Jerry Falwell: The Last Interview

Relevant Magazine (which was introduced to me as “the Christian Rolling Stone”) is running an excerpt from THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE, in which I sit down with Liberty founder Jerry Falwell to talk grandkids, pranks, and Snapple.

An excerpt:

Things get even more bizarre when I bring up his widespread reputation as a prankster.

“Oh, yes,” he says.  “The pranks.”

An admitted no-goodnik in his youth, Dr. Falwell wrote in his autobiography that he still savors a good practical joke “like some people savor old wine.” When I quote this line back to him, he spends 10 minutes regaling me with decades-old stories about hotwiring his colleagues’ cars and blowing up mailboxes with M-80 firecrackers. His back comes off his chair as he tells me about the time he placed a stinkbomb under the chair leg of Bob Jones, Jr., then-president of Bob Jones University, at a conference of pastors.

“When he sat down, the bomb broke,” he says, his belly rising and falling with laughter. “And in a crowded auditorium, it got pretty rank pretty quick. Everyone was choking for 10, 15 minutes.”

Check the whole thing out here.

Also, there’s still time to order the book on launch day.  A full list of sellers can be found here.

And Matthew Paul Turner’s giveaway, up to more than 100 entries, is still posted at his blog.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 5:51 pm .