Jerry Falwell, the outspoken evangelical Christian leader who became a strong but divisive right-wing force in US politics, died on Tuesday aged 73, an official at his Liberty University said.
Falwell was found unconscious on Tuesday morning in his office at the university in his hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, the university's executive vice-president Ronald Godwin told a press conference.
The minister's doctor, Carl Moore, said efforts to resuscitate him in his office and later at the hospital were unsuccessful. He said Falwell had a known heart condition and he presumed the death was heart-related.
US President George W. Bush in a statement said he was "deeply saddened" by the death of Falwell, whom he hailed as "a man who cherished faith, family and freedom."
However, the preacher was as provocative as he was influential.
Two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, he blamed them on "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians ... who have tried to secularize America."
Over a long career as a conservative firebrand, Falwell's Christian movement's alliance with Republican conservatives was key to helping elect Ronald Reagan to the presidency twice in the 1980s.
But his reputation was also marked by inflammatory statements against blacks, Muslims, Jews, civil and women's rights activists as well as liberals in general. In 2002 he called the Muslim prophet Mohammed "a terrorist."
Born to a well-off family in Lynchburg, in southwestern Virginia in 1933, Falwell joined the Baptist church in 1952. He was ordained four years later and launched his Thomas Road Baptist Church in a former soft-drink bottling plant.
He popularized the church through his television show The Old Time Gospel Hour, a prototype for modern "televangelism," and its congregation had grown to some 22,000 members in the years before his death.
He established Liberty University in his hometown, building it into an institution with more than 7,000 students.
He made his mark on national politics in 1979 with Moral Majority, a Christian political coalition with millions of members that aimed to elect conservatives, ban abortion and reinstate Christian prayer in schools.
Falwell "gave voice to a conservative people of faith who previously had been marginalized in politics," said Republican strategist and one of the political gurus of the religious right, Ralph Reed.
"Jerry has been a tower of strength on many of the moral issues which have confronted our nation," said fellow evangelist and political activist Pat Robertson.
Mitt Romney, whose Mormon faith poses a barrier among conservative Christians to his challenge for the US presidency, also praised Falwell as "a man of deep personal faith and commitment to helping those around him."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not