I never was a fan of Billy Graham. I thought him too political. I saw him in Nixon’s White House when the nation needed a peace in Vietnam and a truce at home between generations. Graham was successful financially in his using stadiums and tours not unlike the come to town revivals of America’s rural past.
Graham too was a Protestant. When I was young and Catholic, I thought him a strange creature indeed.
These days when I am now a Cultural Christian or a minimalist in the Christian faith, I see Billy’s son Franklin as too much in the same mold as his father and a son who never had to make it on his own. He inherited the family’s business. While there is nothing wrong in inheriting a family’s business – Franklin will never be Billy – and Billy was never that great a preacher outside of his own created and self generated PR bubble.
Some stats from an article in USA today and commenting on another article from the Huffington Post. Sometimes comment on comment on news articles is all that the blogosphere is about. Sometimes I would rather have a subject kicked around from many different angles before I come to rest on my own private comfortable position on any given subject.
Franklin Graham got disinvited from a Pentagon sponsored national prayer day May 6 event because of his harsh tone on Islam.
Does National Day of Prayer include or condemn you?Does National Day of Prayer include or condemn you? A survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors, conducted in March by LifeWay Research, the Nashville-based evangelical polling firm, found most hold strong and consistent negative views of the religion of Islam. When asked which is closer to their beliefs:
• 47% agreed with Graham's comments that Islam is "a very evil and a very wicked religion."
• 24% agreed with former President George W. Bush's remark that "the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion."
• 17% were undecided
• 12% agreed with both statements
Although 69% don't think Christians and Muslims pray to the same God and only 19% would call Islam "spiritually good," …
I think that Islam in its present form as a state religion under penalty of death is an evil thing. I do not believe that Islam in its writings or beliefs is any more evil than Christianity or Judaism.
I think that the ancient archaic National Prayer Day that goes back to the dawn of the Cold War with the Soviets and was started by the likes of a Graham family business or a Coe family business need some rethinking and retooling to fit into this modern age.
The American Town Square of fifty, sixty, seventy years ago was a town square full of while males on their lunch hour. That the present day American Town Square is 24/7, multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-sexual.
I find it a great shame that the views of Franklin Graham do not recognize or dissect the difference between geographic political Islam from the philosophy and religion of same. It was not too many centuries ago that Christianity was the official state religion of most of the countries of Europe. Today those countries are secular – thank God for that.
Franklin Graham and other Protestant ministers who want to look at the world through the prism of the old American Town Square of seventy years ago are woefully out of sync with reality and the true message of Jesus oft times hidden in the gospels.
Entrenched and vested self interests of religious fat cats like the Grahams and the Coes are a great burden on the beliefs of modern people seeking a modern understanding of God and a modern understanding of our relationship to our universe.
