Religion: Jerry Falwell's Crusade

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From tiny rural chapels where true believers seated on rickety folding chairs profess "born-again" faith, to handsome, stately churches like Falwell's with memberships the size of small towns, Protestant Fundamentalism has become a powerful, confident and important force. Popularly associated with stern opposition to such personal "sins" as drinking, smoking and gambling, Fundamentalism draws upon the entire heritage of American revivalism, with its code of personal piety and insistence upon conscious commitment to Jesus Christ as one's "personal Savior."

But many Americans share that style of religion without really being Fundamentalists. At its heart, the movement is cemented by two things: an unbudgeable belief in the word-for-word accuracy of the entire Bible and a spirit of militant resistance to anything in church or society that is thought to conflict with scriptural commands. The Bible is considered "inerrant" as it was originally written. That means the Good Book is free of error not only in spiritual and moral teaching but in all historical details. According to this view, miracles, whether the Virgin Birth of Jesus or the parting of the Red Sea, occurred precisely as they are described, and Adam and Eve were real people, not symbols. ,

Preachers of this conservative message have long sought to disseminate it to millions by means of radio and television. About 1,000 of the 9,642 U.S. radio stations have a religious format, and the vast majority of their programming is Evangelical or Fundamentalist in tone. The same is true of television. A 1984 survey estimated that regular viewers of religious TV shows number more than 13 million. When politics comes up on these broadcasts, as it increasingly does, the message is resolutely "pro-family" and conservative. The TV empires greatly increase the public clout of conservative preachers, who have become celebrities, generating huge cash flows through on-the-air fund raising. Doctrinaire Protestantism is bursting beyond church walls into the wider society. Not since the 1920s have political Fundamentalists been as well financed, visible, organized and effective. Deeply committed believers, working long and zealously, get tavern hours trimmed in Anchorage; disrupt school-board meetings in Hillsboro, Mo., as they demand to control curriculum; force doctors to stop performing abortions in Virginia Beach, Va.; march in San Antonio streets to protest sex channels on cable TV. The shelves of religious bookstores are filled with their social protests, in which the buzz words "secular humanism" are used to cover anything and everything the authors disapprove of. The Fundamentalists "have moved into the center of America's cultural stage," says Baptist Pastor William Hull of Shreveport, La., who is unsympathetic to them.

Their reach extends to the highest office in the land: Fundamentalists contributed to both of Ronald Reagan's victories. Reagan, in the estimation of Ed McAteer of the Roundtable, a religious right lobby, "is the real champion of those values and rights that Christian Fundamentalists believe in."