Religion: Jerry Falwell Spreads the Word

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No one gets close to Falwell except his family, Wife Macel, Sons Jerry Jr., 23, and Jonathan, 18, and Daughter Jeannie, 21. During periods of crisis in the church, associates have asked Falwell whether he wishes any particular prayers said for him, but he politely brushes them off. Instead, he urges, pray that the money keeps coming in. Though he takes a salary of only $49,500, the church provides him with a lovely 150-year-old home and use of the jet. Curiously, for all his pugnacity, Falwell has trouble confronting problems among his 2,200 employees. People who rile him are dropped into cold storage for months, not invited to meetings, or ignored when Falwell calls upon colleagues to offer prayers. He runs his church state like a monarch. Frequently at management meetings, when everyone is lined up to vote a certain way, and Falwell differs, the boss simply disregards them and goes his own way. Close supporters say Falwell badly needs some stronger people around to moderate his unchecked power.

In many ways, Ronald Reagan made Jerry Falwell possible. The preacher is routinely introduced to audiences as a friend of the President's. In 1980 Falwell lined up Moral Majority behind the candidate, and Reagan agreed with the Fundamentalist positions on such issues as school prayer and abortion. When Reagan visited Liberty University in October 1980, Falwell basked in the limelight. Last February, when the President turned down an invitation to address the National Religious Broadcasters in Washington, the organization turned to Falwell. After he called the White House, both Reagan and George Bush agreed to speak.

Falwell grew up in a family that had considerable land and money but little standing in the Lynchburg community. Longtime associates see this early rejection as a key to Falwell's energy and driving ambition. His father Carey, whom Falwell describes as an agnostic, had several servants, and the young Falwell did few chores. His father owned the local power company, ran a dance hall and trucked bootleg whisky during Prohibition. He was a heavy drinker and shot his own brother to death before Jerry was born. A judge ruled the act to be self-defense, since the brother was wielding a pistol. Jerry was a rowdy in his school years, drove cars at 100 m.p.h. and hung around outside a neighborhood cafe late at night with his buddies stopping traffic and taunting motorists. When he proposed marriage to Macel Pate, who played the piano at the Park Avenue Baptist Church, the girl's mother was crestfallen that she had taken up with a Falwell.