Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr. was an American Baptist pastor,televangelist,and conservative activist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church,a megachurch in Lynchburg,Virginia. He founded Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967,founded Liberty University in 1971,and co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979.
Moral Majority was an American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates,and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in the mobilization of conservative Christians as a political force and particularly in Republican presidential victories throughout the 1980s.
Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) is a Baptist megachurch in Lynchburg,Virginia,located on the campus of Liberty University,which it founded and is closely affiliated with. In 2016,a church spokesperson stated they had an average weekly attendance of 9,000. The pastor is Jonathan Falwell,the son of previous Senior Pastor Jerry Falwell and brother of former Liberty University President,Jerry Falwell Jr. In addition to a second campus,Dan River Church,Thomas Road also hosts a Spanish congregation on its main campus. It is affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship International and the Southern Baptist Convention.
Liberty University (LU) is a private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg,Virginia. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. Founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell Sr. and Elmer L. Towns,Liberty is among the world's largest Christian universities and the largest private non-profit universities in the United States by total student enrollment. Most of its enrollment is in online courses;in 2020,the university enrolled about 15,000 in its residential program and 80,000 online.
Tennessee Temple University was a private Christian university in Chattanooga,Tennessee. Temple Baptist Seminary was the university's graduate school of Christian theology,also operating in Chattanooga. The university merged with Piedmont International University in 2015.
L. Paige Patterson served as the fifth president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest,N.C.,from 1992 to 2003,as president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) from 1998 to 2000,and as the eighth president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth,Texas,from 2003 until his firing in 2018. He played a major role in the Southern Baptist "conservative resurgence",called "Fundamentalist Takeover" by opponents. He has been alternately described as a fundamentalist and a conservative evangelical.
Baptist Bible College (BBC) is a private Baptist bible college in Springfield,Missouri. Founded in 1950,BBC focuses on training Christian professionals and ministers. It offers accredited associate,bachelor's,and master's degrees.
The Ethics &Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention,the second-largest Christian denomination in the United States,with over 16 million members in over 43,000 independent churches. President Russell D. Moore left office on June 1,2021. Brent Leatherwood was unanimously voted in by the board of trustees to be the next ERLC president on Sept. 13,2022. The commission is headquartered in Nashville,Tennessee,with additional offices in Washington,D.C.,and Cyprus.
Elmer Edwin Rasmuson was an American banker,philanthropist and politician in the territory and state of Alaska. He led the family business,National Bank of Alaska,for many decades as president and later chairman. He also served as Mayor of Anchorage from 1964 to 1967 and was the Republican nominee for United States Senator from Alaska in the 1968 election,losing the general election to Mike Gravel.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Louisville,Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville,South Carolina,where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University. The seminary has been an innovator in theological education,establishing one of the first Ph.D. programs in religion in the year 1892. After being closed during the Civil War,it moved in 1877 to a newly built campus in downtown Louisville and moved to its current location in 1926 in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. In 1953,Southern became one of the few seminaries to offer a full,accredited degree course in church music. For more than fifty years Southern has been one of the world's largest theological seminaries,with an FTE enrollment of over 3,300 students in 2015.
Jerry Lamon Falwell Jr. is an American attorney,former academic administrator,and former evangelical. Starting with his 2007 appointment upon the death of his father,televangelist and conservative activist Jerry Falwell Sr.,Falwell served as the president of Liberty University in Lynchburg,Virginia,until resigning in August 2020 amidst a sex scandal.
Elmer Leon Towns is an American Christian academic,pastor and writer who co-founded Liberty University,the largest private non-profit university in the world,alongside Jerry Falwell in 1971. Towns is also a prominent Christian leader and speaker on the principles of church growth,church leadership,Christian education,Sunday school,and prayer and fasting. He has written over 170 books,eight of which are listed on the Christian Booksellers Association Best Selling List. In 1995,his book The Names of the Holy Spirit received the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Booksellers Association for Book of the Year in Biblical Study. Most recently Towns has served as Dean of the B. R. Lakin School of Religion,Dean of Liberty University Baptist Theological Seminary,and Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Liberty University. In fall 2013,Towns announced he would be taking a sabbatical from his teaching and administrative duties to focus on speaking and writing.
Jonathan Pate Falwell is the senior pastor at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg,Virginia,and campus pastor at Liberty University.
Bettye Jean Davis was an American social worker and politician. She was the first African-American to be elected as an Alaska State Senator in 2000.
Aram Roston is an American investigative journalist,and author of The Man Who Pushed America to War:The Extraordinary Life,Adventures,and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi He is a correspondent for Reuters.
Ergun Michael Caner is a Swedish-American academic,author,and Baptist minister,who became well known for his book,co-authored with his brother,on Islam and his claims that he was a devout Muslim trained as a terrorist. He emigrated to the United States at age four and claimed to have converted to Protestantism in the early 1980s.
Jerome Richard "Jerry" Johnston is an American evangelical Christian pastor,author,and docu-filmmaker. Johnston is currently vice president for Innovation and Strategic marketing at Houston Baptist University in Houston,Texas,and director of Christian Thinkers Society. Johnston and his wife Cristie Jo Huf Johnston are professors of theology and co-producers of a documentary in production about the "Nones" phenomenon.
Kevin G. Clarkson is an American attorney from the state of Alaska who was the 32nd Alaska Attorney General from 2018 to 2020.
David Bronson is an American politician,pilot,and retired military officer. A Republican,he serves as the 9th and current mayor of the Municipality of Anchorage,Alaska.
