June 16, 2015 5:06 AM

Franklin Graham: A Christian in the same way Jeffrey Dahmer was vegan

Franklin Graham, the religious crackpot and second-generation swindler, is in the news again. This time he’s taking a triumphant stand against the banking giant Wells Fargo. Why Wells Fargo, you ask? According to Graham, one of their recent ads “went beyond being gay-friendly to being a public advocate.” The ad itself is hardly provocative. It features a lesbian couple learning sign language as they prepare to adopt a deaf child. Apparently, that was too much sin for Graham to bear. Of the many injustices done by Wells Fargo, it’s illustrative that Graham disowned the banking institution for one of the few things they’ve gotten right; it really highlights just how distorted his moral compass is. The world is awash in actual evil, and he’s indignant about an ad celebrating a couple’s commitment to adopting an orphaned child. What an egregious waste of human energy, and what a thoroughly stupid thing to be exercised about.

Franklin Graham had a chance to be somebody important, a voice of reason that Christians could look to as a leader and a man of God. He could have been someone who modeled what living a Christ-like life looked. He could have made a difference and worked to make the world a better, kinder place, one where people looked out for and cared about one another. He could have taught the love, tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion that his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ preached. He could have done all those things. Instead, he’s chosen to represent a brand of Christianity that has little if anything to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ…and everything to do with hatred, anger, exclusion, and intolerance.

I may not believe in God, but I remember enough from my Sunday School days to recall that Jesus Christ wasn’t about condemnation and moral outrage. He wasn’t about judging and holding oneself above others out of a twisted and misplaced sense of moral superiority. He was about service- feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, healing the sick- and selflessness. These are all things Graham should have learned in his first year at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion Institute of Theology…or wherever it was he matriculated and earned his Theology degree.

Instead of endeavoring to set an example by leading a truly Christ-like life, Graham has become the very public face of a fire-and-brimstone brand of Christianity that has little to do with the teachings of its namesake. Graham represents a theology predicated on anger and moral outrage. Even with so much evil in the world that he could justifiably be outraged about, Graham’s chosen to vent his considerable rage against the LGBT community and the temerity they’ve displayed in demanding marriage equality. How DARE they consider themselves to be anything but sinners who God has turned away from because of their evil, licentious ways?

On his Facebook page, Graham wrote: “Have you ever asked yourself - how can we fight the tide of moral decay that is being crammed down our throats by big business, the media, and the gay and lesbian community?” That sentence was almost interesting until he casually associated gay people with the moral decline of America - something unthinking evangelicals love to do. This is Graham’s shtick, though. He’s not interested in real problems and real suffering; he’s interested in being seen, in finding a stage for his self-aggrandizement.

Like his father, Billy Graham, Franklin is a very rich and fatuous firebrand. Also like his father, his preachments are bigoted and totally devoid of moral logic. You may recall that last year he earnestly praised Vladimir Putin for his archaic anti-gay laws, which contributed to the death and torture and maltreatment of countless Russian citizens. Anyone who fancies Vladimir Putin a moral visionary has disqualified himself from adult conversations about ethics. And yet Graham continues to speak authoritatively about right and wrong, good and evil. And, regrettably, people continue to listen.

That Graham fashions himself to be some sort of moral visionary is absurd on its face. What make it even worse is that people listen to him, take him seriously, AND CONTINUE TO SEND HIM MONEY. Never mind that, as a registered 501(c)(3) organization, the Billy Graham Evangelical Association is required to refrain from overt political advocacy. As a self-proclaimed representative of God His Own Self, Graham seems to consider himself above the law. He seems to considered as unquestionable fact that God’s politics mirror his own hateful ideology. I suppose going through life believing yourself to have an open channel to God Almighty will do that to a person. The fact remains that Graham is clearly and openly engaging in overt political advocacy, which means that by right, the IRS should pull BGEA’s tax-exempt status in order that taxpayers stop subsidizing his self-righteous corruption.

Graham possesses the arrogance and chutzpah to believe that he loves the LGBT community, but has a responsibility to love them enough to warn them that if they don’t repent they’ll spend eternity burning in the fires of Hell. It’s unimaginably immoral and hateful…but the love of Jesus Christ compels him to do it. Or so he’s convinced himself.

What utter bullshit.

Graham also remarks: “If a person says, ‘but I’m gay,’ okay fine, but you don’t practice it, you have to stay away.” This is a manifestly wicked thing to say and to think. Indeed, one searches in vain for a more intellectually defective and psychologically destructive message. Sure you’re gay, Graham says, but don’t actually be gay - that would be ungodly. Instead, hide yourself, pretend to be something you’re not, and live a lie for the rest of your life. Herein lies one of the worst, most unethical teachings I know: to tell someone that they’re born broken, sick, and unworthy; such nonsense is pitilessly peddled by people like Graham, and much suffering results because of it.

Religious entrepreneurs like Graham are perfunctorily treated like moral authorities in this country, and that’s a shame. Graham has a very high opinion of himself, but he deserves our ridicule; he’s a faith-based huckster and an organ of hate. Full of false humility, he claims always to be doing the Lord’s work. But that’s not what he’s up to. He’s an unremarkable hack, a man coasting on the success of his father. And thanks to the very un-Christlike fortune he’s amassed, he gets to enjoy all the trappings of modernity while shrouding himself in medieval bigotry.

Graham’s twisted theology isn’t about love, acceptance, tolerance, or inclusion- it’s about judgment, discrimination, hatred, and exclusion. Though he’ll insist that he “hates the sin but loves the sinner,” the views he espouses make it clear that he’s OK with the idea of treating gays as second-class citizens worthy and deserving only of being treated as “less than” unless they repent. You can be gay…you just can’t ACT gay. You can be who you are…as long as who you are isn’t gay. In Graham’s sick, twisted, inhuman world view, it’s perfectly acceptable for someone to live a lie…lest they be proven to be broken, sick, and unworthy of the fellowship of man and God’s love.

Then again, Graham’s life is a lie. He’s a loving, compassionate Christian living a Christ-like life in the same I’m the Queen of Denmark.

Fallible mammals like Graham have no business telling the rest of us what God wants. I’ve read the Bible, too, and I can cherry-pick passages to suit my agenda just as he does. When Graham claims to speak for God, he’s really speaking for himself; he should be honest about that, and abandon any pretense of divinity for his hate-mongering.

Franklin Graham is as much a man of God as Timothy McVeigh was a committed pacifist. Having inherited his father’s empire, he’s doing everything he can to maintain his position, his lifestyle, and his influence over public affairs. He’s far more concerned with enforcing his narrow, hate-fueled draconian social agenda than about the teachings of the Lord and Savior he professes to revere and serve.

It’s too bad that he’s done nothing to set an example of what true Christianity should be about by endeavoring to lead a Christ-like life. He could be doing so much good…and yet he’s chosen the path of hatred, intolerance, judgment, and divisiveness. Not exactly what Jesus would do, don’tchathink?

In the final analysis, Graham’s nothing but a charlatan, a common, garden-variety hypocrite who cares more about money and power than about the people BGEA was set up to serve. That’s pretty pathetic…which describes Franklin Graham quite accurately.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on June 16, 2015 5:06 AM.

If this is the standard, we're failing...miserably was the previous entry in this blog.

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