I really do!  Being a Christian, especially one with the last name Falwell, is quiet a burden.  I too was “guilted” into the Christian faith and when “guilt” continues to compel you to any particular mind-set, noble or otherwise, it is hard to let it go.  I firmly believe that Falwell Jr. is a good guy.  He would have to be, being raised a Baptist and that tradition does teach you to “make nice” in the whole of your life.  And, I’m glad that I’ve had that guilt ridden mandate, “make nice” to tyrannize my life as I realize that if it had not been there I sure as hell could have gotten into a lot of mischief.  And “mischief” is a nice way of putting it!

Guilt, and its sidekick shame, have their place in the human psychic economy  The orientation to “what are they thinking” and giving a damn about it is an important dimension of being human.  BUT, there is a limit to it. And when it comes to a spiritual tradition, that “dynamic duo” (shame and guilt) really need to get a rest at some point, allowing one to just quit the pretences and realize that the “making nice” can become more genuine.

I suspect that Falwell like myself was “encultured” into the Christian faith.  How could one not become a Christian if one’s father was “The” Jerry Falwell, the pastor of the fundamentalist hysteria known as “Thomas Road Baptist Church?  But if one lets his faith be his persona, that morass of ugliness that a persona is designed to cover up, is always apt to ooze through the cracks.  This has certainly been my story, though my “fall” was simpler and easier than it will be for Falwell Jr.  I was a nobody and if I’d have fulfilled the ambitions of my youthful heart I would have become “somebody”, though only a small fish in a very lonely little Arkansas ecclestiacal pond.  I just couldn’t master the “performance art” needed to become successful.  “Whew, what a relief!!!”