Posted on 02/27/2018 5:32:25 AM PST by Kaslin
I was profoundly disappointed to learn that National Review had published George Will’s ugly attack on evangelist Billy Graham just days after America’s pastor died.
“Billy Graham: Neither Prophet nor Theologian,” the conservative publication’s headline declared.
I would expect to read such anti-Christian mockery in the pages of The New York Times and Washington Post, but not National Review. My, how times have changed.
“Prophets take adversarial stances toward their times, as did the 20th century’s two greatest religious leaders, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope John Paul II. Graham did not. Partly for that reason, his country showered him with honors,” the self-described atheist wrote.
Will went on to describe Graham as an “entrepreneurial evangelical who consciously emulated masters of secular communication.”
He also derided those who walked the aisle to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord at Graham’s crusade meetings.
“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,” Will wrote.
Robert Jeffress, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas and a spiritual advisor to President Trump, delivered a blunt rebuke of the so-called conservative writer.
“George Will’s article reveals that he is neither a conservative nor a Christian,” Jeffress told the Todd Starnes Radio Show.
Some of the nation’s leading Christian leaders were also quick to condemn Will’s ugly screed.
“George Will’s snide and spiritually clueless criticisms of the incomparable Billy Graham reveal far more about Will’s ignorance and hostility to the spiritual than he perhaps intended,” Southern Evangelical Seminary President Richard Land said.
“When I read Will’s column the image that came to mind was of an ignorant Pekingese yapping at the heels of a spiritual Great Dane,” the noted seminary president remarked.
Of Graham’s theology, Will referenced an off-hand question he answered regarding his belief in miracles.
“Billy Graham answered: Yes, Jesus performed some and there are ‘many miracles around us today, including television and airplanes.’ Graham was no theologian,” Will wrote.
Emir Caner, the president of Truett McConnell University in Georgia, disputed Will’s assertion.
“Graham was a solid theologian, standing for the inerrancy of Scripture, the exclusivity of salvation in Jesus Christ and the fundamentals of the faith,” Caner told me.
Will also brought up an infamous Oval Office conversation the evangelist had with President Richard Nixon regarding Jews in the media.
“One can reasonably acquit Graham of anti-Semitism only by convicting him of toadying,” Will wrote.
Caner called that Will’s greatest misstep in the hit piece – feeding the liberal media’s narrative that Graham was an anti-Semite.
“Will never mentions Graham’s apology years later and the Jewish community’s acceptance of the apology. Will never mentioned how Graham visited the newly formed state of Israel in 1960 when such a visit was unpopular in many Evangelical circles. Will never mentioned that it was Graham who personally brought the plight of Soviet Jews to the attention of President Nixon,” Caner said.
In spite of the shameful smear, I doubt Billy Graham would’ve been all that bothered.
I reckon he would’ve smiled at George Will and reminded him that we are all sinners and that God loves him and wants to have a relationship with him.
George Will’s atheist blasphemy will be rewarded in hell!
I hope to be smeared like that by that type of person at some point.
Will needs a “Damascus” event...
Hell will enlarge itself to swallow the Will....but swallow him, it will.
Such hurtful remarks and so uncalled for. But, not unexpected from the likes of Will.
“I was profoundly disappointed ... National Review ...”
Welcome to 2018. Things have changed a bit. How is it back in 1985?
The fact that he would place MLK, a plagiarist and adulterer and Pope JPII, who protected pedophile Priests, over Rev. Graham, who never had a whiff of such scandal, tells you all you need to know about Will.
Pole Smoker.
It’s always been obvious.
Just bleh.
Is it blasphemy to criticize Billy Graham? Things have apparently changed since I stopped following popular culture.
>>“Prophets take adversarial stances toward their times, ...Graham did not”
How queer. It seems that many on the godless Left ARE attacking Mr. Graham in death as they did in life (because of his opposition to the so-called Sexual Revolution among other things).
ad·ver·sar·i·al - adjective
1. involving or characterized by conflict or opposition.
“industry and government had an adversarial relationship”
2. opposed; hostile.
NRO started to fade when Buckley became feeble and ceded editorial control to that punk Lowry. Since he died it has been in total free fall. NRO used to solicit contributions from subscribers, not unlike FR. I suspect they are now fully funded by Open Borders corporatists.
I stopped believing Will is a conservative decades ago. Same with O’Reilley.
"Entrepreneurial evangelical," is probably not unfair. But he could have made it sound nicer simply by saying that he set out to do good and ended up doing well.
I greatly admire Robert Jeffress (and it tells me much that he has become part of Trumps inner circle) so I will let his words from the article speak for me:
Robert Jeffress, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas and a spiritual advisor to President Trump, delivered a blunt rebuke of the so-called conservative writer.
“George Will’s article reveals that he is neither a conservative nor a Christian,” Jeffress told the Todd Starnes Radio Show.
Now that is a righteous answer. We should all hope to have enemies who smear us for our faith and our walk in that faith.
Just as they did Jesus.
Will is a very small man.
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