was seen as alternatively combative and mellow. While he continued to appear on four or five talk shows each week, he knew there were many younger leaders to carry on whatever battles emerged in the future.
And for his part, Charles McVety hoped that he could live out, in Canada, the kind of impetus that has driven his American mentor for half a century.
| Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and the author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com. |  |
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Falwell's Faith-based Fraud
The discovery of the carcass of Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labelled "credulous idiot." The first such category consists of those who expected Falwell (and themselves) to be bodily raptured out of the biosphere and assumed into the heavens, leaving pilotless planes and driverless trucks and taxis to crash with their innocent victims as collateral damage. This group is so stupid and uncultured that it may perhaps be forgiven. It is so far "left behind" that almost its only pleasure is to gloat at the idea of others being abandoned in the same condition.
Christopher Hitchens, National Post, May 17
May 24/2007
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