January 15, 2004: In a statement released on his website, www.falwell.com, Jerry Falwell yesterday proclaimed the year of 2003 “…the most successful year for Christianity in more than a century.”
“Under the leadership of a good, God-fearing President and an exceptionally just and Godly Attorney General, the United States has enjoyed a year of victory and prosperity and heralded a return of faith around the globe,” the short essay began. “More importantly,” it continued, “we’ve seen a definite and positive response from The Lord.”
Mr. Falwell received criticism from some liberal special interest groups and a few other enemies of God when—less than 24 hours after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in September of 2001—he explained that the tragedies were “God’s punishment for the United States allowing abortionists, lesbians, and god-haters to run amok in our nation”. He seemed to allude to that pronouncement on his web post, when he explained “While our country suffered the direct wrath of God only a few years ago, we’re now clearly back in his graces, and can rightfully reclaim our title of ‘God’s Country’”.
Among a litany of examples of positive gains in 2003, Falwell pointed to: “a clamp-down on the murder of innocent babies, crackdowns on so-called ‘civil liberties’—which is just a politically correct term for ‘treason’, of course—and various victories for the Church involving the allotment of government funds for religious programs and schools.”
“To this,” the piece went on, “we can obviously add the great victory our troops won in Iraq, swiftly bringing down the might of the Lord and smiting thousands of godless Saracens. Even as the liberal media tries to distort the facts and cast our righteous crusade in a negative light, true believers can see the light of the Lord guiding our President and the troops.”
As for examples of the aforementioned “response” from God, the Reverend wrote: “The first major signal I saw from The Lord in 2003, telling us that we were indeed returning to His good graces, was that major Earthquake in Algeria at the beginning of the year. A lot of people have forgotten about this, with all the things that have happened since, but let’s not forget that in one mighty swipe of His blessed Hand, our God slaughtered several thousand worshipers of Satan in their evil-loving homes.”
“Then, in recent months, we’ve seen a series of serious terrorist attacks where almost 100% of the victims have been Mohamadians. Now, I want my fellow Christians to pay particular attention to these attacks, like the ones in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. This is a truly inspired method of delivering justice by our Lord, using the god-haters’ own soldiers to inflict death and destruction on their own people.”
The list continued: “And finally, there were the events of 2003’s final week. First, with his mighty arm of Justice, God struck down a plane full of Lebanese Saracens as it departed the godless African nation of Benin. Poetically, the plane—piloted by a Libyan pilot—met its fate on Christmas Day. And just one day later, in the year’s most impressive display of the Heavenly Father’s might, the world witnessed tens of thousands of devil-worshipping Iranians dying in their homes as the Earth shook with the Lord’s wrath.”
After highlighting several upcoming events for 2004—such as the Day of Purity to be observed by good, God-fearing teens around the nation on February 13—Falwell closed with a final word to his followers: “May 2004 bring further glory to God and His country and further death and destruction to His enemies. God bless you, and God bless America. Amen.”