RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The son of the Rev. Jerry Falwell urged Virginia pastors Tuesday to boldly exhort their Christian followers to push for public policy that reflects their faith, even if it makes them controversial.

“Want to change the culture? Change people’s lives. You want to make a difference in politics? Change people’s lives,” said the Rev. Jonathan Falwell, who took over the pulpit of Lynchburg’s Thomas Road Baptist Church when his father died in May.

In an address to a statewide conference of Christian clergy, Falwell continued his father’s call for pastors to boldly assert Bible teachings regardless of whether they will be popular.

“No. 1, pastors must be bold. We must stand up in our pulpits, and stand in the workplaces and stand in our homes and proclaim the truth. We must boldly stand up and say ‘This is right and this is wrong and I will die defending what is right,’” Falwell said.

But unlike some of his father’s commentaries on public policy, Falwell didn’t single out some of the common targets the Moral Majority founder often assailed, including liberal and civil liberties groups and advocates for gay rights and abortion rights.

“I am not my dad. I can not walk in his footsteps, I can not fill his shoes. But I tell you what I can do and I will do: I can fill the shoes God has given me,” he said.

He also said churches need to take over much of the welfare role government has assumed in caring for the poor, the ill and at-risk youth, a role not often stressed by Christian conservative leaders of his father’s generation.

“Just as important as reaching out to help and defend the unborn and defending the family, ... we’ve got to defend those in our culture who can’t defend themselves,” he said. “We have somehow, somewhere back there in the past, decided to delegate that duty to the government. We said, ‘You know what, we’ll let the government take care of those people.’ My friends, we’ve done that too long.”

Falwell, 41, said churches and Christians have been marginalized and ridiculed, portrayed in popular culture as buffoons and as irrelevant, and now ministers and their followers must “stand in the gap, stand in the breach” to assert the church’s moral absolutes.

“For 30 years my dad stood up as founder of the Moral Majority ... always saying that pastors should be heard, that pastors should speak up on the issues, that they shouldn’t be silent,” he said. “So I can assure you that I’m going to do what my daddy told me.”

The Capitol Square gathering of Christian ministers comes as conservatives brace for November’s election for all 140 Virginia General Assembly seats and next year’s wide-open races for a successor to President Bush and the open seat the retirement of Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., creates.

Democrats say they are within reach of gaining the four seats the party needs to control the state Senate for the first time in 12 years.

The Family Foundation, the socially conservative nonprofit lobbying and advocacy group that organized Tuesday’s summit for about 100 pastors, considers the Senate races paramount because the Senate Education and Health Committee is where many of its legislative priorities – particularly abortion restrictions – have died in recent years.

The retirement of the committee’s chair, Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., R-Winchester, gives conservatives a chance to dominate the panel, said Family Foundation president Victoria Cobb.

“We know we’re going to have a new chairman, we know we’re going to have openings on that committee, so our goal is to put pro-life members on that committee that will take this legislation seriously,” she said.

Her organization doesn’t endorse or oppose candidates or parties, but its nonprofit sibling, Family Foundation Action, ranks legislators in its biennial Report Card and its Voter Guides based on their support for the organization’s legislative priorities. Republicans consistently dominate both.

There are 23 Republicans in the 40-member Senate, and the top 22 grades in the latest Report Card go to Republicans. In the 100-member House, where Democrats hold 40 seats, the 40 lowest scores go to 39 Democrats and one independent who organizes with them. One Democrat, Del. Joseph Johnson of Washington County, was among 34 delegates to earn a perfect score of 100.

Ministers heard briefings Tuesday on issues that will be before next year’s legislature and on the status of federal hate crimes legislation, and they got some legal tips on handling political advocacy without endangering their religious tax-exempt standing.