When Siri told me that Billy Graham was dead, I was sorry to hear it. It reminded me of my grandparents, and almost anything that does that brings me a wave of nostalgia. They liked Graham, I think; at least, I remember watching Crusades at their house a few times. They liked the TV preachers.
I’m glad the televangelism fad is mostly dead, to be honest. It was shallow, vapid, vulgar, and corrupt. I’m not sure any of those adjectives applies to Billy Graham, but let’s say not. Let’s stipulate that he wasn’t in it for the ambition or the money, but to save souls. Let us not judge, but pray for his soul to enter paradise. Inshallah.
Billy Graham believed that marriage is only between a man and a woman. He believed in gay conversion therapy. Which is fine as far as his faith goes; it was his right to form his own beliefs and live his life accordingly. But Graham worked for the passage of anti-gay laws. Public laws, not church laws. He believed he and his church should practice their religion. He believed that everyone should be required by law to practice his religion.
That’s wrong. Our Lord Jesus did not teach us to force others into our system of beliefs and practices. And our Constitution simply makes it illegal.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
– Robert A. Heinlein
I’ve read that Graham’s mortal relic will lie in state in the Capitol. I do not care. They can toss a dead squirrel in from the grass outside, cover it with a little flag, and it won’t generate interest on my part. The US Capitol is the home of vast indifference toward the best interest of the American people, the source of nothing but animosity for almost all of us. So I consider it no honor to lie in state in that vacuous cavern.
I’ve seen what Barack Obama has written, mourning Graham’s passing and honoring him. So maybe there was something to the sum and summit of his character that I have overlooked. If I call myself a wise man, it surely means that I don’t know.
But I will not mourn this man. I will pray that God will forgive Billy Graham for exacerbating the suffering of LGBT people and their families, for using his pulpit to influence secular legislation to deny social justice and civil rights to his fellow citizens, and to hold back the rightful progress of human cultural evolution. Amen.
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