{"id":10094,"date":"2024-04-22T10:57:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T14:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=10094"},"modified":"2024-04-22T10:57:29","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T14:57:29","slug":"beverly-lahaye-founder-of-concerned-women-for-america-dies-at-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/04\/beverly-lahaye-founder-of-concerned-women-for-america-dies-at-94.html","title":{"rendered":"Beverly LaHaye, Founder of Concerned Women For America, Dies at 94"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"beverly
@concernedwomen\/Instagram<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beverly LaHaye, a shy pastor\u2019s wife who became a champion for conservative Christian politics and a force mobilizing hundreds of thousands of religious women, died in a retirement home in El Cajon, California, at 94 years old. President Ronald Reagan once\u00a0praised<\/a>\u00a0LaHaye as \u201cone of the powerhouses\u201d of the conservative movement and\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0she was \u201cchanging the face of American politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Weyrich, the conservative activist who helped start The Heritage Foundation and coined the term\u00a0moral majority<\/em>, called the group LaHaye founded in 1979, the Concerned Women for America (CWA), the\u00a0most effective<\/a>\u00a0organization on the Religious Right. In 1987, he told Christianity Today<\/em> that the CWA had \u201cthe best follow-through\u201d of any political group he\u2019d ever worked with.<\/p>\n

At the height of LaHaye\u2019s power, she could get the women she called \u201cmy ladies\u201d to send more than 1,000 postcards to a US senator who had slighted her in a public hearing, 2,000 to support a Republican administration official who had been caught selling weapons illegally to Iran; 64,000 to support a controversial conservative candidate for the US Supreme Court; and 778,000 to protest a TV station that advertised condoms during prime time. LaHaye \u201cgave a lot of women a language for understanding women\u2019s conservative activism as absolutely necessary,\u201d\u00a0historian<\/a>\u00a0Emily Suzanne Johnson told\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>. \u201cWomen have been the driving force of this movement in a lot of ways, particularly at the grass-roots level. I\u2019m not sure that happens without Beverly LaHaye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her success earned her the ire of those on the left, especially people concerned about LGBTQ rights. In 1993, the spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign called her \u201ca professional hatemonger.\u201d LaHaye also became a subject of fascination for mainstream media. LaHaye was born in Detroit on April 30, 1929, the second daughter of Lowell and Nellie Davenport. Her father died when she was 2, and her mother was forced to move in with a neighbor and work for the phone company until she got remarried to a tool-and-die maker who worked at Ford.<\/p>\n

Watching her mother, LaHaye later said she learned that \u201cwomen can be very powerful, in quiet ways.\u201d LaHaye had to summon that strength during difficult times in her childhood. Her mother got sick with a heart condition, and LaHaye took time off school to care for her and take over her domestic responsibilities while still a teenager. At 17, LaHaye left home to study at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. There, she met her husband Tim, then a 21-year-old veteran who had been an Air Force gunner in World War II and aspired to become a pastor. They got married a year later.<\/p>\n

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In loving memory of our founder, Dr. Beverly LaHaye. pic.twitter.com\/xsV9c3Jodo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Concerned Women for America LAC (@CWforA) April 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n