Jerry Falwell And The Jews: How To Understand the Evangelicals

Jerry Falwell And The Jews: How To Understand the Evangelicals
May 18, 2007
Rabbi Gary S Creditor

In March, 1985 I was surprised by a package that came to my synagogue addressed to me with the addressee – Reverend Jerry Falwell. We were not quite on a first name basis! Inside were a book and a letter. I have never seen the book elsewhere. It is entitled: "Jerry Falwell and the Jews" published by the Jewish publishing house, Jonathan David, with a forward by the esteemed Orthodox Rabbi Emanuel Rackman. He vouches for the author, Merrill Simon, otherwise unknown, and the validity and worthwhileness of this book. It arrived amidst the tumult caused by the Reverend Falwell proclaiming that "America was a Christian nation." His death this week provoked me to locate this book and the aging newspaper pages from that time that I had inserted into it. You really had to be there to feel the tension and the threat. He had created the Moral Majority as a political force and energized a large and ever growing segment of the Christian religious spectrum. While not the first time, it seemed like the strongest push to breach the wall that had protected us, the Jewish community, by people who both loved us and were even stauncher than us in support of the State of Israel. We were perplexed, confused and threatened. It was in the days following the events at Sabra and Shatilla, the Palestinian camps in Beirut, which ultimately led to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and world condemnation. Theses were the days of the intifada. As the Torah verse in Deuteronomy said that we would live alone, this was not the kind of loneliness we wanted. We here in America felt under the gun. Perhaps a different gun that under which Israel sat, but we felt theirs from a distance and ours from close up. You had to live it to feel it. I remember pleading with my congregation not to trust the media for the truth of what happened in Beirut and not to turn its back on Israel. The irony of that time, the bitter irony, was that no one had to ask that of Jerry Falwell. He never did.

The Jewish communal leadership responded vigorously and tactfully. And at the convention of the of the rabbis of our movement, the Rabbinical Assembly, held in Miami that spring of 1985, he apologized for calling for the "Christianization of America." I am not sure whether or not he apologized for his remarks in 1999 about the teletubbies, accusing the Tinky Winky TV character of being secretly gay and morally dangerous. I think that he apologized in 2001, after he blamed "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America" for the attacks of September 11th . But for us, this was the first time that we engaged with the Evangelical Movement in this country, and with one of its most renowned leaders.

This past quarter of a century has not changed our perplexity nor diminished our engagement. The Evangelical community numbers approximately 52 million Americans. The issues then, articulated by a strong and dynamic Jerry Falwell, are our issues now. We can't use the accustomed phraseology "Was Jerry Falwell good for bad for the Jews?" That is the most bewildering question. It is the horns of a dilemma upon which we still sit. The dynamics which he initiated have grown ever stronger. It reverberates in the statements of the ten Republican candidates running to be their candidate in the 2008 Presidential election. And it echoes even stronger in the debates in Congress for the appropriations for Israel in our multi-trillion national budget. It is a player behind the scenes in President Bush's middle eastern policies, interlocked with Iraq, and the frequent flier miles wracked up Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In an act of prescience, the current issue of Sh'ma magazine is dedicated to the subject: Jews and Evangelicals.

You can read all about Reverend Falwell on the web. The questions for us are:

What did Jerry Falwell preach?

What was the essence of his religious stance?

As my grandmother was say: What does/did he want from us?

Why did he support Israel to the nth degree?

He read our Bible and his literally. It is all the word of God, unchangeable, unalterable and irrevocable. He said: "The basis for true and traditional Christianity is an inspired and inerrant Bible. Thus, what mortal has the right to change or modify the Word of God?" This certainly sounds strange to your ears. He reads God's promise to Abraham in Genesis, giving to Abraham and his descendants the land of Israel as a core piece of the covenant, as unbreakable. He sees the State of Israel has proof of God and proof that God does not break or take back His word. That is why when Ruby and I were in Israel during Sukkot 2004, there was an immense parade of Christians for Israel that filled the parks behind the Knesset and then marched throughout Jerusalem. For Falwell and Evangelicalism, Israel is proof that reading the Bible fundamentally and literally is true. In his terms, though our language, it is a "Christian Mitzvah" to do what is humanly possible to support and defend the State of Israel. They are fulfilling God's word! That Israel must survive, that Israel must be strong, and that Israel must keep all the land gained in the Six Day War is Biblically commanded!

If that is so, as they read our Bible which is part of theirs, then so, too, are the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the more esoteric parts of Daniel. They read them in fundamentalistic and literal terms as the foundation for the coming of Jesus as the Messiah. We don't read the same texts in the same way. Quoting Rabbi Yehiel Poupko in the feature article in Sh'ma: "The other (Evangelical Christianity) held that humanity is characterized by depravity and original sin and that without a radical personal conversionary experience, one could not be saved." Again, Falwell read his Bible literally and fundamentalistically. Melding his thought and our language, it is a "Christian mitzvah" – translating that as commandment not subject to revision, alteration or termination – to save us, or at least to believe, that ultimately, Judaism should fold into Christianity. Even if we can live together now, ultimately, that is what will happen. It energizes and invigorates the Evangelical movement. They have a concrete faith upon which to stand and upon which to act. We are not alone on their radar screen. Every one is.

Falwell preached that you can't be a Christian behind your private door and a secularist in the public domain. Which explains why they are engaged in the issues of abortion and right to life, to overturn Roe v.Wade, gender issues, the definition of marriage and similar issues that are part of the American fabric. Their fundamental and literal Christianity sees no separation of spheres that we call "Church and State." He has led them to have a strong and consistent voice. It will not go away.

We the Jewish community are perplexed because the lines of relationship are so skewered. On one hand we read Biblical text  like liberal Protestantism, the stream that was our founding fathers of this country. We take Biblical language in a more metaphoric style. It is thus less demanding, open to interpretation, changeable. Sin is less real. Salvation is less necessary. And we can all stand for a moment of silence and not be bothered.

On the other hand, it is the liberal Protestant Church that has vigorously criticized the State of Israel, questioned its funding in Congress, led the fight for unions and others to divest their holdings in Israel or in companies that sell to Israel, and for the foreign policy of the United States to be "more even handed." Everyone here knows those code words.

And on the other hand, we, the larger part of the American Jewish community, have common ground in public policy with the liberal Protestant Church on issues of gender, marriage, abortion and right to life. The non-literal reading of Biblical texts gives religious flexibility in dealing with issues in the 21st century that the ancient text did not anticipate. If there is human participation in the creation of the Biblical text, then, the theory goes, there can be human hands in altering its impact in the post modern era. As I have indicated, exactly on that point, we part company with our strong partners and allies for Israel.

If I could make a formula it would go like this:

The ones who love Israel would love to convert us and radically change our stance matters of public policy, because they read the Bible literally, every word.

The ones ready to criticize and even undermine Israel, respect us enough to leave us alone, and with whom we have alliances exactly on public policy, while directly not on Israel, and do so because they read the Bible more like us.

If this is too complicated at this hour of night, it was no less simple figuring out how to write this this morning. On Monday this sermon will be released on the listserv and stored in the archive on our website so that you can reread it slowly. "It is a mouthful!" but necessary.

We must be able to place the life and career of the Reverend Jerry Falwell in context.
We have a vested interest in Evangelical Christianity for us and for Israel.
Their numbers swamp us. Their influence in America is enormous. Ours is waning.
His death gives us pause to reflect upon our reality and what we need to do to insure our continuity and vitality, and the existence of Medinat Yisrael.

Do we have a strong Jewish faith?

Are we activist or tepid in practicing our faith?

Do we read the books of our faith?

Are we activist, tepid or indifferent to Israel?

Do we go there?

Do we lobby for Israel?

Do we give to Israel?

Reverend Jerry Falwell's death and all that you have been reading about him and will do so through his funeral next weekforces us to look at him and to look at ourselves.

While I know what Jerry Falwell believed would happen to him after he died,
I know what I believe really happened to him when he died.

In good Jewish fashion I close with the words: "May he rest in peace."

Shabbat Shalom.