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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1985 A Rhetorical Analysis of the Political Preaching of the Reverend Jerry Falwell: the Moral Majority Sermons, 1979 (Electric Church, Demagogue). Vernon Oliver Ray Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Ray, Vernon Oliver, "A Rhetorical Analysis of the Political Preaching of the Reverend Jerry Falwell: the Moral Majority Sermons, 1979 (Electric Church, Demagogue)." (1985). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 4072. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/4072 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. 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These prints are available upon request from the Dissertations Customer Services Department. 5. Some pages in any document may have indistinct print. In all cases the best available copy has been filmed. University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 8517755 Ray, Vernon Oliver A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL PREACHING OF THE REVEREND JERRY FALWELL: THE MORAL MAJORITY SERMONS, 1979 The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col. Ph.D. 1985 University Microfilms international300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1985 by Ray, Vernon Oliver All Rights Reserved A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL PREACHING OF THE REVEREND JERRY FALWELL: THE MORAL MAJORITY SERMONS, 1979. A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech Communication by Vernon 0. Ray B.A., Harding University, 1975 M.A., Harding Graduate School, 1978 May 1985 © 1985 VERNON OLIVER RAY All R ights R eserved ACKNOWLEGEMENTS I would like to thank my graduate committee, Drs. Harold Mixon, Chairman, Owen Peterson, Donald Ragsdale, Gary Crump, and Kaylene Long, for the insight, concern, and guidance they shared with me during my doctoral studies. A special word of thanks is due Dr. Mixon for his kindness, sensitivity, objectivity, and scholarly advice. His door was always open, his advice always sound, and his concern ever present. I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Don Norman, Executive Producer of "The Old-Time Gospel Hour,” and Executive Administrative Assistant to Dr. Jerry Falwell, for his assistance in arranging interviews with Dr. Falwell and his staff and for his willingness to be interviewed himself. A big thank-you is also due Gail Miller, my typist. Her willingness to type, proof, and retype on the shortest of notice will always be appreciated. Finally, I want to express my love and appreciation to Kathie, my wife. She never doubted that I would finish! TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................ ii ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................................................................V CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.......................................... 1 II. JERRY FALWELL: THE MAKING OF A RHETORICIAN......... 10 CHILDHOOD YEARS................................. 13 COLLEGE YEARS................................... 15 RETURN TO LYNCHBURG............................. 17 JERRY FALWELL TODAY: PASTOR/POLITICIAN........ 25 III. HISTORICAL SETTING...................................46 HISTORY OF FUNDAMENTALISM.......................52 THE ELECTRIC CHURCH............................. 72 THE MORAL MAJORITY.............................. 86 IV. AUDIENCES AND OCCASION........................ .....100 AUDIENCES.......................................101 OCCASION........................................110 V. FORMS OF SUPPORT.................................... 116 ETHICAL.........................................117 EMOTIONAL.......................................147 LOGICAL.........................................163 VI. STYLE AND DELIVERY.................. 186 STYLE........................................... 186 DELIVERY........................................202 VII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.............................213 VIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................ 231 X. APPENDICES.......................................... 243 APPENDIX A: FALWELL INTERVIEW................. 243 APPENDIX B: NORMAN INTERVIEW...................248 VITA................................................. 267 iv ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to analyze the speech practices and rhetorical strategies of the Reverend Jerry Falwell and to determine whether he was an effective public speaker. Falwell has risen in recent years from near obscurity as a Baptist pastor in Lynchburg, Virginia, to national celebrity as the founder and President of Moral Majority, Inc., the front-line political action organization of the new Religious Right. Limited to an analysis of his political preaching the study specifically discusses 1) Falwell1s background and speaker preparation, 2) the historical setting surrounding the recent resurgence of Fundamentalism and its political involvement, 3) Falwell's audiences and occasions, 4) his use of evidence and lines of argument, 5) his style and delivery, and 6) his effectiveness. The study is based on a series of sermons delivered on five consecutive Sundays beginning July 1, 1979. Bach sermon announced the formation of a new political action group, Moral Majority, Inc., and contained lengthy appeals promoting membership in the new organization. Original transcriptions of these speeches were used in this study. v For the first thirty-five years of his life Falwell was a separatist. He viewed involvement in social or political movements as secular and improper distractions for a man of God. The Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion brought Falwell out of spiritual separatism and into the political arena. His nationally syndicated television program, "The Old-Time Gospel Hour," has provided him media visibility and enabled him to coalesce a substantial and financially supportive national audience. Falwell's audiences were primarily blue-collar, middle and lower-middle class, and both religiously and politically conservative. They were sympathetic to Falwell's views, and considered his attacks on secular humanism and liberal politics to be biblically based. Consequently, Falwell spent more time asserting his conclusions than he did justifying them. Falwell relied heavily upon emotional appeals in his sermons. He gave heaviest treatment to those appeals classified as fear appeals. In addition, he employed logical proof in his sermons, but his sources of evidence were few. He relied heavily upon the Bible as an evidential source and as an absolute authority. He often employed quantitative supporting materials, but rarely substantiated them. His reasoning, almost without exception, was cast in syllogistic terms. vi Falwell employed several rhetorical strategies, including that of the rhetorical demagogue. He employed this demagogic strategy by 1) intensifying a popular crisis psychology, namely that America is on a disastrous downhill trend, 2) defining the cause of the crisis as a single abstract evil, namely secular humanism, and 3) providing an equally simple escape from the crisis, a new faith, a new belief, with himself at the helm, namely Moral Majority, Inc. This study reveals that Falwell's speeches were effective in mobilizing

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