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.
By preaching about repentance and salvation through Christ alone? Graham was no Joel Osteen.
I don't think that's quite what he meant. The fact is, there is an incredible amount of opportunity in the modern world, with its mass communications, available for enterprising people (Rush Limbaugh comes to mind) to earn considerable amounts of money telling people what they already believe but haven't the time, the inclination or the ability to enunciate for themselves. If you've got a good business sense and know your audience you can become something of a popular demigod, without even having to believe what you're preaching.
>> Is it blasphemy to criticize Billy Graham? <<
On this thread?
You betcha!
>> I heard that fool doesn’t like blue jeans <<
Reminds me of Rush Limbaugh, who brags that he has never owned blue jeans.
If you are saying that any of the soils other than the good soil refers to someone who is saved, you are misinterpreting the parable. Expanding on the parable, there may be different degrees of good soil and the seed may grow at different rates, but only the good soil produces fruit.
What a sh!t country we’ve become.
I never had any reason to think that Billy Graham was an insincere opportunist.
National Review under Low Life Lowry is a disgrace. Buckley is rolling over in his grave. Geo will is beyond vile.
Nor did I, except for this: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
NO, good soil only. The point is that some are saved, but the gospel seed often falls on bad soil. But the effort needs to be made.
I always tell my husband that he has to train his mental temperment well now as he’s in his middle age so he does not spew out bile when he’s old and has less control over his mouth.
George has lost control over his filter that goes from his mind to his mouth and fingers in his old age. His mind is a trash pit.
One of my girlfriends had to accompany her mom in a nursing home presentation on hurricane preparedness. At the end
they asked for questions and my friend began praying her mom would stay still. But she did not. Her hand shot up and she was called on and asked “Why the hell are you so fat?” George Will will be following along shortly.
Will hated Reagan in 80 and was a Bush, big government Republican. Will is a conservative only in the minds of the liberal kooks he associates with.
NRO has become the place I go to in order to find out what the Bush, Country Clubbers, Rockefeller, Crony Capitalist Republicans word of the day is, once they get it from their liberal overlords. Williamson is their token hire and a total loon and their other writers know as much about conservatism as they do about fornicating. Aside from VDHanson and occasionally AMcCarthy it is a waste of bandwidth on the scale of the NYT and PMSNBC.
“Welcome to 2018. Things have changed a bit. How is it back in 1985?”
Isn’t that the truth.
To be “profoundly disappointed” in National Review in 2018 you had to have been asleep for a few decades.
For me, NR ceased to be worth reading sometime during the admin of Bush 41.
Is that you, George?
George Will is NOT a Conservative...Will is possessed by delusions of personal greatness...his bonafides change with the wind...
Good post. And Hugh Hewitt is another source for the Bush, Crony Capitalist, GOPe word of the day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.