Time for an update on the Graham family, as in Franklin, Anne and Billy.
On Sept. 28-29, world traveler Franklin Graham will headline one of his crusade-like festivals in Reykjavik, Iceland.
The president of the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association could get a frosty reception in this small (population 320,000) island country in Northern Europe.
Graham’s opposition to same-sex marriage – the BGEA ran ads promoting North Carolina’s Amendment One in 2012 – may spark protests. The country’s former prime minister (Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir), was the world’s first openly homosexual leader elected to head a national government.
According to Icelandic news reports, gay activists found a way to snap up most of the free tickets to Graham’s festival in hopes that he’d address a nearly empty arena. Organizers devised a way for churches to distribute the tickets.
Graham’s take? “My desire for this festival is to share the good news of God’s love for sinners – all sinners, which includes me – and I want anyone in search of hope to know what God has done for them in his desire for each of us to experience his peace,” Graham said in a statement to the Observer. “God’s message is for all of Iceland, whether you are rich or poor, young or old, gay or straight, church member or unchurched, believer in God or atheist.”
Meanwhile, Franklin’s older sister, Anne Graham Lotz, a Raleigh-based evangelist, has authored a new book with an intriguing title: “Wounded by God’s People.” In its pages, she writes about how Christians often inflict pain on other Christians.“They think when they’re hurt by God’s people, they’re hurt by God,” Lotz recently told Fox News. “Don’t throw away God.”
Here’s what Lotz told Fox about her father, Billy Graham, who turns 95 in November:
“He’s doing really well,” she said. “His mind is clear, which I’m so thankful of. It takes him a little longer to recall things. … Has a hard time seeing. Has macular degeneration. Hard time hearing, which is my biggest difficulty with him. He can’t hear my voice on the phone. … Has a hard time walking. He uses a walker or wheelchair. But his spirit is good.”
-- Tim Funk
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19 comments:
The Grahams are following in the steps of the Apostles, recounted in The Book of Acts, preaching Christ where most listeners don't even know their need of Him, and where many will resist The Good News of what He has done for them and the joyful life he has in store for them. "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12.
To this day, I love Billy Graham, even though we disagree on some things. He and Ruth were inspirational. How they produced such mean and intellectually incurious children is beyond me. Franklin seems to have struggled his whole life with containing his anger. It is ironic that Ann writes about being hurt by Christians considering some of the awful things she has said about other human beings, especially gays. I wish them well, but I also wish they set better examples.
bobcat99, you beat me to it. Love Billy, infuriated with his kids.
Eskimo: 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' Priest: 'No, not if you did not know.'
Eskimo: 'Then why did you tell me?'
Please consider that the Graham children grew up basically without a father, and with pressures that most of us will never know. Also, the world, particularly as it regards the ubiquitous "gay/straight" conversation that abounds these days, was a different place when Billy was in his prime. Not making excuses, but they are dealing with a much different world than he did, and dealing with it in an age where the media and the Internet have made for the immediate dissemination of information, for good and ill.
Enlightened, well-educated Europeans are not the most fertile fodder for the divisive, politically motivated "religion" offered up by the likes of Franklin Graham and his sister - willing and eager mouthpieces for the worst, mean-spirited, intolerant elements of today's Republican Party. Never have two apples fallen further from the tree.
The Europeans had over a millennium of oppression under the repressive thumb of the Roman Catholic Church. They know that Big Religion from the United States is far more about control than righteousness.
The Europeans don't believe in discriminating against gay people, they don't believe in limiting a woman's reproductive choices, and they don't believe in a society that fosters an unholy division of wealth that rewards the uber-wealthy to such extremes at the expense of the middle class - who actually create and produce that wealth - and the poor, who are left behind like so much cannon fodder and then ridiculed for their lot in life.
In short, the Icelanders are progressive and enlightened; the Grahams, not so much. I hope that stadium is empty, and that Franklin and Anne learn a much needed lesson from it.
There's no business like the religion business.
Why hate the Grahams unless you are of the liberal minions?
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Creator owns everything in the universe. This is his earth you live on, his water you drink, his oxygen you breath, his food you eat, his animals, his plants, his atoms and molecules etc. You own nothing except free will. Nothing has changed or ever will.
Nothing ever changes with Creator the Great Scientist and the Alpha and Omega the Omnipotent and Omniscient. There is no escape and you cant run or hide.
There will be no group judgment socialism. Individual judgment only who does not create sin so there is no homosexual gene. Babies are all born with a clean slate. Sin is learned. Male and female created for each other. Heterosexuals always make the right choice with their free will. Homosexuals always make the wrong choice with their free will.
Thank you Graham family and Franklin Graham. You know who your enemies are. Muslim pagans and homosexual sodomites top the list.
That defines the AC DC White House today as stated in Revelation.
Myers Park Baptist
People don't like you messing with their favorite sins. They don't like you telling them that they are doing something wrong. They want this ooey gooey big guy in the sky to be their buddy and their pal and tell them that if they want it or need it, it's ok wink wink. BUT God does tell us what is right and what is wrong. And He does tell us, we just choose to ignore it. BUT the good news of the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day 1 Cor 15 1-4. Those that trust that alone for their salvation are saved, gay or straight. But preaching what God considers sin is only tagged as hate if you either refuse what He says or just don't care.
@Anon 10:27am. "Heterosexuals always make the right choice with their free will?"
You’re right. Erica Parsons parents are heroes. Ariel Castro is a role model for all straight males. Zahra Baker’s parents are stellar. You may want to be a little more careful with your absolutes.
The 39 christian signer Founders of the US Constitutions on Spet 17, 1787 in Philadelphia meant for christianity to be "freedom of speech" in code word as the sole eternal universal divine truth and not a simple pagan "religion". No wall of separation mentioned.
America has it all backwards.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"
Precisely why he is going there, Mr. Funk. You just don't get it, do you?
Hey Anon 10:32 - Thanks for that sterling example of the love and tolerance so often on display from the Christian Right. And for making my point, although you did so unwittingly - and with all-too-typical nastiness.
@Anon 11:20am - Don't forget the Treaty of Tripoli from 1796. Here's an interesting clause from it:
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Mohammedan] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Most of the founding fathers were deists, not fundamentalist evangelicals. Deists believed that a god existed, but did not believe in a particular god certain protestants think are the only god. Many founding fathers would be laughing their a--es off at how some people today bastardize their words and thoughts. As for Franklin Graham, he should not impose himself, or his narrow worldview, in places where he is not welcome.
I'll wait for her next book:
Burnt In A Tanning Booth.
Religion and spirituality are 2 completely different things.
To Anonymous @10;27 who signed your name Myers Park Baptist I suspect with your ideology you have never darkened the door of that church or any other moderate church I see you more as a First Baptist Mark Harris disciple
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