Billy Graham

There was a recent article in Newsweek about Billy Graham based on several interviews within the last year. I've posted some of the highlights below. I found it quite interesting.

He is an evangelist still unequivocally committed to the Gospel, but increasingly thinks god’s ways and means are veiled from human eyes and wrapped in mystery. “There are many things that I don’t understand,” he says. He does not believe that Christians need to take every verse of the Bible literally; “sincere Christians,” he says, “can disagree about the details of Scripture and theology-absolutely.”

While he believes Scripture is the inspired, authoritative word of God, he does not read the Bible as though it were a collection of Associated Press bulletins straightforwardly reporting on events in the ancient Middle East. “I’m not a literalist in the sense that every single jot and tittle is from the Lord…this is a little difference in my thinking through the years.”

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror,” Paul wrote, “then we shall see face to face”

Belief in mystery is crucial to the Gospel Graham has preached for so long-a Gospel centered on the story that, for reasons unknown to the human mind, God chose to effect salvation through the execution and resurrection of his son. “As time went on, I began to realize the love of God for everybody, all over the world,” he says. “And in his death on the cross, some mysterious thing happened between God and the Son that we don’t understand. But there he was, alone, taking on the sins of the world.”

“I spend more time on the love of God than I used to.”

For Graham, politics is secondary to the Gospel, which transcends party lines and, for believers, transcends earthly reality itself.

“A lot of the things that I commented on years ago would not have been of the Lord, I’m sure…”

He spends more time in contemplation…

“Much of my life has been a pilgrimage-constantly learning, changing, growing and maturing. I have come to see in deeper ways some of the implications of my faith and message, not the least of which is in the area of human rights and racial and ethnic understanding.”

A unifying theme of Graham’s new thinking is humility.

On who will make it to heaven and who will be in hell… “Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won’t…I don’t want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of god is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.”

“I do not fear death…when my spirit leaves this body, I will be in the presence of the Lord”



Currently reading: The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware