Evangelist apologisies for terror attack speech

The Reverend Jerry Falwell, an outspoken evangelist, apologised yesterday for saying God had allowed terrorists to attack America because of the work of civil liberties groups, abortion rights supporters and feminists.

Falwell said his comments were ill-timed, insensitive and divisive at a time of national mourning. US President George W Bush had called the minister’s statement inappropriate.

‘‘In the midst of the shock and mourning of a dark week for America, I made a statement that I should not have made and which I sincerely regret,’’ Falwell said.

He added: ‘‘I want to apologise to every American, including those I named.’’

In an interview last Thursday during religious broadcaster Pat Robertson’s TV program The 700 Club, Falwell blamed the devastation on pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People for the American Way.

‘‘All of them who have tried to secularise America, I point the finger in their face and say, ’You helped this happen,’’’ he said.

Falwell, a Baptist minister and chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, also expressed a belief shared by other evangelicals that divine protection is withdrawn from nations that violate God’s will.

However, some Christian thinkers warned there was no way to know which sin led to which punishment. Yesterday, Falwell agreed.

‘‘When I talked about God lifting the curtain of protection on our nation, I should have made it very clear that no one on this Earth knows whether or not that occurred or did not occur,’’ he said.

He said if the destruction was a judgment from God it was a judgment on all sinners, including himself.

Falwell said no one from the evangelical community or the White House pressured him to apologise.

However, he said a White House representative called him on Friday while he was driving to the National Cathedral memorial service in Washington and told him the President disapproved.

Falwell said he told the White House that he also felt he had misspoken.