I sometimes wonder if we will ever be able to transcend our history and become the thing our flawed yet visionary founders imagined. The legacy that slavery has left on our society has been much talked about of late, but there is another legacy that is deep as well. It is that peculiar form of religious and social fundamentalism we called Puritanism at the time. On one level the Puritans are heroes of the colonial age, the bold settlers of New England who forged a new world where they could practice their deeply pietistic faith apart from the political intrigues of European religions. On another level, they are the witch trial people. As a student of Christian history I know that Puritans are actually rather more complex than either of the stereotypes we apply to them. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his fictional post mortem, The Scarlet Letter, on Puritan culture in 1850, about events that would be 200 years in the past at the time.
Cliff Notes version: Hester Prynne is an unwed mother and her baby is the child of the local minister Arthur Dimmesdale. The townsfolk judge Prynne guilty, beyond a doubt, of adultery and impose a sentence of cultural isolation and the wearing of a large red A on her chest. Prynne does not name the father, even though doing so would marginally improve her situation. Dimmesdale falls ill due to his unadmitted guilt. Anyone who read this classic work of literature in seventh grade has the sense that the real sinners in the story are not in fact Prynne and Dimmesdale, but the townsfolk who are so severe and hypocritical. I daresay Hawthorne, along with the actual event of the Salem Witch Trials, are the primary reasons why if you call someone a Puritan or describe something as Puritanical, you are not being complimentary.
But the Puritan instinct runs deep within our DNA. Anyone who has ever dabbled around in foreign cinema, or even watched TV commercials in Europe, knows that Americans have some more prudish attitudes about certain things than much of the developed world. Beyond our inordinate tendency to be offended by naked human bodies, the puritan legacy has manifested itself in modern American Evangelicalism. The high white collars and severe black clothing have been replaced by polo shirts and khakis, but the judgmental attitudes remain strong. It is with this in mind that I almost feel bad for Jerry Falwell Jr. with emphasis on the almost. I stop short of full sympathy for his plight because he is not a powerless victim of misguided justice like Hester Prynne. He is a man who has used the language and the loyalty of Christianity to great and cynical advantage over the course of his life.
Background: Jerry Falwell senior was one of the primary architects of the "religious right" that profoundly aided the rise and rule of both Ronald Reagan and the Bush clan. He was the pastor of a large and wealthy church and parlayed that along with his political influence into an empire of sorts. To Jerry Jr. he left the reins of Liberty University, an explicitly evangelical Christian university. We Presbyterians have been founding schools for centuries so why not? To his other son he left the pastorate of the large congregation. Even though the younger son is quite successful as a pastor, you probably don't know who he is (his name is Jonathan). But you know Jerry Jr. don't you? Why? Do you know any other President of a midsized university by name? It's because Jerry Jr. has taken up his father's penchant for media whoredom. He has become especially visible as an early and vocal supporter of one Caesar J Trump. Despite not being a theologian, or a pastor, or a spiritual leader of any sort, Falwell has become one of the faces of American Evangelicalism.
Recently, Falwell posted and then promptly deleted a picture of himself with a young woman (not his wife) on a yacht, holding drinks, with their pants unbuttoned and their bellies exposed. Far from being scandalous in the age of celebrity sex tapes, it seemed pretty mild to the casual observer and probably meant as a joke. Assuming the audience had a sense of humor. Assuming the audience has a sense of humor would be a mistake in the case of dealing with the likes of people who gave Hester Prynne the Scarlet Letter A. The board of directors has asked Falwell, who for all his faults has made Liberty solvent and successful over his tenure, to step down temporarily, but one gets the sense that the temporary nature of it is only a formality.
I find this curious (and a little amusing in a schadenfreude sort of way). First, this is the straw that broke the camel's back? Really? Not the pompous preening for the political crowd? Not the obsequious behavior towards an immoral and illiberal leader? Not the endorsement of anti-Christ behavior bent on violence and power (like brandishing a gun at a student assembly and daring any "muslims" to come get some). Not the endorsement of policies that oppress the poor and the immigrant while rolling in mountains of personal cash and inherited wealth and status? A picture that shows his tummy? That's the thing huh?
An article in the Atlantic explains the dynamic at work pretty well and in some detail, but the long and short of is that the powers that be were tired of his nonsense and used this as an excuse to get rid of a burr under the saddle. As someone who cares very little about what happens at Liberty University, I am much more interested in what this says about the state of American Christianity. As one who appreciates Jonathan Edwards as a preacher and a theologian, I know what can be gained from the Puritans at their best. But I also know what has become of them at their worst, and I know they did not vanish from our society, they just changed their clothes.
They have always had a tendency to go hard at Hester Prynne, and let Dimmesdale languish and fester unannounced. Falwell has been a Dimmesdale sort for years, playing the part of a righteous Pharisee and champion of well, Liberty. He has expressed outrage of all sorts at those who would degrade our noble Christendom-like America. All the while you sort of expect that a man who was handed so much by his father might make a mess of things. All the while you might have expected the same sort of ribald vulgarity that engulfed Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart to lurk in the Falwell closet, or on a yacht. Don't get me wrong, I'll take his word that it's just a joke, I'm not accusing him of adultery or even being lewd, just not funny. So whatever sympathy I might have had is replaced by a sense that justice can be served even by imperfect mechanisms. If it can cause the modern day puritans to stop handing our scarlet letters to every Hester Prynne that comes along, maybe it's for the good.
Unfortunately, Jerry Jr. is probably just another scapegoat for the disease that our puritanical roots have grown. Interesting that "cancel culture" seems to operate just fine at places other than liberal bastions like Berkeley huh?
Post Script: 14 days later a story broke about a love triangle between the Jerry and Becki Falwell and a 20 year old pool boy, that's going to be harder to play off as a harmless prank. I'm not Hindu, but the whole Karma thing really does seem to be a real force of nature. Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone," that was to protect the stone throwers as much as the target I think.
