Religion: Jerry Falwell Spreads the Word

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With some foreboding, he said the money just had to keep coming in. He told of an insurance policy on his life worth $35 million. It would be worth $105 million if he died accidentally, enough to keep his ministry and school going for a year. Falwell has constructed a somewhat grandiose plan for his succession. Locked in a vault at Thomas Road is a 45-minute tape recording that reveals his secret choices for church leadership. Falwell has updated the tape annually and no one, he says a bit pretentiously, will hear it until after he dies.

But Falwell had a more pressing worry about the future. He is troubled about what will happen to Fundamentalist renewal after Ronald Reagan departs. The conservative tide, he fears, might run out altogether. "If the Democrats win," Falwell said, "I don't know what will happen to us." The highflying preacher, the entrepreneurial wizard who built his holy empire on boldness and Scripture, suddenly sounded oddly vulnerable. In spite of all his optimism, it was as if, for a moment, he sensed something darker: that before the coming of the period of great tribulation he constantly warns about, Falwell may face his own.