Find us Unfaithful
On Hulu's "God Forbid," covering the Falwells, and processing it all as a child of evangelicalism
Having survived Halloween at home, I’m on yet another reporting trip (more on that here).
Wherever I may be in the real world - when I’m online I spend a lot of time in #exvangelical and evangelical-adjacent social media spaces. And this week, the buzz is all about that Jerry Falwell, Jr. documentary.
God Forbid, streaming on Hulu, chronicles the now-infamous “pool boy" three-way sex scandal that led to Falwell’s resignation as president of the influential Christian university founded by his father.
In these social media spaces, many of us are talking about, referencing - and often just processing - the subculture we were raised in.
It was a subculture that flourished to a large degree below the radar of the larger culture and came with its own collection of celebrities, media, and music. The Falwells were among the luminaries of that world, starting with Jerry Jr.’s late father, Jerry Sr., who as the founder of both Liberty University and the Moral Majority movement that preceded it, conceived and ultimately helped catalyze the religious (Christian) right.
But there was a lot more to that culture, much of which is admittedly pretty inside baseball - except for those of us whose childhoods were steeped in it. (I’ll come back to Falwell, I promise.)
Take the hashtag at the bottom of this tweet about Elon Musk. It will either strike you as utterly confusing – or take you on an intense nostalgia trip.
It’s an obscure reference – to a 1988 song from the Christian artist Steve Green, a song I heard countless times growing up in church and Christian school, swooning as the handsome recent graduate performing for our chapel service belted out the climactic chorus:
“Oh may all who come behind us FIND US FAITHFUL! May the fire of our devotion LIGHT THEIR WAY!”
It’s about the legacy we should aspire to leave behind – not something that felt super relevant to me in elementary school. Those concerns seemed a long way off.
Even then, Steve Green represented the conservative end of the commercial Christian music spectrum – enough of a subtle drumbeat to irritate some of the most fundamentalist among us, but at its core still pretty square, and without the crossover success of Michael W. Smith or Amy Grant.
But now, some four decades into this life of mine, I have to say the song hits differently. I can still feel the emotional power, and this idea of leaving behind something that means something. It’s an emotion that still resonates, even as my beliefs have changed.
You can listen to it here if you’d like:
Seeing that reference, the song was IMMEDIATELY stuck in my brain. And I had to listen. So the other night, freshly off deadline, I was sitting in my hotel lobby, sipping my glass of wine - and listening to 1980s Southern-gospel-adjacent music like the true weirdo that I am.
At the same time, I was scrolling social media - and seeing reaction after reaction to the Falwell documentary.
I haven’t seen the documentary yet myself (midterms, children, can’t remember my Hulu password). But I’ve covered aspects of the Falwell sex scandal and the allegations by students from Liberty (Falwell’s university) that the school failed to protect them from sexual assault or adequately confront abusers – not to mention Falwell’s promotion of Donald Trump to the white evangelical community.
This was a memorable day on that beat:
As I scrolled, there were quite a few now-grownup evangelical kids, expressing shock, disgust, and betrayal at the actions of one of the former pillars of our community.
(I don’t know Falwell’s net worth, but Mayfield’s number is in line with several estimates floating around online - for whatever that’s worth. What is well-documented is Falwell’s $10.5 million payout when he stepped down from leading Liberty University, and his $1.25 million annual salary before he left.)
The conversation about it is similar over on #exvangelical TikTok.
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Some of the saddest comments came from current and former Liberty students as well as survivors of pastoral and religious abuse in the evangelical world.
It was strange and heartbreaking to read these reflections, as that familiar childhood song washed over me through my headphones - particularly the section about passing on a legacy to the next generation:
“After all our hopes and dreams
Have come and gone,
And our children sift through all
We've left behind,
May the clues that they discover,
And the memories they uncover,
Become the light that leads them,
To the road we each must find.”
I reflected on the sense of grief that I’ve been feeling - and hearing from other grown-up evangelical kids – who’ve watched the behavior of leader after leader, once held up as examples, who’ve turned out to be punchlines - and so much worse. Many of these fallen icons were household names in those same homes where we listened to exhortations like the ones in Green’s song - and took every word to heart.
We were promised loving families, a future in heaven, and a connection to God.
We got rampant abuse accusations, sex scandals, and fraud - and ultimately the kinds of political alliances that came to an ugly head on January 6.
No group of people is without fault. Jesus himself said whoever is without sin should cast the first stone. I am certainly not that person. But “righteousness” was the product we were sold, and some of us would like our money back.
The next generation of evangelicals - those children of that vast 1980s and ‘90s subculture - has grown up. Today, many of us have our own children. And now, as we take an inventory of what we’ve inherited and what we’ve lost, it’s our task to figure out what we want - and what we need - to leave to those who come behind us.
Thanks for reading. And please feel free to let me know what you’re thinking.
I find your work here—at NPR as well, but especially here—to be routinely thought-provoking and a cause for reflection. I wasn’t raised Evangelical, but was raised very religious; Presbyterian. My father even was the mover behind the founding of the second Presbyterian Church in Muncie, Indiana (Saint Andrew’s) because the First Presbyterian Church was too “old school” for him; Fire & Brimstone preaching, fear-based instead of love-your-neighbor-based.
I remember that our involvement in the church brought our family into frequent contact with people (usually from other congregations) who were Evangelical, and who I thought of alternately as kooky, or perhaps a few steps closer to the Secret Fire than I was.
All this resulted, as I grew older, in wide reading in comparative & historical mythology & religion, as well shamanism and altered states of consciousness. The recipes for every manifestation of “religion,” I came to understand, were pretty much the same: Develop a community of believers through a shared, cyclic round of ecstatic experiences brought about by self examination & denial/contrition/self-forgiveness/renewal, and set that community apart from other, similar communities that were not “on the right path,” but which ecumenism required us to love “as ourselves.”
Having been raised Presbyterian, converted to Methodism & later to Catholicism, I eventually walked away from the whole sordid mess. I’ve come through Atheism to Agnosticism because I honestly don’t—& by definition can’t—know the Final Truth.
I find the Falwell’s story interesting but completely predictable. Jimmy Swaggert redux, only with more kink. What I find hard to understand is how Seekers are constantly taken for Suckers. As a famous Jew, & the founder of Christianity said: “let those who have eye see.”
What’s truly miraculous is how many willingly choose to remain blind.
Please keep writing in the exvangelical vein. Hopefully you’ll give sight to the blind!
Hi Sarah,
I’m fascinated by this conversation you’re having with others who grew up in Evangelical families. I grew up Evangelical adjacent. My family never quite felt comfortable in those circles though we were friends with them.
The thing I find most interesting is how people deal with the betrayal by church leaders and what effect that has on their perception of their own faith and the authority of the church. I converted to Catholicism in 2001. The revelations about the abuses that have been systemic in the Catholic Church have been constant ever since. And yet the Church refuses to reconsider its positions on sexuality. I find I’m looking for some level of humility. Some hint of uncertainty that perhaps the church has something to learn. I still love my faith. I still want to be Catholic, and I think coming to the faith later in life might make the betrayals sting a little less. I wonder if growing up in a tradition that then betrays you, makes you more likely to walk away entirely. What do you think?