{"id":4935,"date":"2016-02-03T09:16:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T16:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=4935"},"modified":"2016-02-03T09:16:52","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T16:16:52","slug":"franklin-graham-and-the-pain-of-being-the-son-of-a-great-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2016\/02\/franklin-graham-and-the-pain-of-being-the-son-of-a-great-father.html","title":{"rendered":"Franklin Graham and the Pain of Being the Son of a Great Father"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"FG.001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Franklin Graham can be quite\u00a0frustrating at times. Over the past few years, however, I\u2019ve been feeling more and more compassion for him.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a great line from the movie Amistad<\/em>. Two jaded White House staffers are making fun of John Quincy Adams.\u00a0\u201cWhat must that be like,\u201d one of them asks, \u201cknowing all your life, whatever your accomplishments, you\u2019ll only be remembered as the son of a great father?\u201d<\/p>\n

I think of that line of dialogue every time I read about\u00a0the latest publicity\u00a0stunt by the attention\u00a0starved\u00a0Franklin Graham. There must be a mountain of pain wrapped up in the relationship between that father and that son; a mountain of pain in being remembered as the son of a great father.<\/p>\n

What must it be like to be Billy Graham\u2019s son? Who could be measured against that standard for a lifetime and not be driven mad? That perspective helps me to have compassion for Franklin Graham. As misguided as he seems to be, one can tell that Franklin is trying so hard\u2026 maybe a little bit too hard.<\/p>\n

From Slate<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cFranklin Graham is in the early days of a tour that he plans to take to every state capitol in the nation this year. At each stop, the evangelist leads Christians in prayer and encourages them to \u201ccast their ballots for candidates who uphold biblical principles,\u201d as he explained last year. With the slogan \u201cPray. Vote. Engage,\u201d the Decision America tour kicked off Jan. 5 in Des Moines, Iowa, and it heads this month to South Carolina, Georgia, Colorado, and beyond. Though not all the rallies have been scheduled yet, Graham appears to be keeping one step ahead of primary elections across the country.\u00a0Save for its politics, the Decision America tour is the kind of populist, publicity-savvy, and prayer-centered event that might have been headed a few decades ago by Franklin\u2019s father, Billy Graham\u2026<\/p>\n

Franklin Graham is a caricature of his father, not his successor. Last summer Franklin called for a ban on all Muslim immigration to the U.S., beating Donald Trump to the punch by almost five months (and reiterating his position after Trump made his proposal). In June, he fumed about the rainbow illumination of the White House after the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage (\u201cGod is the one who gave the rainbow, and it was associated with His judgment \u2026 One day God is going to judge sin\u2014all sin.\u201d) He also removed the Billy Graham ministry\u2019s accounts from Wells Fargo because the bank produced an ad featuring a lesbian couple adopting a child. A few months prior, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, he wrote an open letter to \u201cBlacks, Whites, Latinos, and everybody else\u201d saying most police shootings could be prevented by respect and obedience. In January, he called on donors to Duke University to withhold their support because of plans to begin a Muslim call to prayer from a chapel on campus. That was all in a single year.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look back a little further. In 2014, Franklin wrote in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association\u2019s magazine that Vladimir Putin was better on gay issues than Obama. Why? The Russian leader \u201chas taken a stand to protect his nation\u2019s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.\u201d In discussing that column with a journalist, he referred to gay adoption as recruitment. He has been escalating his anti-Muslim rhetoric since Sept. 11, 2001, when he called Islam \u201ca very evil and wicked religion.\u201d He has toyed with the \u201cjust asking questions\u201d strain of birtherism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government. He is extremely active on Facebook, often posting multiple diatribes a day.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bus tour is a political rally disguised as a prayer event. Franklin is attempting to consolidate\u00a0his influence among evangelicals into political clout. He seems to want to be a player at the national level in the realm of politics.\u00a0Franklin has claimed<\/a> that if his father were a younger man, he\u2019d be doing the same thing. The problem with this claim is that his father has explicitly said just\u00a0the opposite.<\/p>\n

Billy Graham was asked in one of his last major interviews with Christianity Today<\/em>\u00a0if he would change anything about his life and ministry. Graham listed two things: First, he would spend less time on the road and more time with his family (I think that could have done a lot for young Franklin\u2019s heart and character). The other regret was getting too involved in politics. This what he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI also would have steered clear of politics. I\u2019m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn\u2019t do that now.\u201d \u2013 Billy Graham, CT<\/em>, January 21, 2011.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wish Franklin would stop trying to be a big deal; stop trying to change the world. I wish he\u00a0would find a small church to pastor, and learn to do a small thing faithfully. Only then will he ever learn how to steward the family name, and his father\u2019s legacy faithfully. I would tell him what may be obvious to everyone but himself\u2026 that\u00a0he is driven by deep forces underneath the surface of his life that are clouding his judgment.\u00a0If I could, I would remind him of what Rich Mullins used to say. If your ambition is to leave a legacy, then what you\u2019ll leave as a legacy is ambition.<\/p>\n

My guess is that Franklin\u2019s reign over the BGEA\u00a0is going to get much worse before it gets better, if it gets better at all.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Franklin Graham can be quite\u00a0frustrating at times. Over the past few years, however, I\u2019ve been feeling more and more compassion for him. There\u2019s a great line from the movie Amistad. Two jaded White House staffers are making fun of John Quincy Adams.\u00a0\u201cWhat must that be like,\u201d one of them asks, \u201cknowing all your life, whatever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":4936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1532,134,595,1531,183,138,38,18,1533,105],"class_list":["post-4935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2016-election","tag-billy-graham","tag-christianity-today","tag-election","tag-evangelical","tag-franklin-graham","tag-politics","tag-rich-mullins","tag-ruth-graham","tag-slate"],"yoast_head":"\nFranklin Graham and the Pain of Being the Son of a Great Father<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Franklin Graham can be quite\u00a0frustrating at times. 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