Billy Graham's influence and legacy

© 2018 Christy K Robinson

I turned on the TV at 9:00 this morning and learned that the evangelist Billy Graham had died overnight. He was 99 years old and world-renowned for his integrity. Hundreds of thousands of people gave their lives to the Lord as a result of his enthusiastic (the word origin of 'enthuse,' en theos, is for God to enter in) crusade sermons.

Billy Graham in 1964
Religion News Service

My parents and I attended a Billy Graham crusade in Phoenix in April 1964 at the ASU Sun Devil stadium. I wasn't yet in first grade, so I don't remember much. But my parents admired him immensely, and were proud that their regular donations to the ministry got them a color photo of the Graham family and a Christmas card.

I admired him for a couple of things in particular:
1. He was relentlessly interdenominational, focused on Jesus instead of denominational creeds, and he did not recommend that new believers join a particular denomination but a Bible-believing church. This meant they'd have to make decisions based on visiting, fellowship, and Bible study.
2. He was in favor of the separation of church and state as liberty of conscience, for all people to worship their god as they were called to. Though he was frequently a counselor to American presidents and world leaders, he didn't offend people of other religions or denominations.

He wrote in a July 4 devotional thought,

"On this Independence Day we should be on our knees thanking God for all He has given us. The United States is a country in which everyone has an equal opportunity. Thank God for a country where there is no caste or class to keep a man from going to the top. If a man has a will to work and study, he can go ahead regardless of his background. In addition, thank God, He has given us freedom of religion. Whatever you may believe, no one can close your church because your religion does not coincide with his. A few people meeting in a small, out-of-the-way shack, worshiping God as they believe in Him, have the same right to religious freedom as the people who worship God in the great cathedrals on the avenues of our greatest cities."

However, regarding his visits to and influence on American presidents and politics, there's this regret.

"Inside the Beltway is a different world," Graham said to biographer William Martin, author of A Prophet with Honor. "That's the reason I don't go there anymore if I can help it. I'm glad I live down here on these mountains. I don't go to Washington much, and I don't go to the Hill much. I used to have lots of friends that I'd go back and see—congressmen and senators—but for years I haven't done that. I just don't want to go. I feel God has called me to a much higher calling."

"I came close to identifying the American way of life with the kingdom of God," Graham told Christianity Today more than 10 years after Nixon resigned. "Then I realized that God had called me to a higher kingdom than America. I have tried to be faithful to my calling as a minister of the gospel."

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/billy-graham/what-i-would-have-done-differently.html

On Nov. 19, 2004, I was invited by a friend in our church praise group to go with her and her friends to the last evangelism tour of Billy Graham before he retired. I accepted, and it was wonderful. It was held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and nearly every seat was filled, though the crusade ran for about a week. It was slickly produced, and I suspect not just for a Hollywood crowd, but for any city, anywhere.

The stage participants included George Beverly Shea ("How Great Thou Art"), actor Jim Caviezel, singer-songwriter Michael W. Smith, Billy's son Franklin, and several others.

The Rose Bowl sign

Unknown, Deborah Curbelo, unknown, and Christy Robinson

Billy Graham sermon

Singer-songwriter Michael W. Smith

Franklin Graham

George Beverly Shea and choir

Actor Jim Caviezel gives testimony
about acting in "The Passion of the Christ."

Thousands of people poured onto the Rose Bowl field to
accept Christ and be prayed for, while Shea sang "Just As I Am."

Billy Graham had his faults, including speaking words of anti-Semitism with Richard Nixon (he apologized when the tapes came out), and advising evangelicals to resist expanding civil and human rights for LGBT people. Some people think that back in the late 70s, he was the foot in the door for the religious right to take over the Republican Party.

But on the whole, he made the Son of God accessible and loving and full of grace, a contrast from what people had heard for hundreds of years.

His son, Franklin Graham, trained in business and not theology or ministry,

"has mocked both Islam and LGBT rights. He uses his following on social media to raise funds for "persecuted Christians," boycotts businesses that use gay couples in advertisements and blasts the separation of church and state as the godless successor to Cold War communism." https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/21/billy-graham-americas-pastor-has-died/858017001/

Regarding the revelation of Trump’s payment of $130,000 for the silence of a porn actress Trump slept with during his marriage to third wife Melania, Franklin Graham told MSNBC in January 2018,

“Now did he have an affair with this woman? I have no clue, but I believe that 70 years of age, the president is a much different person today than he was four years ago, five years ago, ten years ago, or whatever, and we just have to give the man the benefit of the doubt. He said he didn’t do it, so okay, let’s say he didn’t do it.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/01/21/franklin-graham-dismisses-trumps-alleged-affair-hes-not-president-perfect/#LmbVdx3w25LiIfGd.99

Never mind that Trump himself said he does not confess his sins. Or that innumerable lies come out of that oral sphincter. That kind of statement about Trump, coming from high-profile evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham, Jerry Fallwell, and Tony Perkins, essentially gives him (and other Christians behaving immorally) a pass on sin. Take him at his word? His corrupt word? No.

"People conceived and brought into life by God don’t make a practice of sin. How could they? God’s seed is deep within them, making them who they are. It’s not in the nature of the God-begotten to practice and parade sin. Here’s how you tell the difference between God’s children and the Devil’s children: The one who won’t practice righteous ways isn’t from God, nor is the one who won’t love brother or sister. A simple test." 1 John 3:9-10.

When her uncle Franklin Graham portrays Trump as someone who was elected President by the will of God and upholding the cause of Jesus, Billy Graham's granddaughter Jerusha Armfield says he “diminishes not only my Jesus but all he stood for and came to Earth to fight against.” Washington Times.




Though Franklin Graham has done some good humanitarian work with Samaritan's Purse, he's proven himself a bigot and a political partisan that can't pass the sniff test of John 13:34-35: “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other." 

Billy Graham mellowed as he aged, and seemed to have compassion for sinners, though not approval of their ways. I hope that his son will similarly find humility and God's heart, rather than notoriety as a political commentator for the corrupt Right.

I know what it's like to lose both parents, and though I believe in eternal life, the grief of their loss in my world comes in waves, even years later. I pray that the Graham family finds comfort and joy in remembering the love among them, and that they take the legacy of Billy and Ruth Graham into their own lives, for generations to come.

Imagine what a thrill, what a ride, it is, to be en theos and know God is using you to effect change in this world. Billy Graham knew that enthusiasm and gave that gift to countless others.

Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:

·       Discovering Love (inspiration)

·       Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)

·       William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

and of these books:

·       We Shall Be Changed (2010)

·       Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)

·       Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)

·       The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)

·       Effigy Hunter (2015)

·       Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)

Thoughts and prayers -- and touch

© 2018 Christy K Robinson

 
Whether it's holding hands, massage, reiki, prayerful anointing (laying on of hands), acupressure, or another form of therapeutic healing, touch can be either a dramatic or subtle healing tool. The act of caressing a dog or cat can lower our blood pressure and heart rate. 

Many of us have seen videos of faith healing services with some notorious evangelist breathing on cloths, and smacking people on their forehead, or telling people their amalgam dental fillings have turned to gold as evidence of healing. The miracle healer struts around and hollers at God and the devil, and either the gullible are persuaded they're cured, or the hired actors walk away from their mobility aids.

But miraculous healing does occur daily around the world, and cancer goes into remission. People who were clinically dead for a few minutes or an hour rise again, alive. Doctors and scientists say they were baffled that the tumor which had been terminal just disappeared, or the person with no heartbeat comes back to normal rhythm. And people whose child had been near death with a fever believe in the power of prayer because their child survived.

Miracles, by their nature, are a surprise. But there are occasions when we can bring on a degree of healing or recovery, by our actions (living a healthier lifestyle, seeking medical intervention, surgery, a drug regimen, physical therapy), or by prayer. The recipient wants and needs change, whether or not they believe in God. The skin contact from touching the sick person, especially while praying, helps the spirit help the body.

And it's not only other humans. When my cat was 9 years old, she had a three-year vaccination administered to her, and a few days later became very ill. The emergency vet gave her fluids and a blood test, and said she probably had pancreatitis, which can be very painful, and can lead to cancer. My cat wouldn't accept the expensive pain meds I was supposed to rub on her gums. So I laid both hands on her and prayed that God would heal her. He did.

In the book of Isaiah, we learn that by the stripes laid on Jesus, we are healed. Whether healed from disease, injury, or the sinful condition, that's up to God.

When my mom was so ill with lung disease or internally injured from the side effects of so many drugs she took to stay alive, I'd lay hands on her arm, shoulders, or back and pray for her, and she said she felt better. She's been gone more than 25 years, but I don't regret the time I spent with her when she needed me, nor was I embarrassed by her request. There was no miraculous cure wrought by my prayer or my touch, but the fact that it was a touch of love was enough to give her a sense of well-being. And since both of us were Christian believers, we believed that God was present and providing a measure of relief and comfort.

There were several times when I spent the night at my mother's hospital bed, holding her hand and reading the Bible aloud to her. When she recovered, she said she'd heard me and loved it. The night before she died, I didn't get a verbal response from her, and her monitors didn't register a change, but there was a supernatural connection between us that I am convinced was comfort from the Holy Spirit given to both of us.

While the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them. Luke 4:40 

Jesus broke tradition and even the health laws of the Old Testament, and touched the untouchable and the unclean: the lepers and those with contagious skin disease, the woman who had been menstrually bleeding for 12 years, the dead daughter of Jairus, the immoral woman who washed and anointed his feet, foreigners and Gentiles, the demon-possessed, the blind beggar, and countless others not recorded. He even went out of his way to search out those who felt unworthy. Granted, that was Jesus--the Creator, the Son of God--healing people.

But he gave that power to his disciples when he sent them on short missionary trips. And he promised that when he returned to heaven, the Holy Spirit would come to us, and work greater miracles through us than he had through Jesus! 

I don't claim the gift of healing, but neither would I turn away a gift of the Spirit. 

Nigel Barber, PhD, in a Psychology Today article called Faith Healing Shouldn't Work, but it Does," writes that

"It is always hard to make much sense of such anecdotal phenomena to the satisfaction of scientists but faith healing seems to evoke a placebo effect, not unlike the use of drugs to treat people who are mildly depressed (and therefore experience no true pharmacological response to the medicine). ... Social pressure might also be a factor as we feel pressure to believe in the cure after the manner of The Emperor's New Clothes."

As a Christian, I believe that healing comes from God, sometimes miraculously and instantaneously, sometimes over the long term, and sometimes we see no change, and continue to suffer and die, and then are resurrected to eternal life.

But I also believe that the power of touch is real, no matter what your belief system is. Touch may be a placebo effect, or a belief in love, or a supernatural spiritual gift, but yes, it's powerful to the person being touched. It's a mantle of peace settling down over the shoulders.

But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.  But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 

**********  

Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:

• Discovering Love (inspiration)
• Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
• William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

and of these books:

·          We Shall Be Changed (2010)
·          Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)
·          Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)
·          The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)
·          Effigy Hunter (2015)
·          Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)