I am not surprised that Jerry Falwell in person does not come off like an idiot. If he were, he would be considered a crank even by the
religious conservatives that form his base.
I don't see him as a demon, but as a modern-day Pharisee. The Pharisees of the Gospels were religious leaders who were comfortable with both their position and theology, so comfortable they were willing to murder their greatest challenger, Jesus.
The key problem presented by Falwell and other religious fundamentalists is rooted in human psychology, their inability to deal with information that contradicts their core beliefs.
We all learn to evaluate information based on preconceptions. It is even necessary. Let me use a simple example to make this clear. If we're standing on a train track and see a train coming our way, we don't need to calculate the mass and velocity of the train and compare it to our mass in order to decide it's time to move. It's 'train big' then 'move'.
The problem is that we often attach emotional importance to our pre-conceptions. Consider how Ted Bundy's mother might react at his trial, when she remembers changing his diapers. To her, the images of his childhood are so strong they predominate and it makes it easier for her to deny her son's guilt. This is why many criminals' family members continue to defend them, even when their guilt in some horrible crime is manifest.
Falwell and other extremists have preconceptions so deeply ingrained that no logic will affect them. To attack those views is psychologically equivalent to attacking Falwell himself. Data that contradicts his pre-dispositions is stereotyped or dismissed as propaganda. In this way he maintains his delusions. He grew up in a world where women 'submitted' to their husbands, abortion was illegal and sex is dirty. The world view he has constructed for himself is incapable of adapting to change. Just as Osama bin-Laden is incapable of adapting his 9th century views to the 21st century.
The challenge of fundamentalism is primarily a challenge of unmasking their stereotypes and distortions in a way that makes the Bible's real contradictions clear to them. We cannot succeed in shouting them down, and if we act confrontationally they will withdraw and consider us tools of Satan. Rage will be met with rage. Probably the liberal Christianity embodied by Bishop John Spong represents the best hope for awaking their moribund minds. It is better to get them to respect us as individuals, to show them our worth before they will lend us their ears.