About the Program
Michael Sean Winters recounts the life of the Reverend Jerry Falwell (1933-2007). The child of agnostic parents, Jerry Falwell began his career as a Baptist pastor and later founded a mega-church and a Christian university, Liberty University. The author reports that Rev. Falwell was initially disinterested in politics, but eventually chose to participate after he declared the United States in moral decline. He founded the political lobbying group, The Moral Majority in 1979, which, according to the author, politically motivated fundamentalist Christians and redefined the social and political priorities of the Republican Party. Michael Sean Winters speaks with E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.