A little more than a month after a Vanity Fair profile on Jerry Falwell Jr. caused a stir in evangelical circles, it has been announced that Lionsgate Television will adapt the article into a limited scripted series.
The Vanity Fair article, which was written by Gabriel Sherman and published on January 24, chronicled Falwell’s upbringing in the home of famed televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell Sr., his rise to prominence at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, a sex scandal involving his wife and a Miami pool boy, along with Falwell’s eventual resignation as president of Liberty University.
One of the more shocking revelations in the article was when Falwell, the former president of a Christian university, said, “Because of my last name, people think I’m a religious person. But I’m not.”
“Nothing in history has done more to turn people away from Christianity than organized religion,” Falwell told Vanity Fair. “The religious elite has got this idea that somehow their sins aren’t as bad as everybody else’s.”
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As someone who was the head of one of the largest evangelical educational institutions in the country for over a decade, is the son of one of the founders of the Moral Majority, and had a personal relationship with a United States president, the statement came across as somewhat ironic.
In a response article, director of the Public Theology Project at Christianity Today Russell Moore expressed a lack of surprise at Falwell’s revelation, saying, “In many ways, Jerry Falwell Jr. did not hide from us who he was. He told us [by his actions while president of Liberty University], over and over again.”
Falwell later clarified that while he doesn’t consider himself a “religious person,” he still nevertheless is a Christian.
“The Vanity Fair article made it absolutely clear that, while I didn’t wear my religion on my sleeve to be seen by others, I have nonetheless had a strong faith in Christ and his teachings since college,” Falwell said in a statement. “Other media outlets have twisted Vanity Fair’s words.”
The Lionsgate Television produced show will explore the complexity and the tumult of Falwell’s rise and fall.
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