The Falwell Inferno
Some vintage journalism from Martin Amis’s The Moronic Inferno, offered without further comment:
Above: Cup your ear to the ethereal disco’s door
and, tonight, hear the new sizzling beats in 4/4
— Burn, baby, burn!
The Rev. Jerry Falwell is the most powerful, most convincing, most committed — and the least vulgar — of all the electronic Evangelicals. He is without the messianic tendency of James Robison (with his talk of ‘prophets’ and ‘new Jeremiahs’), and without the frank hucksterism of Pat Robertson. Falwell will last when the others are too bored, frightened or mad to continue usefully on the political wing. And if you ask him about his colonial mansion in Lynchburg, Virginia, his private airplane and airport, his tax-avoiding loans within his corporation, his bodyguards and gofers, he will tell you that material wealth is ‘God’s way of blessing people who put Him first.’
‘I known Jerry Falwell since he was knee-high to a duck,’ said the old Lynchburger in the bar (which took some finding). ‘Knew his daddy too, biggest bootlegger ever hit this state. I seen Jerry Falwell so drunk he couldn’t stand up — thirty years back, must be. But don’t you trash Jerry now, you hear? Bet he earns more money than you ever will.’
[…]
Lynchburg is Jerryburg now, more or less. Falwell runs his Old-Time Gospel Hour from here, and his fund-raising computers glisten in the redbrick buildings behind the strapping new church. He also runs a children’s academy, a Bible institute, a correspondence school, a seminary, and Liberty Baptist College itself, where ‘leaders are trained for the generation to come, learning good character traits and how to become good moms and pops’.
[…]
Liberty Baptist College is a Southern-fried crag lined with bungalow-style lecture halls, the students’ living-quarters situated further up the hill. No smoking, no drinking, no swearing. The fresh-faced pupils stroll peacefully from class to class, or sit reading their Bibles, or chat by the Coke machines. Not all the courses are theological — though I assumed that a lecture on, say, sociology would consist of an hour-long denunciation of the subject. Perry [Amis’s guide and member of Falwell’s PR department] herself had majored here in psychology. ‘How do they teach Freud?’ I asked. ‘Well, you take Freud, and see where he disagreed with the Bible,’ said Perry. ‘I mean, sometimes they agree. But we all know the Bible got there first.’
[…]
Falwell is innocuous in his home pulpit, smiling, sensible, protective […] But my first reaction when I met and talked to him, back in Dallas, was a momentary squeeze of fear. With his people milling about him in the futuristic foyer of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, he reminded me of the standard villain of recent American fiction and film: the corporation man.
Jerry Falwell (born in 1933; born again in 1956) is six foot and then some, with the squashy-nosed face of the friendly policeman. He wore a suit of some incredibly plush and heavy material (taffeta? theatre curtains? old surplices?), adorned with a small gold brooch in the characters of Jesus Christ, the terminal t stretched into a cross […] A huge aid brought us coffee. We began.
Doggedly I began to rehearse the obvious liberal objections to his platform, mentioning that he had called the Equal Rights Amendment ‘a vicious attack on the monogamous Christian home.’ ‘That’s right,’ he said blandly. ‘I don’t believe in equal rights for women. I believe in superior rights for women.’ (This is consistent enough: Falwell has always wanted to kick women upstairs.) ‘You know, the Women’s Lib movement? Many of them are lesbians, you know. They’re failures — probably married a man who didn’t treat them like a human being,’ he added, completing the machocentric circle.
‘If you were President,’ I said, eliciting a brief smirk, ‘how would you stop people being homosexual?’
‘Oh, they’ve got to live, have jobs, same as anybody else. We don’t want any Khomeini thing here. It’s the sin not the sinner we revile. It’s anti-family. When God created the first family in that garden, he created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
‘Besides, I want influence, not power. But I want global influence. We can’t buy more airtime in America, no way. But we’ll start buying it worldwide. South America, Europe, Asia…’
His aides signalled. I asked my final question.
‘Yes, sir, every word, quite literally, from Genesis to Revelations, which says there will soon be nuclear holy war over Jerusalem, after which Russia will be a fourth-rate power and Israel will astonish the world. Nice talking to you[…]’
[Above first published in the Observer in 1980.]
[….]
Poor Jerry [Falwell]. Everyone seems to be getting at him recently, even on his home turf. Eighteen months ago, when I saw Falwell in Dallas, the video pastor had give off a steady glow of beatific anticipation. His awakening of the born-again community, through TV and computer mailing, would surely swing the election for Reagan’s ‘dream platform’. The silent majority had solidified into the Moral Majority: ‘family issues’ would soon be catapulted into the forefront of political life.
It came to pass. But then what happened? Within weeks of his victory, Reagan stopped returning Jerry’s calls. The President, it seemed, had gone cool on the treasured issues of abortion, homosexuality, welfare cutbacks and the teachings of Genesis. Recently Jerry was obliged to join in the orchestrated howls of betrayal and neglect at a New Right rally in Washington. Reagan, said the Conservative bigwigs (Howard Phillips, Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie), had ‘the right gut-instincts, the right rhetoric’, but had sold out to pragmatism by opting for ‘experience’ in his advisors (instead of the inexperience of Falwell, Weyrich et al.). Some people, you may think, are never satisfied. The New Right had hoped to celebrate Roosevelt’s centenary with the dismantling of the New Deal. Such a position, as Reagan knew, has no support whatever among the American people[…]
[Above first published in the Observer in 1982.]
‘Yes, sir, every word, quite literally, from Genesis to Revelations, which says there will soon be nuclear holy war over Jerusalem, after which Russia will be a fourth-rate power and Israel will astonish the world. Nice talking to you[…]’
Nice talking to you, too. Russia’s already a fourth-rate power, even without nuclear ‘holy war’. So Jerry must have gone to his grave with a smile on his face.
What a surprise it must have been to him to discover that the end is just that–the extinction of being. He never even lasted long enough, after that final breath, to realize there’s no afterlife.
This is really decent.
If any face ever called for the Ralph Steadman treatment, it was Falwell’s.
I think Robertson has him beat in the making a face like you’re constipated while praying department.
The fact is, your outpouring of hatred toward Christian Patriot of Wealth and Influence is now recorded for all to read. You will never capture the reasonable middle of the heartland with your screeching rage toward a great man who is now in heaven.
Many folks on the leftward side of politics only heard Brother Falwell when he was leading the charge against them. It’s understandable.
Dr Falwell didn’t shy away from making big statements to make his point.
But that often left observers with a two-dimensional image of the Moral Majority founder: the televised image. And one key to his success in politics, religion, and education was something you had to see in three-dimensional real life: Brother Falwell’s energy, charm, and humor. For all of his ability to infuriate some folks via the airwaves, he had an amazing capacity to easily engage friend and foe in person.
I only met him a couple of times. But one moment I’ll never forget. I talk to Jesus all the time. I was once ask if He answered….all I could say then and will say now; If I truly have faith and truly listen.
In the MC in ’98, I think it was ’98 during verterans day, I went down with a number of friends of mine / most of my platoon and most of my company, to counteract the opinions of the “anti-war” retards, who opposed a recent bombing, I don’t remember which one.
Ironicly? true story, the vast majority of those who wanted us to back down, by yelling behind police lines were mexican’s who couldn’t speak english.
Later that night, a lot of Marines were assaulted by, apparently, a highly educated pidgeon english speaking mexican group who REALLY cared about America’s involvement in the balkans.
I don’t know of a single “mexican American” who got their asses kicked, but I knew a fair few Marines who were basicaly banned from re-inlisting. One of the reason’s those guys got “cashiered” is cuz they stole wallets. Apparently stealing the only source of identity is equal to Gang Banging Ambushing the representatives of American freedom. (thats no shit)
The fact is, Ahm pinching a loaf for Jeebus. And goddamn it hurts.
I think Robertson has him beat in the making a face like you’re constipated while praying department.
There’s an etching by Bellmer (one of his À Sade series) that’s a perfect match — the expression is the same orifickle play of features — buggered if I can find a decent image of it on the WWW, however.
HTML:
This is really decent.
I read the page you linked to. Indeed, well written. One question. Am I the only one who finds the belief in ‘Karma’ that so many Leftists (& rightists) seem to profess now, to be a strange development?
When I look at the world, at history, I don’t see a slow, unstoppable force dispensing perfect justice through the generations. I see a bunch of animals on a planet, fighting over resources and also just for the hell of it.
Atheist, I’m with you. I don’t see any gods or any cosmic balance, just humans refusing to admit they’re basically just animals and refusing to use the logical reasoning that sets them apart.
Oh, aside from using their awesome powers to completely shit on the entire world and each other. Real survival strategy, guys. If you don’t change your ways, your entire species will be a candidate for the Darwin awards.
I went down with a number of friends of mine / most of my platoon and most of my company, to counteract the opinions of the “anti-war� retards, who opposed a recent bombing, I don’t remember which one.
I need add nothing to this: it’s perfect all by itself.
Exactly Qetesh. It’s funny to me that some people who claim not to believe in God, do believe in Karma. Which is, when you think about it, just another God.
Did any of you catch the “plaigarist commentator”s comment a couple of threads back where, in response to Mikey, the “plaigarist” basically stated outright that he does not mean what he writes, and only does it to get a rise?
No, I missed that. I’ll bear it in mind, although henceforward the only response that the new troll will get from me will be a-playing of the catty cello (and many thanks for Candy for that glorious euphemism).
Rasp, rasp, slurp, rasp…
My wife attended Liberty U. for two years.
Now she smokes, drinks, has tattoos, and pierced her belly button. And she married a liberal atheist. And she’s hot. But she’s still a Republican and hates Democrats for no definable reason.
Plagarist commentor’s story sounds like an acid trip. He’ll “never forget” Falwell, and the memory he treasures most is….one that has nothing to do with Falwell.
I love the New Rational at is most irony-free – defending pickpocketing wallets as a new heroic tactic to deprive illegal aliens of their false ID’s Let’s give a big shout-out for Moral Relativism!!
You’re most welcome, Qetesh!
What a surprise it must have been to him to discover that the end is just that–the extinction of being. He never even lasted long enough, after that final breath, to realize there’s no afterlife.
Actually, the one thing that might attract me to a belief in the traditional Christian doctrine of a heavenly reward for saints and vice versa for sinners is the thought of Rev. Falwell coming to the realization that it seems a tad warm where he is.
Do you happen to speak güachi-güachi, guachi?
Forgive me if this has already been addressed and the answer established, but is Plagarist Commentor a serious poster or one of those wacky parody posters? Seriously, I can’t tell.
So, Jerry Falwell dies and, ironically, ends up in hell.
The devil escorts him to a nondescript room, kind of like your typical corporate conference room, where there are a bunch of people standing around in shit up to their waists, drinking coffee and eating donuts.
“Well, this isn’t too bad,” Falwell says as the devil hands him a cup of coffee and a sugar glazed donut. He begins to munch contentendly.
A few minutes later another devil walks back in and announces, “OK, guys, break’s over. Back on your heads.”
Jerry Falwell walks into a bar. Barkeeper sez “How about a zombie?”
I’m screen archiving all of this …
Word has it from “down under” that Falwell’s new “job” is to be the bottom of a spittoon in a leper colony.
Heh.
(Easily Offended–great name)
Re karma:
As a mystical force dispensing justice, no. But as cause-and-effect over time? Well, yeah.
Jerry Falwell won’t go to hell. But if his public embodiment of a bigoted, ignorant, smug moralizing hypocrite won him power, it also helped make me (and many here) aware of the existence of bigoted, ignorant, etc., resulting in conscious opposition to them.
Isn’t that karma? With a small k? The results of your actions over time?
The saddest part about Falwell’s death is how long he lived. All those years, all that evil and savage greed festeing and oozing behind a pretense of Faith and a self-proclaimed designation as Man of God….
If it existed, Karma would have taken him sooner.
That’s it. If that doofus plagarist is going to hang around, he’s gonna have to learn to really, really like pie…
mikey
I suspect our “plagarist” has in fact cribbed his entire comment from someone else, somewhere else.
I’m thinking it might be time for some plagiarist pie.
Jerry Falwell, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a bar. Actually Jerry didn’t walk, the other two guys were dragging him.
It’s unfair that Easily Offended got here first.
A guy walks into a bar with Jerry Fallwell.
Bartender says “Hey buddy, no corpses in the bar!”
The man goes “But you see Mister, he’s a talking corpse.”
So the bartender goes “Yeah? Prove it.”
The man says “Okay Jerry, what’s in that empty glass?”
Jerry says nothing.
Then the man asks “What’s in my bank account?”
Jerry says nothing.
Then the man says “Okay Jerry, how much action is the bartender getting off his lady friend?”
Jerry says nothing.
The bartender is furious and picks the man and corpse up and throws them out in the alley.
So the man had to rape Jerry’s corpse without getting drunk first.
I say we give Falwell’s corpse to gay necrophiliacs with a thing for fatties.
SAMMICH
mikey said,
May 16, 2007 at 18:34
That’s it. If that doofus plagarist is going to hang around, he’s gonna have to learn to really, really like pie…
mikey
heh.
So the man had to rape Jerry’s corpse without getting drunk first.
Brother Fallwell’s raped corpse walks into a bar and says, “Yo bartender, grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them!”
Billy Graham’s moldering corpse sucked Dick Nixon’s dessicated penis.
“karma” is a particularly pernicious and stupid idea. it necessarily postulates that everyone to whom something bad happens “had it coming.”
do i even need to invoke godwin’s law here? fine, i’ll let pass the idea that 6 million jews were asking for it on some level–just think of some poor kid in the congo who will die of dysentary. today. he’s 2. did he do something bad in a past life that made him deserve that?
no, is the answer. karma is truly repugnant and evil. jerry falwell was a terrible human being, one of the all-time worst, but now that’s he dead, nothing special happens to him. he’s just worm food. we are left to try to fix what he broke here on earth.
atheist said,
May 16, 2007 at 15:17
Did any of you catch the “plaigarist commentator�s comment a couple of threads back where, in response to Mikey, the “plaigarist� basically stated outright that he does not mean what he writes, and only does it to get a rise?
Thank you, I’ll be here all week, don’t forget to tip your waitresses,
the jar is over there->
And don’t miss when i take the show on the road to the other side with cool moonbat quotes like, ” 9/11 was an inside job, of that I am certain. It is not possible that the USAF did not send fighter planes up until nearly 2 hours after the first plane hit without a “stand-down” order. NORAD was aware that planes were being hijacked. It just wouldn’t happen.” and “more innocent people will die during the inevitable BushCo knee-jerk-reaction invasion of Venezuela” and “One of my professors thought she lost her almost completed PhD thesis when she got hit with a virus. Geeky Squad people told her the computer was toast and she needed to buy another. She spent $700 for a new system. When I found out, I told her to give me her old system. Ran some antivirus and antimalware programs and recovered her thesis. She was not pleased with the GS people at all. Oh yeah, got an A for that class.” and “Fisk!”
Poor plag’s also miffed about sumo.
Isn’t that karma? With a small k? The results of your actions over time?
I see what you mean. It just seems like many people who use the word ‘karma’ don’t realize the connotations it has. Mr. Green, thanks for describing them better than I did.
I know a lot of people will be like, so what? I guess I notice this kind of thing more than many.
atheist — I don’t believe in karma, but I employ its rhetoric because it nicely dovetails with having a sense of justice.
I don’t think Falwell’s in hell because I don’t believe in Hell. But since Falwell’s vocation was theology, I used its trappings — as I’m sure many others have — in conveying what I think his just deserts would be within his own preferred context.
atheists are boring and supercilious …
“But she’s still a Republican and hates Democrats for no definable reason.”
Oh, there’s a reason. It starts with t and ends with m and has ribalis in between.
i think it’s possible that people have the God they imagine. so old j-fal is now having to contend with the eternally judgemental, smite-happy, genuinely terrifying angry old man (who mirrors his genuinely terrifying father? thanks brad de long).
it makes me extra glad to be a progressive presbyterianish.
believers are gullible and none too smart…
atheists are boring and supercilious …
Not so! I am an atheist, and while I AM boring, I’m not supercilious. I’m pretty cilious, but not excessively so…
mikey
I’m MEGA cilious.
Now I’m just being sillious.
I saw a bumper sticker last weekend – this has been my week for bumper stickers! – that pretty much summed up my position:
Militant Agnostic: I Don’t Know, and You Don’t Either.
Gotta do something constructive.
Wow, Jerry’s father was a certifiable psychopath. Animal cruelty seems to figure in the lives of several prominent repuglicans, George Bush included.
I just giggle at the thought of Kurt Vonnegut welcoming Jerry to heaven with a big hug.
and speaking of righteous religious nutcakes, you just gotta go read the latest Doug Giles at Townhall. There is just something so —peculiar— about a guy who can write:
Jesus put it forcefully up fallen humanity’s tailpipe when He exposed why men reject the knowledge of God when He said, “Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. For everyone who does evils hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed� (Jn. 3.19-20).
I just giggle at the thought of Kurt Vonnegut welcoming Jerry to heaven with a big hug.
Don’t you think instead he’d be directing Jer to his room…..take the elevator down?
And don’t miss when i take the show on the road to the other side with cool moonbat quotes
Yawn…..yeah, sounds fascinating. You’re a real entertainer.
I’d like to announce that I have no cilia whatsoever. I am, however, pretty damn boring.
Mikey, how’s your Testimates? Still chugging along? I’ve heard that it can be dangerous if you get the sparging arm going too fast because it tangles the foresail around the flange.
It’s funny to me that some people who claim not to believe in God, do believe in Karma
Me, I like to interpret this Karma concept as a poetic way of getting across the idea that life is connected. Inflicting pain on another sentient creature should have the same weight in your moral calculus as inflicting pain on yourself, because you are hurting yourself — not as a future reprisal, or in another reincarnation, but now. Thou art that, etc.
I realise that this is a complete perversion of the classical Hindu concept of Karma (which was all about maintaining the status quo and defusing social unrest), but Buddha was a bastard like that.
OK, I’m going to drop another tab now and go out to hug trees.
Me, I like to interpret this Karma concept as a poetic way of getting across the idea that life is connected.
Yes, there’s that too.
OK, I’m going to drop another tab now and go out to hug trees.
Yes, I guess I’ll go worship at my unholy unaltar of nihilism, aborted fetii, and Karl Marx. See ya!
Jerry Falwell gets to hell and the devil takes him to his room. Inside is Bill Clinton, naked on a bed, getting a blowjob.
“Well, this doesn’t look so bad at all,” says Jerry.
And then the devil says, “Okay, Monica, you’re relief is here, you can go.”
I say we give him to Siegfried & Roy, and they can let the white tigers play with the dear reverend. Then, later, they can bury the tiger shit in Falwell’s grave.