Read Ruth Gledhill on the death of Jerry Falwell

The Rev Jerry Falwell, the US televangelist who founded the Moral Majority and spearheaded the extraordinary political rise of America’s Christian conservatives, died yesterday of heart failure.

Falwell, 73, was the key figure in turning the Religious Right from a fringe group in the 1970s into the electoral powerhouse that exerts enormous influence on the American political landscape today.

The son of a an alcoholic father who sold bootleg liquor during Prohibition, Falwell was credited with registering millions of conservative voters to the Republican cause. He was treated as a conquering hero at Ronald Reagan’s reelection convention in 1984. In 1994, when Republicans took over Congress after decades of Democratic control, he boasted of getting 8 million new voters to the polls.

Although he was a waning influence within the Religious Right, Falwell’s Liberty University in Virginia was still an almost compulsory campaign stop for aspiring Republican presidential candidates.

John McCain, who in 2000 described Falwell as an “agent of intolerance”, felt compelled to make amends last night. “Dr Falwell was a man of distinguished accomplishment who devoted his life to serving his faith and country,” he said.

Falwell often courted controversy, most notably when he said that the September 11 terror attacks were Divine punishment for gays, feminists and abortionists. He later apologised for the remark, blaming a lack of sleep.

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