Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe

Evidence

Opposition to abortion was slow to take hold among evangelicals. Falwell issued no public statement on abortion until 1975 and, by his own admission, did not preach against abortion until February 26, 1978, more than five years after the Roe v. Wade decision. In 2011, an early antiabortion activist reflected on his reception among evangelicals in the 1970s. “While we evangelicals were dithering,” Robert Case recalled, “the Roman Catholics were bearing the torch of salvation for America’s unborn.” He described his “lukewarm” reception at a meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society and lamented, “Here we were four years after Roe v. Wade and evangelical Christians were still ambivalent about abortion.” — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 96

Opposition to abortion was slow to take hold among evangelicals. Falwell issued no public statement on abortion until 1975 and, by his own admission, did not preach against abortion until February 26, 1978, more than five years after the Roe v. Wade decision. … He described his “lukewarm” reception at a meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society and lamented, “Here we were four years after Roe v. Wade and evangelical Christians were still ambivalent about abortion.” — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 98

Categorization

• SEED: Dates like Falwell’s 1978 first sermon contradict the instant-outrage origin tale and anchor any debunking essay.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 96; Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 98
• XREF: connects to: A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist publicly supported Roe v. Wade in 1973 — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 91; Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 92; The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 87 (+5 more)

Related

• Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory (similarity 0.88)
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. (similarity 0.85)
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s (similarity 0.84)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.84)
• Evangelicals adopted anti-abortion politics six years after Roe for political gain (similarity 0.84)
• The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade (similarity 0.83)
• Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue (similarity 0.83)
• A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist publicly supported Roe v. Wade in 1973 (similarity 0.82)
• Conservative Christians originally welcomed Roe v. Wade as advancing religious liberty (similarity 0.82)
• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.82)
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity (similarity 0.82)
• Baptist leaders initially framed Roe as a victory for church-state separation (similarity 0.81)
• The 1976 article cited as evangelical antiabortion genesis was primarily a general cultural-engagement call (similarity 0.81)
• Confronting the abortion myth could reorient the whole evangelical agenda (similarity 0.81)
• Abortion was adopted as a rallying issue because it could unite disparate cultural conservatives (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s #exemplifies (0.90) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 122
• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #exemplifies (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. #qualifies (0.80) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 246
• The Religious Right’s abortion politics predate Roe and were chosen for strategic reasons #contradicts (0.80) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 222