{"id":9567,"date":"2012-08-08T21:59:12","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T01:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=9567"},"modified":"2012-10-20T16:47:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T20:47:17","slug":"defending-franklin-graham-by-smearing-his-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/08\/defending-franklin-graham-by-smearing-his-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Defending Franklin Graham by smearing his father"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Back in May, I asked \u201cIs Billy Graham being exploited for political gain?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Following that post \u2014 and then again following my post earlier this week, \u201cBilly Graham did not go to Chick-fil-A (and he didn\u2019t tell you to go there either)<\/a>\u201d \u2014\u00a0 a few people wrote comments or emails \u201cdefending\u201d Billy Graham.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
If the \u201creal\u201d Billy Graham is nothing like his public persona over the years, then maybe he secretly hated Johnny Cash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cDefending\u201d is in scare quotes there, because they offer a very odd \u201cdefense.\u201d<\/p>\n

They insist that I am in no position to think I may know anything<\/em> about what Billy Graham is really like because I am only able to view his decades of public statements, his books, sermons and articles, and his remarks in dozens of interviews over many years.<\/p>\n

Based on only that, they insist, one cannot claim to have any idea who Graham really<\/em> is or what he really thinks about anything. The real<\/em> Billy Graham, they say, can be known only by those personally acquainted with him who are thus privy to the vast difference between his private views and character and the views and character he has pretended to have all these many years.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re dupes, you see, the rest of us. Billy Graham has had us all fooled by pretending to be one person while \u201creally\u201d maintaining an altogether different identity and perspective we cannot begin to guess at because we\u2019re not included in the inner circle of people who are able to know his true views.<\/p>\n

This argument strikes me not as a \u201cdefense\u201d of Billy Graham, but as a rather nasty accusation of duplicity and hypocrisy. It\u2019s not a defense of Billy<\/em> Graham at all, but a defense of Franklin<\/em> Graham.<\/p>\n

And if Franklin Graham welcomes such a defense at the expense of his father, well, that further confirms my suspicion that he has been cruelly exploiting his ailing dad.<\/p>\n

Which is why I\u2019ve taken to referring to him as \u201cHophni Phineas Graham.\u201d<\/p>\n

The allusion there is to the story of the righteous priest, Eli, in the book of 1 Samuel. Hophni and Phineas<\/a> were his sons:<\/p>\n

Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord or for the duties of the priests to the people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They were charlatans and offering-skimmers. They are also, in evangelical circles, proverbially infamous \u2014 cited in many a sermon on \u201cthe family\u201d as examples of how even a righteous person can wind up with a rotten kid.<\/p>\n

Their story, by the way, did not end well.<\/p>\n

I believe the nickname is apt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in May, I asked \u201cIs Billy Graham being exploited for political gain?\u201d Following that post \u2014 and then again following my post earlier this week, \u201cBilly Graham did not go to Chick-fil-A (and he didn\u2019t tell you to go there either)\u201d \u2014\u00a0 a few people wrote comments or emails \u201cdefending\u201d Billy Graham. \u201cDefending\u201d is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[71,28],"class_list":["post-9567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-chick-fil-a","tag-religious-right"],"yoast_head":"\nDefending Franklin Graham by smearing his father<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Back in May, I asked "Is Billy Graham being exploited for political gain?" 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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