Billy Graham: Neither Prophet nor Theologian

[EasyAce]

An entrepreneurial evangelical, and the first preacher with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame
By George F. Will
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/billy-graham-legacy-neither-prophet-nor-theologian/

. . . Graham’s effects are impossible to quantify. His audiences were exhorted to make a “decision” for Christ, but a moment of volition might be (in theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s phrase) an exercise in “cheap grace.” Graham’s preaching, to large rallies and broadcast audiences, gave comfort to many people and probably improved some.

Regarding race, this North Carolinian was brave, telling a Mississippi audience in 1952 that, in Wacker’s words, “there was no room for segregation at the foot of the cross.” In 1953, he personally removed the segregating ropes at a Chattanooga crusade. After the Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation ruling, Graham abandoned the practice of respecting local racial practices . . .

. . . Graham’s dealings with presidents mixed vanity and naïveté. In 1952, he said he wanted to meet with all the candidates “to give them the moral side of the thing.” He was 33. He applied flattery with a trowel, comparing Dwight Eisenhower’s first foreign-policy speech to the Sermon on the Mount and calling Richard Nixon “the most able and the best trained man for the job probably in American history.” He told Nixon that God had given him, Nixon, “supernatural wisdom.” Graham should have heeded the psalmist’s warning about putting one’s faith in princes . . .

. . . When Graham read transcripts of Nixon conspiring to cover up crimes, Graham said that what “shook me most” was Nixon’s vulgar language.

Of the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops, Graham said, “we have all had our My Lais in one way or another, perhaps not with guns, but we have hurt others with a thoughtless word, an arrogant act or a selfish deed.” Speaking in the National Cathedral three days after 9/11, he said “it’s so glorious and wonderful” that the victims were in heaven and would not want to return.

Graham, [biographer Grant] Wacker concludes, had an attractively sunny personality and was “invincibly extrospective.” This precluded “irony” but also “contemplativeness.”

[jmyrlefuller]

Neither was he a prophet. Jesus said “a prophet hath no honor in his own country.” Prophets take adversarial stances toward their times, as did the 20th century’s two greatest religious leaders, Martin Luther King and Pope John Paul II. Graham did not. Partly for that reason, his country showered him with honors.

I don't think that's true one bit. The only reason that it seemed that way was because it worked. The people of Nineveh turned to God from Jonah's prophecies, but that did not make him any less of a prophet.

Look at the last 15 years, how much society has strayed since his retirement. (I'm not blaming his retirement for this; it's correlation, not causation.) Did God's stance change on the things we have now come to accept as a society? No! Nor did Graham's. Yet instead of coming back to God, we as a society have chosen to reject God because he doesn't fit society.

[mountaineer]

Good post, J.

[truth_seeker]

". . . When Graham read transcripts of Nixon conspiring to cover up crimes, Graham said that what “shook me most” was Nixon’s vulgar language."

Wow. One of the good guys, bothered by vulgar language. What a blast from the distant and mostly forgotten past.

[EasyAce]

Did God's stance change on the things we have now come to accept as a society? No! Nor did Graham's.

Somehow, I can't help thinking that God's stances may not have changed but Mr. Graham too often spoke or thought in ways forgetful of God's stances. I'm pretty sure God's stances don't include obstruction of justice (however Nixon was or wasn't tricked into it, and there's evidence that he was) or wanton massacre. And I'm pretty sure, without being a theologian, that if the only thing troublesome about Nixon's obstruction of justice was vulgar language, or if an ordinary person's mere thoughtlessness, arrogance, or selfishness equal mass murder, Mr. Graham had some splainin' to do upon his arrival to his reward. I'd like to think he had his regrets about such thoughts.