WHY LEADERSHIP MATTERS -- REV. JERRY FALWELL'S LEGACY!

WHY THE REVEREND JERRY FALWELL'S LEADERSHIP LEGACY IS IMPORTANT

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© May 2006

"Early on, a leader learns that he is in essence the complete follower. He comes to understand that no leader can lead anyone where they haven't already decided to go; that leadership is not all about the leader, but all about the led."

James R. Fisher, Jr., A LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD (2007)

AN UNSTUCK MAN IN A PERIOD OF STUCKNESS: 1956 - 2006

We live in an era without leaders or demonstrable leadership, stumbling along in the palaver of rhetoric against the constant torment of violence. This is driving us deeper and deeper into an irrevocable abyss.

This pathology has become so ingrained that it is not recognized. It has come to be considered normalcy, contaminating not only American institutions but also that of our entire Western society. Everyone and everything appears to be accelerating while nothing is moving at all. We are stuck with our toys and tools but without the motivation to move forward.

We have lost our moral compass and thus our way, that is, with the possible exception of one man, whom some saw as a buffoon and others as a joke while he was on his way to creating a leadership legacy that cannot be denied, and which we would be well to study.

The critics and supporters of the late Reverend Jerry Falwell are lining up now to sing his fulsome praises or vent their passionate anger.

The critics suggest he was homophobic, xenophobic, and an intolerant religious extremist if not also a racist -- he claimed sympathy for South Africa's apartheid policy. They see him as having formed an unholy alliance with Reagan and then the Bush father and son presidencies, placing him at the door of this triumvirate responsible for most of our current problems. No question he has made it easy for his enemies to justify their enmity.

Supporters are of another mind. They don't dodge his damning evidence, as he often confused and confounded them, yet they have never wavered in their belief that we as a people are most like him, as he is most like us. In a word, he made connection.

Obviously, there is merit to both these views as he was not an icon but a man who understood what leadership was and wasn't and for that it would be well to pay attention to his leadership legacy.

Recently, on the PBS "News Hour with Jim Lehrer," there was a discussion of the reverend's legacy with a graduate of his university and an evangelical Christian critic. The latter agreed with much of Falwell's theology but not his politics, while the former student claimed Falwell had changed his life.

The most interesting comment made during this exchange, however, was that by his critic. "Falwell's success," he suggested, "could be attributed to the fact that many, who would not openly want to admit it, shared his sentiments on same sex marriages, miscegenation, abortion, gay rights, homosexuality and lesbianism and other moral concerns." This connection with the silent majority commenced fifty years ago.

A MODEST BEGINNING

In 1956, the Reverend Jerry Falwell opened the Thomas Road Baptist Church with only thirty-five members. He quickly saw the advantage of spreading The Word via radio and then moving into television with the "Old Time Gospel Hour." Ironically, he was preaching to white middle and lower class Americans a message that had already been created and resonated with African Americans, which he borrowed from observing their ministries.

Unlike many leaders in the exploding evangelical movement, he never suffered from the belief that "it was all about him." To the very end, friend and foe alike, found him a gentleman, courteous and humorous, never taking himself too seriously, or his leadership role for granted, or as a right unto himself.

He let nothing diminish from his focus or his mission. It remained crystal clear to him to the end as he combined vision with service.

In 1971, he didn't build a religious village as Jim Bakker did, but Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Today, the university serves a community of twenty-thousand students. Currently, a member of the US Congress is a graduate of this university.

In 1979, he founded the lobbyist group the "Moral Majority" with the goal of "exerting significant influence on the spiritual and moral direction of our nation."In 1983, US News & World Report, a newspaper not known to take shortcuts to the story, deemed him one of the 25 most influential Americans.

When Jim Bakker's PTL Ministry collapsed in 1986 consumed in scandal and debt, he didn't turn away from the problem but guided it through bankruptcy. He was much more charitable than was I:

"Only in America," I wrote, "could two otherwise ordinary people rise and fall so quickly as did Jim and Tammy Bakker. Their 'Praise the Lord' (PTL) television club was a resounding success, largely due to their commonplace familiarity. They were like the couple next door. But somewhere between their house and the homes of million of Americans, Tammy's mascara and war paint and Jim's cherubic grin became diabolical. Essentially nice people, they got caught in the war of ratings and the insatiable appetite of television for dollars. Long before Jim's sex scandal surfaced, the PTL Club had become 'show biz,' departing from its religious and spiritual intent. It became entertainment with a capital 'E.' When that happened; the Bakker's commenced to behave like superstars with other people's money. The mansions, the Mercedes, Tammy's shopping sprees -- all became part of the scam that led to Jim dalliance with Jessica Hahn. When that happened, they became a born again disaster."

(Work Without Managers: A View from the Trenches, 1990, p. 121)

The fall from grace of the Bakker's has happened again and again, not only to the religious, but also to virtually every other institution in these United States without exception. Scandal has become commonplace especially to those in leadership roles.

VARIATIONS OF FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES

People in leadership roles have repeatedly misread their role demands being often flummoxed by their self-demands. The desire is not so much for knowledge, as it was with Goethe's Faust, but for power. It would appear they have come to see leadership as all about affluence, influence and celebrity, or all about them when leadership is always all about the led.

Such leaders would lead on the sense of how people should be not as they are, and as an instrument to the leader's will and not necessarily that of the people's. This is a universal problem impossible to place in a locale or time, as it exists today as it has always existed with self-indulgent leadership.

The Reverend Jerry Falwell has seldom fallen into this trap.

He lost his appeal to the US Supreme Court in 1988 when he challenged the 1983 parody of him in the adult magazine, Hustler. This came at a time when his broad base "Moral Majority" had already been galvanized into a political movement. So successful was this movement that it was given credit for the rebirth of the Republican Party, and conservatism, as well as the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency for two terms.

Smarting from this Supreme Court defeat, what does he do in 1989, or ten years after the Moral Majority was founded, and now a force to be reckoned with? He dissolves it, saying, "Our mission is accomplished." He never confused role demands with self-demands. His personal angst was not allowed to contaminate his leadership mandate.

No doubt Falwell appreciated the wisdom in Lord Acton's remark, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." He would have no part of such corruption.

ALL TOO HUMAN

That said it seems equally apparent that his life was consistent with Nietzsche's suggestion that we are "all too human." This was displayed in his inability to save himself from being used, or, indeed, to save himself from himself.

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas says it is not inconceivable to imagine Christian fundamentalists, evangelical Christians and conservative Roman Catholics ever mobilizing into a voting block without his leadership; nor can Thomas see Reagan being elected twice, father Bush once, and son Bush twice without his "Moral Majority."

But what so often happens to good intentions is that the means become the ends, in this case, as the focus was shifted from theology to politics, from moral renewal to getting Republicans elected to congressional office. The good reverend allowed himself unfortunately to be used.

On the other hand, he correctly identified the rage of the rank and file middle Americans in the 1980s with the liberal intrusion on their sacred traditions. Americans had had enough of the Hippies, Yuppies, X and Y generations and the "me" self-indulgence that accompanied narcissistic consumerism. In the midst of this mania, he, alone, cut black from white and attacked the gray, as America was stuck in crass materialism and Teflon spiritualism.

FALWELL'S FAUX PAS

Where he overstepped the mark was when he got obsessed with the Tinky Winky. This character of the Teletubbies on children's television, according to him, displayed a veiled homosexuality. Then he made matters worse with his outrageous statement that pagans, homosexuals, abortionists, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and other groups were partly responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001. He later would apologize but the damage was already done.

His failure on a personal basis was not recognizing when his views were laced with nonsense; his failure on a corporate basis was not recognizing when his movement and the church were being perceived and used as an appendage to the Republican Party. Thus, unwittingly, his influence was interpreted as yet another instrument to pamper and forgive a special group for its excesses. He proved in the process that leadership is human and not always heroic, that a leader's fragility is forgivable if not his dalliance with the truth.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM FALWELL LEGACY

Leading is a lonely profession, and the temptation to exceed the role and responsibility is always with the leader. Remember how the devil attempted Jesus on the mount. No leader is ever immune to possible corruption.

The second thing is that a leader can never get heady with his power, influence, impact or success. He is an instrument of the will of the people and never rises above that ground level.

The third thing is that the goodness that resonates with the people must make connection with the goodness in the leader's own heart. If goodness has been cauterized from his soul in his rise to leadership, once he gets there, he is doomed. There is no help for him for there is nothing left in him. He cannot see the motivation and requirements of the led because he is walking in a desert in which his own heat is already destroying him, and will in turn destroy the people.

The fourth thing is to recognize people think in terms of their own satisfaction, which is often at the expense of that of others. The leader must recognize and weigh through this to discover the crystal of commonality because he cannot be swayed by special interests.

The reason is clear; the majority is often wrong. It is wrong because it does not think but often acts like a mob. The mob never considers or thinks about the minority, except in terms of bias and stereotypes. The leader can ill afford for the majority to get too locked into self-interests. Human combustion is a function of this locked in-ness, fueled by a leader's weakness of will and vacillation in crisis.

A leader can be guided by, but not become summarily trusting of polls, pundits, personal advisers, or loved ones because they have a vested interest and limited vision of the now. The leader must consider his decisions in the more encompassing framework of the not yet now.

The fifth element of leadership is courage. Courage is not the absence of fear but the embrace of it in body of instinct. A legion of a hundred thousand voices of the past will visit the leader, not in his ear, but through his bones because he is an evolutionary phenomenon. Leaders have struggled before him with the same riddles and questions.

Every leader who is in touch with himself knows of what I am speaking.

These voices of the past are schooled in experience, culture, history, success, failure, salvation and damnation, death and resurrection, defeat and renewal.

Courage is the recognition when to advance, when to fall back, and when to do nothing. Courage is the quality of embracing apprehension when fear is the leader's only companion.

Courage is the recognition that no situation is ever impossible or as improbable as it may seem; nor is any situation exactly like any other before it, and therefore must be judged with naked eyes and an open mind.

The sixth thing is that the leader walks with destiny. In his every action, he is writing his and his people's history, and therefore can never have the luxury of worrying about what people think, say, or write about him in the immediate, or even threaten to do to him.

A leader is as likely to generate as many enemies as friends, as many who hate him as love him, as many who see him as their destroyer as their champion, making all such preoccupations meaningless and counterproductive.

And finally, the leader who leads establishes and leaves a legacy, something upon which to build into the future.

LEADERSHIP REDUX

The most fatal flaw in current leadership is that it is all about the leader, all about the charismatic pretense of his character. The leader has become a media performer.

Unfortunately, leadership is not a beauty contest, not about a glib or anecdotal mind with sound byte fluidity; nor is it necessarily in our prevailing image and likeness.

A leader has the presence, knowledge, will, courage, and decisiveness to make the strategic moves with the most telling long-term consequences that the well-defined problem demands. This is not likely to happen when role and self demands are confused, or when history is misread, misused, or ignored.

We are moving out of a half century of stuckness caused by this lack of leadership and we have called it everything but leaderless leadership.

Reverend Jerry Falwell, flawed as he was as a human being, never became confused about leadership, and his legacy of Liberty University is proof of that fact. He never forgot leadership is all about the led. His goodness drove him and it made connection with the common good.
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