Has anyone but me noticed the fitting symmetry of Billy Graham’s death as the evangelical movement he nurtured is dying of the very excesses he eschewed? There is a useful lesson in the fact, but it probably is too late for his grasping successors to learn from it.
Of Graham, it should first be said that he lived comfortably but not extravagantly. However grotesque the excesses of such as Joel Osteen, Steven Furtick, Richard Roberts, et. al., Graham actually did take care of the money entrusted to him. What is more, by all accounts he was an agreeably-tempered and accessible man.
Further, Graham had the sense to steer clear of the Christian Nationalists. He said many times over the course of his years in public life that America is a Christian nation in only the narrow sense that most Americans are Christians, but that the Founding was a secular project. Good for him; he was no fan of the David Barton-like revisionists, and for that he deserves respect.
But there was a dark side to America’s Pastor, too. Famously, as revealed by the Watergate tapes, he was plenty happy to stoke Richard Nixon’s anti-Semitism and paranoia; indeed, he shared them.
In President Richard M. Nixon’s Oval Office, the Rev. Billy Graham did not mince words in describing his feelings about Jewish people and the news media: “This stranglehold has got to be broken or this country’s going down the drain.”
On Friday, Mr. Graham, 83, apologized for his words captured on audiotape 30 years ago.
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In the conversation with President Nixon, the evangelist complained about what he saw as Jewish domination of the news media.
“You believe that?” Nixon asked in response.
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Graham said.
“Oh, boy. So do I,” Nixon said. “I can’t ever say that, but I believe it.”
“No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something,” Mr. Graham said.
Those are stupid and contemptible things to say and, to his credit, he did apologize for the remarks, but in fact those sentiments remain a commonplace here in the south. I can more easily believe in the sincerity of the original slurs than in the the sincerity of the apology.
And then, of course, there is the matter of his life’s work. No matter how you try to evade it, no matter how you sugarcoat it, Christianity rests upon the claims that …
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You are no damn good,
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You will never be any damn good,
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And the only way to escape the eternity of torture that you deserve is to join our club.
Christianity can flourish only amongst the insecure, and I will die convinced that the devout never have actual thoughts for the simple reason that they will subject their children to this degrading junk every Sunday morning, and then demand the immediate termination of a school teacher who says something which faintly suggests that Li’l Precious is not the finest child to ever live.
Billy Graham lived honorably within the framework of his beliefs — but his beliefs were degrading, innately decadent, and an engine of human misery. I hope his passing was peaceful, and I am glad he’ll miss the crack-up of the movement he did so much to afflict us with.