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Falwell brings to his crusade plenty of preacherly skills, the energy of two or three men and a gift for administration commonly associated with hierarchical churches but rare among anarchical Baptists. At Brookville High School in Lynchburg (pop. 85,000), he earned straight A's and starred in basketball and baseball. But he was also famous as Lynchburg's champion prankster. Fusty authorities denied him the valedictorian's podium, when he graduated in 1950, for such capers as locking up a teacher in a supply closet. Today there is no one to punish him when he sets off a stink bomb in his singers' airplane before running for his own Commander jet.
Until age 18 Falwell was only a nominal churchgoer. As a sophomore at Lynchburg College he became "born again," and promptly transferred to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo. In 1956, armed with very little more than a brand-new degree in Bible studies, he founded the Thomas Road Baptist Church, and started a radio program. A local television show followed six months later. The broadcasts helped attract members to Thomas Road and within a few years the church was flourishing and spawning good works: a treatment center for alcoholics, a summer camp for children, missionary work overseas, an academy that now runs from nursery school through twelfth grade, eventually the college and a graduate-level seminary. Thomas Road, with 17,000 baptized members, is selfsupporting. Everything else relies heavily on contributions from viewers of the Old-Time Gospel Hour.
Always struggling to keep pace with his expanding endeavors, Falwell constantly asks for money. He urges his congregants to give at least one-tenth of their incomes; about half pay the tithe. Every TV broadcast carries an appeal for cash.
Names of more than 2 million families who have contributed are kept in a computer bank. At least one of his recent mailings—Falwell disclaims knowledge of it —implies monetary reward for religious commitment. The passage printed over his name says: "Maybe your financial situation seems impossible. Put Jesus first in your stewardship and allow Him to bless you financially."
Falwell was reared to believe that segregation was the natural order of things, but he changed his view as a young pastor and began baptizing blacks in the early '60s. Still, the faculty of his Lynchburg Christian Academy is all white, and among 1,147 pupils enrolled this semester, only five are black. Where his schools are concerned, he admits: "I don't think we've gone after blacks aggressively."
The political crusade of the Moral Majority, Falwell says, must transcend racial and religious lines. He wants to rally "Jews, Catholics, Protestants and nothings" who share his social views. He has always been an ardent Zionist, and preaches that one reason God favors America is that America "has blessed the Jew—his chosen people." But when he got to that subject at the Richmond rally, he admitted that some in his audience might still be antiSemitic. "And I know why you don't like the Jew," he went on. "He can make more money accidentally than you can make on purpose."