Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an American evangelical Christian pastor and televangelist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. He founded Liberty University in 1971 and co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979.

Falwell led services at Thomas Road for many years. During his tenure, it changed affiliations from Baptist Bible Fellowship International to the mainly conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and Falwell himself ended his self-identification with fundamentalism in favor of evangelicalism. Falwell's legacy today is mixed; while supporters praise his advancement of his conservative message, many statements and positions remain controversial. This never bothered him during his lifetime, however, and he often stated, "I'm not called to be popular; I'm called to be faithful."