 | Why Jerry Fallwell Killed the Moral Majority |  |
Why Jerry Falwell Killed the Moral Majority
The emergence of the New Christian Right was one of the important stories of the 1980 presidential campaign, and for most of this decade, one man (Jerry Falwell) and his organization (the Moral Majority) monopolized media coverage of the growing political consciousness among conservative Christians.
After an initial period of awe over his apparent power, the mass media challenged his credibility and forecast his early demise from the national political scene. Despite repeated pronouncements of his demise, Falwell has refused to fade like a morning glory in the noon-day sun. Wherever he has gone, whatever he has done, he has commanded media attention with perhaps as much skill as anyone in America with the exception of the incumbent of the White House.
In January of 1986, without any advance warnings, Falwell boldly announced the creation of a new political arm which would go by the name of Liberty Federation. This new organization would continue the activities and interests of the Moral Majority, while also pursuing a broader agenda. "We want to continue to be the standard bearer for traditional American values. But it's time to broaden our horizons as well" Falwell said in a press announcement.
This dramatic move to kill the Moral Majority bore some resemblance to killing the goose that laid the golden egg. For over six years the name Moral Majority, as much as the brilliantly combative persona of Jerry Falwell, had served as a cannon and a lightning rod -- both dishing it out and taking the heat. The name Moral Majority served also as a battle cry arousing conservative Christians and encouraging them to become involved in the political process. And it also sent tremors of fear and indignation into the hearts of millions of liberals.
How could Jerry Falwell decide to kill such an important symbol and communications instrument? From the beginning of high public visibility both Falwell and the Moral Majority have been controversial. Neither the man nor the organization has ever ranked very high in polls of public approval. In deciding to kill the name Moral Majority, Falwell apparently reasoned that he had reached a point where there was more to be gained by jettisoning the negative aspects of the name than in carrying the liabilities that had accrued to the name. That rationale seemed paramount in his press statement:
Hence, like a giant corporation deciding a new name would be good for business, Falwell said his political arm would henceforth be known as the Liberty Federation, not the Moral Majority.
Most commentators responded to Falwell's change of name with seeming indifference. Considering the tens of thousands of column inches of print on the Moral Majority over the previous six years, there was only brief notice and little analysis of the reasoning behind the change to Liberty Federation. "...[E]xtremism never does very well for very long in this country" wrote Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory. America had become fed-up with Falwell's "holier-than-thou" behavior. "[I]f Falwell wishes to realize his goal of making this a 'Christian nation,'" she stated with confidence, "it will not be enough to change the name of the Moral Majority to Liberty Federation. He must change his own."
Most of the media had long believed that Falwell and his band of "religious zealots" were neither moral nor a majority. So, without much pause for reflection or analysis, they seemed to accept the name change as an admission of failure and moved on to another story. Pat Robertson's interest in running for president quickly became the focal point of news about conservative religion and politics.
Before the Moral Majority is forgotten completely, or we witness its resurrection without remembering that it died, it is useful to examine more carefully Falwell's rationale for the name change.
The thesis we shall advance is that Falwell had very good reason to kill the Moral Majority, but that reason was not the one he advanced, i.e., unloading the negative baggage that had accrued as a result of so much tarring and feathering from the media. Contrary to the general media impression that the name chance represented admission of failure,
Our conclusions are reached through a circuitous route and are not without ambiguity and irony. The circuitous route takes us through the yellowing pages of back issues of the Moral Majority Report, the official news publication of the Moral Majority. They reveal secrets of suspected organizational impotence -- unobtrusive measures as real as the dental records of a deceased mortal.
The ambiguity of the story is that we will never be able to assess empirically the degree to which the Moral Majority was responsible for stimulating political action by conservative Christians in America. One of the oldest propositions in sociological lore is that when people believe something to be real, it becomes real in its consequences. Notwithstanding considerable evidence of a gigantic hoax, the media and people from every walk of political life from the far right to the far left believed the Moral Majority to be a well organized and significant social movement organization. As a result of this widely held belief, the Moral Majority was significant. But there was scarcely any social movement organization there at all.
The irony of the story, hence, is that Jerry Falwell's requiem for the giant he slew was probably not very far from an accurate assessment:
ASSESSING THE MORAL MAJORITY'S STRENGTH:
A LITERATURE REVIEW
Assessing the real organizational strength of the Moral Majority has been a matter of interest to virtually everyone involved in understanding the political process in America. Ronald Reagan concluded early that Jerry Falwell had a significant following and he has acted accordingly during his presidency. Now, George Bush's advisors, as well as Republican operatives across the country, are debating the assets and liabilities of Falwell's support. Liberal Democrats have a serious interest in assessing whether the Moral Majority is really a threat to their value preferences and political power or, as many of them believe, merely a "paper tiger." Students of social movements too are interested in forecasting the strength and the potential of the conservative movement in America, and where the Moral Majority fits into this broader movement.
Social movement organizations typically provide little organizational data. What they do offer is likely to be self-serving and, thus, must be treated with caution. It is virtually a truism that SMOs systematically
In the absence of reliable data, how can we assess the organizational strength of SMOs generally and the Moral Majority specifically? The answer is that we must rely on indirect measures. Two broad classes of data have been utilized to try to get a better picture of the size and strength of the Moral Majority.
The first class of data involves a variety of indirect measures of support for the Moral Majority. What do people think about the Moral Majority? Where is the general public viz. the value preferences of the Moral Majority?
Studies which attempt to measure support for Falwell and the Moral Majority are fairly consistent in recording low rates of approval. A 1981 Gallup Poll found that 40% of the respondents of a national sample had heard of the Moral Majority while only 8% approved of the organization (Gallup Report, 1981: 60). In 1982, Gallup found that recognition of the Moral Majority had increased to 55% and approval had grown to 12%, with 5% expressing an interest in joining (Gallup Report, 1982: 170). But Gallup polling in subsequent years failed to reveal any appreciable increase in Moral Majority popularity.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, which Shupe and Stacey call the heart of the Bible-Belt, they found that only 16% expressed favorable attitudes toward the Moral Majority while 31% expressed hostile feelings toward the organization (1983). In Indiana, Johnson and Tamney conducted two separate studies in "Middletown" and support for the Moral Majority declined from a slim 16% in 1981 to 14% in 1982 (1983: xx; 1984: 189).
In a national study, Buell and Sigelman found about 3% outright support for the Moral Majority and another 6% were classified as sympathetic with the Moral Majority. In sharp contrast, fully two-thirds (69%) were either hostile or critical of the organization and their beliefs (1985: 431).
On the other hand, studies which have attempted to estimate Moral Majority support by determining what proportion of the population support views consistent with the organization's position have produced much higher support. Analyzing New York Times/CBS News poll data, for example, Yankelovich (1981:5) concluded that 67 million Americans were potential Moral Majority supporters. And Simpson (1983: 188-190) analyzed NORC data and found 30% of the population were in agreement with the Moral Majority in disapproving homosexuality, the women's liberation movement, abortion, and federally mandated legislation restricting school prayer. On individual items, support for the Moral Majority position ran even higher.
This latter class of data supports Falwell's claim of having a significant proportion of the population with him on the issues but still unwilling to express sympathy for his organization. These data in conjunction with the low support obtained when the Moral Majority name is mentioned suggest Falwell may have acted with considerable wisdom in getting rid of the name--at least if his goal is to move toward "respectability" and broaden the base of organizational support.
A second broad class of data deal specifically with the actual organization of the Moral Majority. The number of studies in this second class is not large. Typically, they have utilized unobtrusive measures to glean insights about the size and character of the organization.
During the 1980 presidential campaign, Falwell claimed the Moral Majority had two to three million members. Hadden and Swann (1981: 137, 164-5) were able to pull together a number of organizational indicators from which they inferred that this size claim had to be significantly exaggerated. Among other things, they noted that the claimed circulation of the Moral Majority Report was only 482,000. Why don't all the members of the Moral Majority receive its official publication, they asked. They learned also from the Executive Director of the Washington state Moral Majority that his chapter had 12,000 members. The national office of Moral Majority confirmed that Washington state had the largest membership of any state. Simple arithmetic led to the conclusion that the total size of the national organization had to be much smaller than Falwell was boasting.
Probably the most perceptive glimpse into the organizational character of the Moral Majority was offered by Liebman (1983). From the onset, Falwell claimed that the Moral Majority represented a broad ecumenical base of Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Utilizing the directory of state chairman published in the Moral Majority Report, Liebman went to local telephone directories, and a variety of other resources, to
Liebman's data seriously challenged the claim of broad based ecumenicity. Furthermore, he uncovered an important clue as to how Falwell was able to put together a national organization so quickly. The Moral Majority merely, but ingeniously, linked an already existing national communications network of conservative ministers, spread its umbrella over them, and gave them a name. From its origin, the Moral Majority had a running start with an already existing nascent national federation along with an extensive array of mailing lists.
Utilizing existing networks and organizational structures has liabilities as well as assets. As Liebman notes:
One important liability for the Moral Majority was the necessity of structuring the organization so that state charters were quasi-autonomous. Falwell claimed that local autonomy was an asset, but the record suggests there were significant liabilities as well. There were several incidents where people far to the right of Falwell engaged in activities and made statements that were so outrageous that Falwell had to publicly repudiate or disassociate himself from them.
A more significant liability was the problem of motivating people, already highly successful in their own right, to organize their own time and projects in the name of the Moral Majority. From the beginning, the Board of Directors consisted of pastors of "super churches" and only one of these persons actively pursued projects in the name of the Moral Majority. The others basically "lent" their names and otherwise went about their own business.
Such liabilities do not necessarily preclude the development of a strong national organization, or coalition of loosely networked state organizations under a national umbrella. But this knowledge should serve as a warning that Falwell would likely encounter difficulties in building a solid grass-roots organization. In the absence of substantiated evidence, one should approach claims of organization success with some skepticism. Development is not likely to be easy, and it should not be
Just how successful Falwell may have been in building a strong grass roots SMO has been the subject of much speculation and debate, but there has generally been an absence of systematic efforts to find indicators of organizational strength. This paper is offered as a modest effort to fill that gap.
CONTENT ANALYSIS OF MORAL MAJORITY REPORT
Statement of Assumptions and Research Methods. As noted in our literature review above, the popularity of an SMO or its leader(s) is not a very useful indicator of organizational strength. We argue that a more useful technique for assessing organizational strength is to examine its activities. What are an organization's goals and projects? Is there evidence to indicate that the organization is engaged in activities aimed at achieving its stated goals?
The Moral Majority Report is a monthly newspaper offered "at no cost as an extension of the Moral Majority Foundation" (11/85 masthead, pg. 2). This is the only regularly scheduled publication of Moral Majority and, as such, offers the best possible public record of Moral Majority activities.
We do not assume that MMR reports all activities of the Moral Majority. Some activities, such as lobbying, may be more effective if they remain low-keyed or even private information. Similarly, active SMO leaders are often too busy engaging in movement activities to stop and provide a chronicle of what they do. Thus, we would expect some underreporting of organizational activity. But it is also reasonable to assume:
- (1) that the national organization has an interest in promoting itself to its "members" and other readers of MMR;
- (2) that significant activities, whether carried out by the national or state organizations, will not go unknown to the tabloid and, thus;
- (3) most significant activities will be reported in the pages of MMR.
A corollary assumption is that the absence of reports of organizational activity can be interpreted as an indicator of the lack of organizational activities.
In order to assess the nature and magnitude of Moral Majority activities, we conducted a content analysis of all issues of the MMR for the calendar years of 1984 and 1985. The Report appears in tabloid newspaper form, typically 24 pages in length.
A typical issue of MMR features some topic of interest to the New Christian Right, e.g., pornography, homosexuality, abortion, school prayer, etc. In addition to this feature section, MMR carries columns of several conservative writers, news stories of interest to conservative Christians, an insert about Liberty University and some commercial advertising.
Another regular feature of the newspaper during the time period of our examination was called "Moral Majority Reports." This section included reports from the "National Officers" as well as "State-By-State" reports. This section seemed ideally suited for our efforts to chronicle the activities of the Moral Majority.
Before deciding to focus on the "Moral Majority Reports" section of the newspaper, however, we conducted a global survey of the entire content of the newspaper. For the two year period under investigation, we concluded that the pages of MMR provide no evidence of sustained ongoing activities or projects that can be uniquely attributed to the Moral Majority. We expected that the Moral Majority would have programatic activities dealing with each of the topics featured in the newspaper, but we found little news about Moral Majority activities per se that would document specific organizational activities.
With this global evidence, we turned to a systematic analysis of the section of the news tabloid entitled "Moral Majority Reports." A cursory examination of the reports of the National Leaders revealed evidence that they, as individuals, were engaged in various activities, speaking, lobbying, etc. But again we found an absence of specificity regarding organizational activities.
Hence, we decided to concentrate our analysis on the "State-By-State" reports. The Moral Majority claims to be a grass-roots network of local and state organizations. If the organization is functioning well at this level, the state reports should provide good evidence of the nature and extent of grass roots activities.
The unit of analysis for this investigation, thus, is the State-By-State reports. Our strategy for analysis is to record all activities reported. An activity was very broadly defined as any event (general or specific) reported in the State-By-State sub-section of the Moral Majority Reports. Each activity was classified in terms of nature of the activity and the issue content of the activities. Nature refers to what was done, e.g. demonstrating, registering voters, monitoring legislators, lobbying, etc. Issue content refers to the substantive matter of the activity, e.g., pornography, abortion, homosexuality, etc. In addition we coded
RESULTS
Who Reported? The Moral Majority claims chapters in all fifty states. Ten states (20%) submitted no report at all during the two year time period of 1984-1985 which we studied. Eleven state chapters (22%) submitted one report, fourteen (28%) reported twice, and fifteen (30%) reported more than twice. Overall, there were a total of 104 reports published, including the District of Columbia. That amounts to an average of one report per year per state for the two year period examined.
Falwell has claimed strong support for the Moral Majority in all states and regions of the country, but the presence and absence of reports by state suggests a strong regional character. More than half (54%) of all the reports came from the South, states considered to constitute the Bible Belt. Of the ten states that failed to report, all were outside the Bible Belt region. The Northeast industrial complex (New England and Middle Atlantic) accounted for only 11% of all reports.
The distinctively regional character of Moral Majority activity is further evidenced by the proportion of states within each region that reported. All but one Southern state reported (94%) while approximately one third of the states in the East and West never reported. Furthermore, 81% of the Southern regional states reported more than once while only 44% and 39% respectively of the Eastern and Western region states did so.
We also observed that states were much more likely to report in 1984 (78%) than in 1985 (38%). The higher rate of activity in 1984 can partially be accounted for by the fact that it was an election year. This fact, however, cannot account for a dramatic drop in all kinds of activities between 1984 and 1985. (We'll return to interpreting this statistic in our conclusions. )
Activities Reported. The forty states plus the District of Columbia reported a total of 244 activities. Leading the list of activities is "lobbying," 17% of all activities. This is followed closely by "voter registration" which comprises 16% of all activities. "Monitoring" constituted 11% of all activities, but seldom did we find evidence indicating how a situation was being monitored. This led us to suspect that "monitoring" might constitute a certain "fudge factor," i.e., something to report when nothing was otherwise happening. "Meetings" comprised 9% of all activities, "demonstrations" 8% and "rallies" made up 4%. We identified a total.
Who are the actors? Thirty-eight percent of all activities reported are claimed solely as Moral Majority activities. Forty-two percent of the time, the writer explicitly indicates that the activity is being carried out by Moral Majority in cooperation with some other group. Rather frequently, 12% of the time, the person writing the report uses the first person singular to describe the activity, e.g., "I spoke," "I appeared on a TV program," etc. Eight percent of the time the actors are another group, or actors who are unspecified.
We think it significant that more than half of all activities reported are things that would usually be done by a single individual. In this context, we also find the large proportion of joint activities (42%) suggestive of a broad class of MM activities. If Jerry Falwell appears as a speaker at a rally or meeting, we suspect that activity would likely be considered a joint Moral Majority activity even though the MM may not have been involved in organization and management of the meeting.
Time frame for activity. The time frame for which activities were reported also proved to be quite revealing. Of the 244 activities recorded, 105, or 43%, were identified in the future tense. That is to say, nearly half of the time the authors of the state reports are writing about things they plan to do, rather than things they have done or are doing. For the future tense activities reported in 1984, we attempted to follow up and see if the author later reported that the activity had happened. This involved a total of 76 projected activities. Of this group, we could not positively confirm that any of these projected activities actually happened.
Activity Content. What were the substantive issues which the Moral Majority activities addressed? In our coding we had some difficulty differentiating between type of activity and activity content. This was particularly apparent with two general categories of activities -- election related tasks and "organizational maintenance." And these two issues topped our list of recorded activity content. More than a quarter of all activities (28%) dealt with election related matters. Matters pertaining to the organization of Moral Majority were the second most frequently recorded activity content, accounting for 14% of all activities. Together, they account for 42% of all activity content.
Part of our difficulty results from certain conceptual ambiguities that arise in differentiating between "type" and "content" of activity. But it is also evident that many of the reports simply do not report a substantive content. We clearly had a coding bias that was evident only after we completed the task. In the absence of content, we were prone to record type of activity as a substitute for content.
If we eliminate the election and organizational maintenance activities from consideration, we have a total of 147 coded substantive issues. Topping the list of concerns are issues relating to education with a total of 26% of all the contents recorded. The substance of the education mentions breaks down almost equally between matters relating to private and public schools. This is followed by abortion which constitutes 22% of all mentions and pornography with 18% of the mentions. Other issues include homosexuality (9%), drinking (5%), and church and state issues (5%). Other issues receiving less than 5% mention included patriotism, defense, ERA and family.
ASSESSING THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE DATA
One of the rationales Jerry Falwell offered for creating the Liberty Federation was that he wanted to broaden the base of issues which he addressed. Those who have listened to Falwell over the past half-dozen years probably feel that he has never seemed constrained when it comes to speaking out on matters pertaining to national defense and foreign policy.
But the data here show that to the extent that the Moral Majority has been addressing issues, they have focused extensively on matters of personal morality to the exclusion of social-structural issues. Developing concern for this broader range of issues among his followers would seem to require new organizational and educational initiatives. In this context, Falwell's bold initiative in giving the Moral Majority the axe takes on new meaning.
The creation of a new organization with a new image and a broader mission can be seen both as an initiative to rid himself of the negative sentiments that have accrued to the name Moral Majority as well as an effort to form a new conservative Christian alliance that he could move beyond the issues of personal morality.
Contrary to the old adage that data speak for themselves, the data we have extracted from the Moral Majority Report don't make much sense at all except as they are interpreted. First and foremost, we think the data here amassed point to the absence of a flourishing grass-roots organizational structure.
If there were a significant grass-roots organizational structure out across America, there would be abundant evidence of this in the form of reports of projects and activities. What we find, rather, is something more nearly approaching a facade. The state activity reports represent a form of impression management. The Editor of MMR found it increasingly difficult to maintain the facade because State Chairmen,
The Moral Majority really was a goose with a golden egg. Falwell chose to use the glitter of the egg to attract the attention of the media and thereby promote his cause in the press rather than investing the egg in building grass-roots organization clout. Perhaps, from the beginning, Falwell was content to sound the trumpet calling evangelical Christians to action. It may never have been his goal to build a grassroots structure. Or, perhaps he didn't understand that grass-roots organizations don't just happen -- they must be staffed and built with the same discipline that goes into building any other effective organization.
Whatever may have been Falwell's intentions, he has served well the conservative Christian movement in America by raising consciousness and giving millions hope that their vision of America might be restored. He has masterfully created awareness of issues and ignited fires of hope.
Falwell has cries-crossed the country delivering hundreds of speeches and sermons which have aroused fundamentalists Christians. He has also quite self-consciously done combat with the press and with a select groups of liberals in America -- e.g., Norman Lear, Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Phil Donahue, etc. By arousing their wrath, he has brought attention to the conservative Christian movement. The hostility exhibited by liberals has served to move conservative Christians closer toward mobilization even though they may not particularly like Falwell.
If Falwell has made one strategic error, it is his incessant bragging about his millions of followers and Herculean accomplishments. For the most part, the press has been amazingly uncritical of him, seldom submitting his made-up statistics to careful scrutiny. Herein, we find the horns of the dilemma which led him to slay the golden goose.
The Moral Majority was primarily an organization for grabbing media attention, built and supported by direct-mail technology. As such, it was Increasingly In the precarious position of having the press scrutinize Falwell's boastful claims. Like the final revealing of the Wizard of Oz, Falwell has been ever vulnerable to the likelihood that Dorothy and her trio of companions on the Yellow Brick Road would one day step around behind the curtain to discover that the Great Oz's powers were largely a facade -- more amplified voice and lightening machine than substance. That is always the risk when a social movement is predicated too closely on media imagery.
During the summer of 1985 Falwell lost his two vice presidents who had been the backbone of the Moral Majority since its founding. Cal Thomas, the quick-witted, sharp-tongued VP for Communications, decided to stride out on his own as a syndicated columnist and freelance journalist, and Ron Godwin, MM's Executive VP, was seduced by big bucks to become a VP with the Washington Times. These near simultaneous developments provided Falwell with an opportunity to slip out from under the weight of his shaky Moral Majority edifice.
Charles Judd, a former national GOP fund-raiser who was hired by Falwell in April 1984 was promoted to head the organization. Judd's goal, with Falwell's blessing, was to engage in building the grass-roots organization that had not previously been accomplished. In November Judd claimed that the Moral Majority was now "a lot more substance than hype." In contrast to the Falwell model, Judd claimed "...our purpose is not to be a lightning rod. Our purpose is to mobilize the conservative. We don't need to be that visible to be effective."
These events, thus, set the stage for Falwell to climb out from under the Moral Majority. It had served its purpose, and the purpose of the New Christian Right, well. But it had run its course. Falwell himself had established sufficient national and international visibility and didn't need the organization to promote himself. In fact, as the data we have here reviewed suggests, Falwell's own image, over the long haul, might well be improved by killing the Moral Majority.
Thus in January 1986 did Jerry Falwell announce the passing of the Moral Majority and the birth of Liberty Federation.
There are lots of possible explanations for these developments. We've argued that it was success and not capitulation to the pressures of negative criticism that led Jerry Falwell to kill the Moral Majority. Like a lot of other decisions he has made, he saw a window of opportunity and went with it.
There are other factors that may also have contributed to the decision. Falwell is committed to building Liberty University into a class institution for the higher education of conservative Christians. His announced goal of 50,000 students may be another one of his whopping made-up statistics.
Falwell has also recently purchased a cable television network. He began feeding the Old-Time Gospel Hour onto the cable system via satellite in 1986, and has plans to begin regular extended broadcasting in 1987. In addition to broadcasting a lot of live events from Liberty University, Falwell will host a daily talk-show with lines open to the audience. Even some of his closest friends and associates don't think he has a chance of building a network that can compete with Pat
Between the development of Liberty University and the Liberty Broadcasting Network, Falwell has two good reasons to settle down and stay home more. He also has reason to begin to soften the tongue that so infuriates liberal Americans. But those reasons may not prove to be compelling. Upon considered reflection, it may become evident that softening the tongue and cleaning up his image are not likely to increase the chances that liberals will send their kids to school in Lynchburg, nor their bucks to support his network.
Jerry Falwell got where he is today by his instincts, energy, wit, and sharp tongue. It seems pretty obvious that he rather likes the idea of everything in his organization coming up LIBERTY. But Falwell is also smart and pragmatic. If Liberty doesn't work for all occasions, he can try something else. And if Charlie Judd doesn't turn Liberty Federation into a grass-roots organization that is paying dividends he may be working for the Republican Party again, and we may well see that after the life and death of the Moral Majority comes its resurrection.
| Why Jerry Fallwell Killed the Moral Majority | |