FOULWELL AND OTHER SCUMBAGS

With a little luck, maybe the remaining theo-freaks will be dead well before the 2008 elections.

Christian Right Looking Beyond Falwell

By RACHEL ZOLL
AP Religion Writer
Published May 16, 2007, 2:11 AM CDT

Many conservative Christians active in politics today believe that the way Falwell confronted political foes made evangelicals seem hateful. The younger leaders also have been pressing for a broader policy agenda beyond abortion and traditional marriage by trying to include AIDS care, environmental protection and education.


Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and 24 other Christian leaders this year tried to pressure the National Association of Evangelicals to silence its Washington director, the Rev. Rich Cizik, because Cizik is trying to convince evangelicals that global warming is real.

In a February sermon, Falwell warned worshippers at his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., that environmental activism by evangelicals "is Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus" away from spreading the Gospel.

A 2004 poll for PBS's "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" found that U.S. evangelicals had a lower regard for Falwell than for Pope John Paul II.

Falwell leaves behind allies including Dobson, 71; Robertson, 77, founder of the Christian Coalition and the influential American Center for Law & Justice; and the Rev. D. James Kennedy, 76, a founding board member of the Moral Majority and founder of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, who has been sidelined by the effects of a heart problem.