Preaching: On Sunday morning you step into the pulpit do you have notes with you?

Falwell: I do, because we put the full sermon on the website as if it were to be read by somebody. If you were listening to it would not be greatly similar to what is written, but it's done so that it is readable and says the same thing, like doing a script. And for the power point I have headlines right throughout the text so that it will go up on the screen while I am speaking. But it is very unlikely that the script will be very close to what I am saying. I will be saying the same thing but in a different way. Sometimes I totally digress from it. But when I have finished the message I will have covered the same materials scripted. And then they know that they can go right to the web site and print out the actual original script and read that, too, which usually reinforces.

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Preaching: Over the years you've gotten involved with radio and television and of course now the internet, has the use of media changed or influenced your preaching in a significant way?

Falwell: Yes, being a media minister helps you to say more with few words because it's usually only the first two or three sentences, the sound bite as they call it, that the public is accustomed to capture. You will have others who will get it all, you will have many who will get a good bit of it, but most only get the sound bites. So it is important that your first paragraph is attention getting. It is important that at various points of the message where you want to drive home a truth, that something that will recapture their attention. It is important that the way you end is a memorable ending because two weeks from now they won't be able to remember the topic they have heard so much since then.

I try very hard to think of what I am doing at the pulpit as though I were on Face the Nation or one of the talk shows when you are across from an opponent. You don't get the chance to go into all of your rationale. You will be shouted down or talked over. You've got to have two or three sentences that go right through. For example, Friday night I was debating on Hardball. I had said in a 60 Minutes interview, when asked about comparing Moses and Jesus and Mohammad, I said that Jesus and Moses were great models for love, peace, truth, faith and family. Mohammad was a man of war and violence. And then he asked, "Well, why do you think Mohammad was a bad example." I said I think Mohammad was a terrorist and I think that he got his kicks out of killing and assassinating people. That is if the Muslim biographers are to be believed.

And so I am on Hardball and this guy says, "You bigot, why would you say such a thing?" He was screaming at me. I said, "Abraham, now settle down, don't have a stroke. Let me ask you something: You have read the biographies, the Muslim biographies. Did Mohammad kill innocent people?" " What's that have to do . . . ?" "It's a yes or no question, did he kill innocent people?" He wouldn't answer me. I said, "Your refusal to answer does answer it. The answer was, he did. And that is what a terrorist does." And I said, "Now most of you out there have not read a biography of Mohammed and never will. Go to falwell.com — I've printed one out for you there to summarize it." So you've got to say it quickly. We've gotten 82,000 hits since Friday night reading the copy.