Billy Graham, 1918-2018

[Linna Heartbooger]

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness. Consciously or unconsciously, his inner being longs for both. There are times when man actually cries for them, even though in his restlessness, confusion, loneliness, fear, and pressures he may not know what he is crying for.

So begins his book "The Holy Spirit."
What a stark picture. And what pity.
People wondered over what made his words so compelling.

A report in the London Daily Mail during one of Billy Graham's early campaigns in England explains the urgency that comes from a conviction that the gospel is truth. It said, "He has no magnetism; he has no appeal to the emotions. His power -- and power he has -- is the indivisible conviction that he knows the right way of life.

Though at least once, he & his team were accused of trying to manipulate people's emotions with the song played after he spoke.
"Just as I am," is the song they were talking about.
It's got a lovely piece of much-needed gospel truth - that we each come to God empty-handed - not after "getting it together."

And that was a truth that he lived.

At his funeral, one of Billy Graham's daughters told about what happened after her second divorce.
When she'd told her parents she was planning to get married, they'd encouraged her to wait and get to know the man first.
But she thought, "What do they know about being divorced? Or a single mom?"
So she rushed into that marriage anyway.
And it was a nightmare. Within 24 hours, she said, she knew she'd made a terrible mistake. In about 5 weeks, she fled from the man.

So this daughter drove to her parents' home, wondering, "What will they say?"
She laughed and said, "You don't want to embarrass your father..." and added that you REALLY don't want to embarrass Billy Graham!
But as she rounded the last bend, her daddy was waiting for her.
And he wrapped his arms around her and said, 'Welcome home.' "

I know relatively little about Billy Graham - it's more like "knowing someone by reputation."
But enough to say, "Let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his!"

[Fist and Faith]

Not surprisingly, I know next to nothing about him. I have heard some negative things about some of the big-name preachers, but only good about him. He was in an episode of The Crown. Apparently, Queen Elizabeth thought he was great. Good episode.

[Zarathustra]

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

Weird, I have never felt that I needed forgiveness, except every now and then for small things. I wouldn't call it a "great spiritual need." You apologize, and move on.

But then, I don't believe a mythology that makes me feel quilty for being born.

Of course he thinks this is one of our "great spiritual needs," (even though it's entirely possible to go through life never feeling it), because it coincides with the belief system/scam that earned him all his money. Billy Graham became rich and famous for pimping a mythology that starts from a place of guilt--teaches people they are "evil" from birth--and thus the "great need for forgiveness." So, he spent his entire life making humans feel guilty for being humans, and in the process made them feel obligated to give his "ministry" money. What a harmful waste of time. So passes another worthless waste of human life, infected with toxic beliefs, and those beliefs being spread to millions of others.

Glad he is no longer spreading such toxic, harmful bullshit.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

[Linna Heartbooger]

... He was in an episode of The Crown. Apparently, Queen Elizabeth thought he was great. Good episode.

Huh, cool! Billy Graham playing himself, or an actor playing Billy Graham?


Z- I disagree with your thoughts on this.

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

Weird, I have never felt that I needed forgiveness, except every now and then for small things. I wouldn't call it a "great spiritual need." You apologize, and move on.

Many people are trying to suppress awareness of how they've wronged others.
Like, say you have a person in a family who is cheating on their spouse, or freeloading off of the rest of the family (while complaining about tiny tasks he/she does do).
And if someone tries to call them on it - any of it - they freak out and deny.
Or they focus on finding fault in the way the other person talked to them.

Now, one thing that is probably going on is that this person wants to keep on doing what he or she is doing with impunity.
But I think some such people effectively don't believe that there is such a thing as "forgiveness."
(and forgiveness has its fake-forgiveness strawmen!)
They think if they admit to even one thing, they will fall down and down and down and never stop falling.

But then, I don't believe a mythology that makes me feel guilty for being born.

Do you think there is no such thing as a significant act of forgiveness? Forgiveness that's not just about saying words to make either the giver or receiver of forgiveness feel better?

Of course he thinks this is one of our "great spiritual needs," (even though it's entirely possible to go through life never feeling it), because it coincides with the belief system/scam that earned him all his money. Billy Graham became rich and famous for pimping a mythology that starts from a place of guilt--teaches people they are "evil" from birth--and thus the "great need for forgiveness." So, he spent his entire life making humans feel guilty for being humans, and in the process made them feel obligated to give his "ministry" money. What a harmful waste of time. So passes another worthless waste of human life, infected with toxic beliefs, and those beliefs being spread to millions of others...

I think that your views are pretty reasonable for the assumption set you're working with.
We're kind of looking at the question of "Guilt - what's up with that?"
I think that guilt is an objective part of reality and that good preaching helps people unearth guilt & deal with it.
It sounds like you think guilt is just a human construct, and that guilt only drags people down. If that were true - oh, man - he would have such a disreputable gig.

Whether Billy Graham's life was based on wisdom or foolishness depends on what kind of universe we live in.

[Avatar]

I think it depends not on what kind of universe we live in, but on what we believe about it.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

... He was in an episode of The Crown. Apparently, Queen Elizabeth thought he was great. Good episode.

Huh, cool! Billy Graham playing himself, or an actor playing Billy Graham?

An actor. Elizabeth saw him preach somewhere, and invited him to the palace a couple times.

[Skyweir]

Yeah .. I read some interview with Graham where he more or less admitted to not believing in what he preached. I certainly wouldnt revere a character like Graham. Yes he is reputed to have done much good .. though not knowing what comprised that much good . I cant say whether that is indeed a truism. But he made his wealth doing it .. and if experience has taught me anything is its all about the money ..

Id be happy to learn otherwise.. but until I do .. Im .with Z ..

Yes not a thing I claim often .. as Z and I fall on opposite sides of the political spectrum .. but clearly our politics does not define us

[Zarathustra]

Linna, you dealt with my 'blasphemy' with calm maturity. I'm glad you didn't take offense.

I'm torn, becuase I don't want to offend Christians, especially fellow Watchers, but I think religion is evil and people like Graham are great decievers of humanity. I'm certainly not going to celebrate his death or anything so gruesome, so I hope everyone understood my comments were aimed at his beliefs and effect on others. I think it robs us of our humanity to be plagued by guilt over the alleged sin of mythological humans, Adam and Eve. Not only do I think it's ridiculous to think that an alleged god would need to sacrifice his son to forgive us (I never need to kill someone to forgive someone else, much less my son), but the idea that we would need to be forgiven for the actions of people in a silly story ... it just stuns me that people in the 21st century take this seriously.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

… I'm certainly not going to celebrate his death or anything so gruesome …

[Fist and Faith]

but I think religion is evil and people like Graham are great decievers of humanity.

Not if he is just one of the deceived. Maybe he believed it, thought it was important, and shared it because he thought he was helping others. He wasn't trying to deceive anybody. He was just another victim of human frailty.

Do you think there is no such thing as a significant act of forgiveness? Forgiveness that's not just about saying words to make either the giver or receiver of forgiveness feel better?

I think there is no such thing. That's what forgiveness is all about. If the parents of a murder victim forgive the murderer, they get to live happier lives. They don't spend every moment in rage, possibly plotting and attempting some act of revenge. Because even if they got revenge, the rage remains. Until you find a way to let it go. Forgiving the killer is one possibility.

In some cases, the killer also feels better from having been forgiven. For what that's worth.

But that's it. The victim doesn't return to life. And even without the rage, the parents will never not feel the greatest grief life has to offer.

[Zarathustra]

Wos, call me old fashioned, but I don't speak in gifs. I've always believed if you have something worth saying, then you should just say it.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Caught up on reading this thread... I find lots of the ideas being brought up intriguing. (maybe some of them deserve their own threads. or already have them.)
I'm kind of made happy by the extent to which people are trying to see things from both sides. (I'm sure everyone wanted to know that, lol.)

Hey Sky, from earlier... I wanted to respond to one thing you said... that it didn't sound like Billy Graham.
The open cynicism... that doesn't sound in character.
(I was cringing though, because if I say to a friend, "No, I don't think that's accurate," my friend to will normally feel like I'm against her.)

Yeah .. I read some interview with Graham where he more or less admitted to not believing in what he preached. I certainly wouldnt revere a character like Graham. Yes he is reputed to have done much good .. though not knowing what comprised that much good . I cant say whether that is indeed a truism. But he made his wealth doing it .. and if experience has taught me anything is its all about the money ..

Id be happy to learn otherwise.. but until I do .. Im .with Z ..

Yes not a thing I claim often .. as Z and I fall on opposite sides of the political spectrum .. but clearly our politics does not define us

I would love to watch the interview you remember, and then we could figure out what was up with that!
But we can't unless we figure out which one it was...
So instead, here is a scrap of Graham's story about him having doubts.

...preachers need to grapple with doubts they have about the authority of the Bible. ...Often the insensitive responses to doubters frustrate the doubters and make wholesome wrestling with problems difficult to do... so much at stake in this battle that those who struggle with doubt must do so to a finish.

Billy Graham had such a battle when he was thirty years old. There were questions his friend and fellow Youth For Christ evangelist Charles Templeton (who later abandoned Christianity) and others were asking that he could not answer. Billy was deeply troubled by doubts. It all came to a head at a conference under the leadership of the great Bible teacher Henrietta Mears... One night he came to the point of saying that he was going to accept what the Bible says "by faith," even though he could not answer some of the questions his friends were raising.

Graham says this step "gave power and authority to my preaching that has never left me..."

(and then he goes on to talk about that change in his preaching... in a way that's encouraging to some, perhaps disturbing to others.)

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with.

Thank you for these - these thoughts are encouragement for me.

[Skyweir]

Ugh I thought I'd replied to this _



Yes Linna they are great Billy Graham quotes. He was a talented orator.

I read your quote, yes they did cover the doubts he had in his early days .. but it was more about his resignation to disbelief than his path of faith in answer to doubt.

I will track down the interview for you. And don't worry dear Linna, I doubt I would ever have cause to ever think untoward of you

[Linna Heartbooger]

Linna, you dealt with my 'blasphemy' with calm maturity. I'm glad you didn't take offense.

I'm torn, becuase I don't want to offend Christians, especially fellow Watchers...

Actually, Wos helped us here.

He played a part in making me being able to respond with as much calm as I did.
I saw his meme-ing you, (Ya got meme'd, Z! Face it!) and like...
...I know Wos reads books on theology and books on philosophy by the ream. (Gen Lit Disc., yo, people!)
But, in this conversation, he chose to engage in a sort of court-jester role.

And I was telling myself "Don't laugh at it - memes lower the level of dialogue!"
But I laughed anyway.
And I think the laughter is not all bad.
You'd sort of... crossed a line people don't often cross; you'd done something that wasn't socially-normative in a conversation about a person's death.
When there's that in a conversation, there's this sense that someone from the community has to respond to it to balance.
But since Wos had, I think, expressed that a line had been crossed, I felt no pressure to so.
So he was participating in a system where what we are together is greater than the sum of its parts.
(whether its parts are posts or Watchers, I'm not sure!)

I mean, this is a dialogue about a man who spent his life convincing others to believe as he did about huge, ultimate ideological things, and the meaning of a human's life. And it was about life and death, heroism and foolishness.
Of course such discussions often get intense

I mean, my life has gotten some pain and so much joy from what I understand the "Christian worldview" as Graham preached to be saying.
From stuff you've said, Z, it sounds like your life received a lot of garbage and disappointments from what you understand "the Christian worldview" to be saying.
Ideology matters.
And ideology is so often mediated by persons.

I think there is no such thing. That's what forgiveness is all about. If the parents of a murder victim forgive the murderer, they get to live happier lives. They don't spend every moment in rage, possibly plotting and attempting some act of revenge. Because even if they got revenge, the rage remains. Until you find a way to let it go. Forgiving the killer is one possibility.

In some cases, the killer also feels better from having been forgiven. For what that's worth.

But that's it. The victim doesn't return to life. And even without the rage, the parents will never not feel the greatest grief life has to offer.

Fist- Powerful stuff!
Good description of how the psychology of that can go... I mean, I've obsessively plotted vengeance for far lesser things...
And we know these things happen in this ole' world.

I will track down the interview for you. And don't worry dear Linna, I doubt I would ever have cause to ever think untoward of you

Sky- okay!
I am, of course, hoping that it will turn out to be one of those things where a guy is being a cagey preacher with a surprise conclusion!