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.
Graham is now in a perfect place.
Bit cowardly. George Will no doubt felt this way about Graham for a long time. The decent thing to do was to publish his screed when Graham was able to respond. Of course if Will had written this 15 years ago , it would have ended his income as a “conservative writer and commentator”. BTW this is not the same National Review that Bill Buckley founded.
The sermon series at church has been about Exodus. Exodus 3 was last week.
It was about how massively, ineffably powerful God is, yet he came down to us.
One of the points used was how John pointed out that our best efforts are like filthy rags in the sight of God. I thought about Billy Graham at that moment and realized that his life, and the life of the saints, reminds us that it comes down to grace.
We don’t deserve salvation, but we get it anyway. Grace. Billy Graham’s message was simple, for a broken people. How do you criticize that.
Will fancy’s himself as an expert historian, among other things... As in the 2016 election, wrong side of history once again.
He has cemented his position as ABC’s “go to” “conservative.”
Of no earthly good, he puts the “faux” in “faux conservative.”
Hell is full of people just like George Will, he will fit right in.
Will is an avowed atheist, so his attack on Graham is understandable from a spiritual standpoint. However, this is one of the never-Trumper so-called conservatives who gave a pass to Hillary Clinton. Was his spiritual fear of Graham so great that it
overcame his residual conservative urge to be kind to an old man who was a truly remarkable figure in American religious history?
But Will still likes to dress up as a 80s conservative because it keeps the checks flowing in.
A deeply principled conservative that had almost no problem with the incoherent, non-conservate approach by GHW Bush, GW Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, etc.
Years ago, when I heard that fool doesn’t like blue jeans, I knew he was no good.
Hey, it’s a living. ;)
I think blue jeans are bad form for a guy over 40, fine for women of any age. Black jeans are always aok.
Amen to that.
In the 80s, I dearly looked forward to getting my copy of National Review. Haven’t subscribed in years, though. And online, National Review is like jumping in a cesspool of hate for anything or anyone who isn’t a NE Pseudo-Conservative Snob.
No, but the author was stating that the sort of hateful screed that Will wrote was something one would expect to see in the New York Times or Washington Post, not in an alleged conservative magazine. Will's article made it look like Graham was an evil demagogue. Whether one was a devoted follower of Graham or not, I do not see how one can see him in anything but an over all positive light, unless one is an anti-religion leftist zealot. The point of the article is that Will and National Review are certainly not conservative any longer.
I would consider this to be a valid point, although it is mixed in with a bunch of garbage that is not. It really is true of the whole revival format popularized by Charles Finney, which tends to produce results that area mile wide and an inch deep.
George Will, like Paul Mulching and Billy Crystal, is an arrogant elitist RINO. And now he has shown is PERSONALLY a despicable human being. He would never speak ill of Obama or some other liberal carrion ever croaked.
Billy Graham teamed with local churches to provide support and teaching after the revival was over. He was NOT a proponent of just walking down the aisle. Not that George Will would know or care.
Ironically, like Lucifer himself, Will’s motive are self evident.....the need for attention. Write an article like this and you’re going to get lots of attention. Narcissism is probably the one common attribute the LEFT, the GOPelites, and the Godless all have in common.
It’s why people like the Bushes, George Will, Bill Kristol, Mitt Romney, all have been on this 18 month Trump temper Tantrum. Nobody give them any attention anymore. They are irrelevant. But they aren’t giving up to stay relevant.
And more ironic........The greatest preacher of the gospel , of the blood, of the cross, of the Savior himself who warned us about this pride, this narcissism, .....the greatest preacher I have ever heard.......he had ZERO need for Attention. All he needed was his Lord and his Savior. The world is a lonelier place today with Billy Graham. And I don’t seen anyone like him around anymore........and that’s very sad and tragic for the young people of today.
Billy Graham had a very strong deist/Theistic/Universal streak.
He is on record saying things that simply do not align themselves with conservative Christian theology.
I am not judging Billy Graham… but to deny that he has said things that are totally wrong according to Scripture is simply wanting to looked the other way.
There easy to find online...but here is one for anyone that wants to take a look.
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