How Billy Graham Avoided Scandal His Entire Life

Charisma News ^ | 3/1/2018 | J. Lee Grady

[P-Marlowe]

i told you you should have quit while you were behind.

[Bodleian_Girl]

Is that bad, to believe the Bible?

[Jamestown1630]

Many people also have a bad taste in their mouths about God because of religion. They had a bad experience with religion and project that onto God and in rightly rejecting the religion, inadvertently also end up rejecting God.

I can't speak for Hot Tabasco; but he/she doesn't seem to have a problem with 'God'. The problem - if there is one - seems to be PRECISELY with 'religion' - as evidenced by all of this HUMAN infighting among religious sects. We see this tiresome stuff on FR all the time.

All of this fighting and arguing certainly turns many people away from religion who might otherwise become interested in embracing it. People want to see that your religion is somehow/somewhat 'transformative'; they want to see how it has made you different and transcendent of all the petty stuff, if even in a small way.

But when individuals feel obliged to fight so much to prove the superiority of their particular 'flavor' of religion, they lose credibility among those who might be looking for... something.

By all of this arguing, the religious actually DISprove; they don't Prove.

People undergo 'bad experiences with religion' on FR, almost every day...

[metmom]

Just what flavors of religion are so many promoting as being superior?

Could you name a few denominations and just who is promoting them as being better than anyone else’s?

[Jamestown1630]

People seem to be doing so by inference, with snarky comments toward others who don't believe every jot and tittle in the same way as they do themselves.

Just picking out a few comments that I've seen:

"many of those claiming to be His people sure aren’t."

"yeah I’m sure you don’t want to read something that might make you question your uninformed presuppositions. Just stay ignorant. Ignorance is bliss."

  "Look who's talking. You're projecting a little too much there."

I'm just saying that all of this contentious, and sometimes snarky, back-and-forth isn't useful - not to mention that it's ungracious, and certainly not the way that Jesus would express himself.

If you want to bring people to God, I don't think that this approach is working. It just turns people off.

[metmom]

So your complaint isn’t really about one religion positing itself as being superior to others after all.

So tell me this....

Do you think it’s acceptable to misrepresent something someone said almost 60 years ago and spread your interpretation of the comment about as a fact to slander a person?

And that has NOTHING to do with religion but rather character assassination. And I would object even if the issue wasn’t about what someone said concerning religion.

BTW, what’s your opinion of the topic of the thread?

[P-Marlowe]

Is that bad, to believe the Bible?

It’s too bad Billy Graham didn’t. He might have amounted to something.

[Jamestown1630]

I think I already told the thread my opinion of it.

I grew up listening to Graham - and to Bishop Sheen. I thought they were both men who took their faith seriously, and were admirable, faithful men who did an enormous lot of good in the world.

I’ve also said, on this thread, that ‘avoiding scandal’ as Billy Graham (and Mike Pence) have done, is a logical approach to being a public figure.

I’m not at all interested in your various arguments with Bodleian Girl, over baptism. I think arguments like that are a destructive distraction, and don’t really mean much to individuals who are sincerely seeking God.

I don’t think that God cares much about them, either.

[Bodleian_Girl]

Proverbs 11:30

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.

[metmom]

I’m not arguing with her over baptism.

I’m objecting to her making the thread about her interpretation of an off the cuff remark he made 57 years ago, treating it as a fact, and her condemning him for it.

She made a claim about him that she cannot back up and has ignored the topic of the thread.

I’ve suggested to her several times that if she wants to discuss that particular topic, then she should start her own thread about it.

That has not happened yet.

[P-Marlowe]

I’ll stipulate to that.

[Bodleian_Girl]

Thank you.

[Jamestown1630]

Maybe you should just give it up as a loss; and go pray.

I’m sure where he is right now, Billy Graham doesn’t care at all.

[metmom]

Give up what?

I posted a thread about the incredible integrity the man displayed in his public life and organization so that in more than 75 years of the ministry operating, it was never hit with a scandal.

Why do you have a problem with that?

[P-Marlowe]

There are those who admire Billy Graham and then there are those that don’t. Looks like you and I are numbered among the former.

[Jamestown1630]

I have no problem with it. And I agree entirely with your assessment of Billy Graham.

But you seem to have become overwrought because of some of the responses that you’ve received.

Responding to them has been a waste of time and energy that may have been better spent on some other endeavor. If you think about that, you might agree.

You can’t make people agree with you; and arguing with them online is a huge energy-sapper.

God Bless!

[P-Marlowe]

The thread was pretty Civil up to post 40 when someone accused Graham of teaching a “False Gospel”. Sorry but I felt compelled to respond.

If Billy Graham preached a false gospel, then I must be a heretic.

I believe Billy Graham was the modern day John the Baptist bringing the gospel of repentance and salvation to a lost world.

Unfortunately some Baptists seem to think he was a heretic.

[Jamestown1630]

John 21:22

[Bodleian_Girl]

Why is it ok for you to argue a position but she can’t?

[Jamestown1630]

Anyone can argue, if they want to.

I’m just saying that contentious arguing about doctrine isn’t very useful. Say what you believe, post it; and leave the contentiousness out of it.