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The Fight Over Billy Graham's Legacy

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« on: May 17, 2011, 09:28:56 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110517/ts_dailybeast/14146_billygrahamslegacyhischildrensfighttoshapethepreachersname_1

NEW YORK – With the great evangelist in his twilight, his children are jostling over his image and the family name. In this week’s Newsweek, Lisa Miller reports on the younger Grahams’ politics, infighting—and efforts to protect their father from the press.

Billy Graham was upstairs, napping. In the kitchen of the mountaintop home where he and his wife, Ruth, raised their five children, the table was set for lunch. Except for a flickering candle on that table and the exuberant pacing of two large dogs named China and Lars, the house was still, as empty as a museum after hours. The walls—witness to so many squabbles and pranks, prayers and hymns, private conversations with would-be presidents, rock stars, and prizefighters—did not speak.

A floorboard creaked above me. May I see him? I asked. May I say hello?

No, said his son Franklin. In early May I made a pilgrimage to Montreat, N.C., where Billy Graham’s pugnacious fourth child was giving me a tour of the family home. Franklin had just made headlines for aligning himself with the “birthers” and questioning the authenticity of President Obama’s Christian beliefs—statements he clarified after emphatic pushback from the White House. Now Franklin, who took charge of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in 2000, explained the importance of protecting his father from the press. Daddy, as all the children call him, no longer hears very well. Were he to misunderstand a question, or were a casual remark to be taken out of context…well, that was a risk Franklin didn’t want to take.

Billy Graham’s well-publicized hospitalization for pneumonia earlier this month, at the age of 92, served as a potent reminder that even the most vital and visible lives do eventually end. “It’s not death that scares him,” says his oldest child, Gigi, who recently moved back to North Carolina from Florida to be near her father. “It’s the dying process.” Ever since he preached his last crusade in New York City in 2005, and especially since Ruth died in 2007, the man known as God’s ambassador has lived in increasing seclusion, hindered by hearing loss, dimming sight, and the infirmity that comes with great old age. The impatient, gangly Gospel preacher who punctuated his sermons with jagged arm gestures now uses a walker and a wheelchair. The man who was said to have preached for six decades with “a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other,” and who meticulously catalogued his personal library of 13,000 books, now watches Fox, the evening news, and local programming on a massive flat-screen TV.


“We preach the same Gospel,” Franklin Graham says, but “Daddy hates to say no. I can say no.”

Graham—who has prayed with every president since Harry Truman—is “in transition,” as his confidants say. In his twilight, his children and publicists continue to wrestle over his legacy and public image. Last year’s visit to Montreat by President Obama was an official meeting—half an hour or so, requested by the president. The two men spoke about their mutual fondness for golf and the loneliness of the presidency. Then each prayed for the other. “The president said afterward that he was deeply moved by Graham’s personal warmth and the grace he extended,” a White House staffer says. Franklin is less effusive: “The president prayed a nice, sweet prayer, and Daddy prayed for the president.”

Most of Graham’s visitors come through the back door, as it were, arranged by the children as special favors to special friends. As kids, the siblings—Gigi, Anne, Bunny, Franklin, and Ned—bickered ruthlessly, “grumbling, interrupting, slurring each other,” according to their mother’s journals. Now they’re grown, ranging in age from 53 to 66, but the rivalry continues. As in so many famous families, each child struggles with how best to wear the family name. Franklin, who has a second home in Alaska (and plans to ride his motorcycle there this summer) has long been friendly with Sarah Palin, and in 2009 helped orchestrate a much-publicized visit between the former governor and his father. Palin, who was on her book tour, came with her parents and her aunt Sally, Franklin says, and she brought Billy a Carhartt jacket. “Sarah Palin loves my father, and like a lot of people she grew up watching him on television. It was just family time.” After the visit, Billy Graham released a statement saying, “Sarah and her family will always be welcome in the Graham home.” This bit of stagecraft looked to some like an anointing. To others, it looked like partisan meddling by Franklin.

Last year, when Bunny extended the same favor to Glenn Beck, Franklin tagged along. “I was a little concerned someone would put a microphone in front of Daddy,” he says, though in the end, no one did. The trickle of visitors to the house reflects a large family’s various priorities. Last month a man who manufactures newfangled physical-therapy equipment traveled up the mountaintop, as did Don Wilton, the minister of a Baptist church in South Carolina. Billy Graham saw Wilton preach on TV and was so impressed that a couple of years ago he joined Wilton’s church and made him his personal pastor. “You can’t say,” chuckles Franklin’s PR man, Mark DeMoss, “that Mr. Graham is being micromanaged or handled.”

The siblings sometimes disagree over how the family story should be told in public. Three years ago Gigi endorsed a Billy Graham biopic that Franklin considered factually inaccurate. “No one else in the family supports or has endorsed this film,” Franklin said through a spokesman at the time, “including [Billy] Graham, who has no personal inclination to view it.” Pulling rank, big sister Gigi told me for a Newsweek story, she wished her little brother had held his tongue.

A year earlier, Ned, the youngest (who has since moved to the West Coast), waged a public war against Franklin over their beloved mother’s burial site. Ruth loved her mountaintop and had expressed her strong desire to be buried there in a family plot. Franklin was insisting that she (and Billy, eventually) be interred at the new Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C., his pet project and a source of great personal pride. Ultimately, Billy gave his consent. Ruth Graham lies in rest in a meditation garden on the library grounds, beneath a stone marker that reads “End of Construction. Thank You for Your Patience”—a favorite saying, taken from a road sign. “That was the one thing we all agreed on,” Franklin says.

All the Graham children are evangelists like their father, but they interpret the job differently. Anne, who Graham-family observers say inherited her father’s oratorical gifts, cannot become a preacher, by the rules of the Southern Baptist Convention. So she travels the world speaking to massive audiences about the gospel and calls it “teaching,” which is permitted to women. Franklin—who’s been accused of being a rhetorical and theological bully, saying, for example, that Islam is “wicked and evil”—agrees with the assessment that he is less gentle than his dad. “We preach the same Gospel,” Franklin says, but “Daddy hates to say no. I can say no.” Franklin adds that he is much more engaged in the day-to-day management of the BGEA than his father ever was, and through the efforts of his humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse has much more experience on the front lines of global conflicts, such as those in Rwanda and the Middle East. This perspective, he argues, justifies his harder edge. “I’ve been doing a different kind of ministry,” he says. “That has shaped my views on a lot of things.”

And what of the criticism that Franklin, a Christian minister, takes political sides in a way that his father did not? Billy Graham formed friendships with many politicians, and had intimate (though complex) relationships with both Richard Nixon, a Republican, and Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat. Franklin’s political friendships lean hard to the right. He most recently expressed support for the quixotic presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, telling Christiane Amanpour, “The more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, you know, maybe the guy is right.” Franklin says the rules of political engagement have changed since his father was a public figure. “It’s sad to see how polarized our nation has become. If a political party doesn’t like you, then they start attacking you,” he says. “I like the president. He’s a nice man. I just disagree—strongly—with the spending that both Republicans and Democrats alike are responsible for. It’s not right.”

Billy Graham has not lived a faultless life, but he did act carefully to protect his legacy and the significance of his reputation. In private, aware of his own human weakness, he instructed his ministry staff never to leave him alone in a room with a woman who was not his wife. In these last years, he speaks frequently of Ruth and of his yearning to go home to heaven to see her. His children have not been so cautious. Bunny, Gigi, and Ned are divorced and remarried. Ned, whose ministry builds and encourages Christianity in China, has spent time in rehab for prescription drugs, and Franklin admits to having had an appetite for alcohol as a younger man. Among Graham’s 19 grandchildren, at least three have become Christian preachers. But according to a 2008 story in The Columbus Dispatch, there has been drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, and eating disorders in that generation as well. Gigi and Ruth have made ministries out of helping families endure such struggles.

“I’m just not comfortable being thought of as coming from a wonderful family,” says Gigi. “We’re not exempt from some of the problems that everyone has. We’re empathetic to, sympathetic to, all the problems that people have today. We support one another, love one another when we’re going through some of the things we’re going through.” Franklin sees these family troubles somewhat differently. He and his siblings “don’t see each other that often. I think some of them have made bad choices in life, but I’m responsible for my life. I have to stand before God and give an accounting of my life.” He pauses, then adds, “I love my sisters and would do anything I could to help them.”

Graham’s enormous collection of books was recently moved down the mountain to the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte. Here, in unadorned, well-lit hallways, the shelves shout in a way that his quiet rooms do not. Graham had books on Christian theology, of course, and collections of sermons, but also volumes on golf, Transcendental Meditation, and nutrition. The man who made shameful, anti-Semitic remarks in the Oval Office (to Nixon) had read widely not just about Judaism, but also Islam, Hinduism, and African religions. He had a well-worn copy of The Federalist, as well as The Scoutmaster Handbook, Richard Wright’s Black Power, and that poetic exploration of contemporary Jewish mysticism, Martin Buber’s I and Thou. This rich collection, offered up to the faithful, is also his legacy.

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« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2011, 09:45:13 am »

Legacy? the legacy to bring every one under the sway of the Popes?

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In April, 1972, Billy Graham received the International Franciscan Award in Minneapolis, given by the Franciscan Friars for true ecumenism. Before I quote what Billy Graham said about Francis of Assissi, first let me say this about St. Francis. He believed he was saved by works, by helping the poor. This way, he believed he was saving his soul. St. Francis was canonized, which means he was made a saint by the Roman Catholic Institution because of his strong position on the doctrine of works. Beloved, we know that this is unscriptural. Did you know that St. Francis of Assissi blessed and baptized animals and gave them Christian names?

      Now, what did Billy Graham say about this strange fellow? He said, "While I am not worthy to touch the shoe laces of St. Francis, yet this same Christ that called Francis in the 13th century also called me to be one of His servants in the 20th century."
http://www.chick.com/reading/books/153/153_08.asp

That is Billies legacy....
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« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2013, 06:43:49 am »

When Did Graham's Compromise Begin?

Billy Graham's compromise and disobedience began very early in his ministry. He was born in 1918 into a Presbyterian home and traces his conversion to the preaching of evangelist Mordecai Ham in 1934. He graduated from high school in May 1936 and attended Bob Jones College (which later became Bob Jones University) in the fall but switched to Florida Bible Institute after only one semester because he did not like the strict discipline at Bob Jones.

He notes in his biography that "one thing that thrilled me [about Florida Bible Institute] was the diversity of viewpoints we were exposed to in the classroom, a wondrous blend of ecumenical and evangelical thought that was really ahead of its time" (Graham, Just As I Am , p. 46).

It was during his time in Florida that Graham felt the call to preach. In late 1938, he was baptized by immersion in a Baptist church, and in early 1939, he was ordained to preach by a Southern Baptist congregation.

Graham graduated from the Florida Bible Institute in May 1940 and joined Wheaton College that September, graduating from there in 1943.

In May 1944, he began preaching for the newly formed Chicagoland Youth for Christ, and in January 1945, he was appointed the first full-time evangelist for Youth for Christ International.
 
He was president of Northwestern Schools (founded by W.B. Riley) from December 1947 to February 1952, though he continued to travel and preach for Youth for Christ and eventually branched out with an independent ministry.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was formed in 1950 and the Hour of Decision radio broadcasts began that same year. Graham conducted his first citywide crusade in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in September 1947, and his October 1948 crusade in Augusta, Georgia, marked the beginning of an openly ecumenical program. This was the first crusade that was sponsored by the city ministerial association. The Graham organization began demanding broad denominational support for his crusades.

 During Graham's 1949 Los Angeles crusade, his ministry began to receive national press coverage. Graham's final rift with most fundamentalist leaders did not occur until 1957, though. This was brought about by the open sponsorship of the liberal Protestant Church Council in New York City. The Graham crusade committee in New York included 120 theological modernists who denied the infallibility of Scripture. The wife of modernist Norman Vincent Peale headed up the women's prayer groups for the Crusade. Modernists such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., sat on the platform and led in prayer. In the National Observer, Dec. 30, 1963, King said the virgin birth of Christ was "a mythological story" created by the early Christians. In Ebony magazine, January 1961, King said: "I do not believe in hell as a place of a literal burning fire."

THE COMPROMISE BEGAN MUCH EARLIER THAN 1957, THOUGH. AS EARLY AS 1944, BILLY GRAHAM WAS BEFRIENDED BY ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CATHOLIC LEADERS IN AMERICA, FULTON SHEEN.

When Sheen died in December 1979, Graham testified that he had "known him as a friend for over 35 years" (Religious News Service, Dec. 11, 1979). Sheen was a faithful son of Rome. In his book Treasure in Clay , Sheen said that one of his spiritual secrets was to offer Mass every Saturday "in honor of the Blessed Mother to solicit her protection of my priesthood." Sheen devoted an entire chapter of his biography to Mary, "The Woman I Love." He said, "When I was ordained, I took a resolution to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist every Saturday to the Blessed Mother ... All this makes me very certain that when I go before the Judgment Seat of Christ, He will say to me in His Mercy: 'I heard My Mother speak of you.' During my life I have made about thirty pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes and about ten to her shrine in Fatima" (Fulton Sheen, Treasure in Clay, p. 317).

 In his 1997 autobiography, Graham described his first meeting with Sheen, though he doesn't give the exact date. He says he was traveling on a train from Washington to New York and was just drifting off to sleep when Sheen knocked on the sleeping compartment and asked to "come in for a chat and a prayer" (Graham, Just As I Am, p. 692). Graham says: "We talked about our ministries and our common commitment to evangelism, and I told him how grateful I was for his ministry and his focus on Christ. ... We talked further and we prayed; and by the time he left, I felt as if I had known him all my life."

 Thus, Graham acknowledged that he accepted Fulton Sheen's sacramental gospel as the truth even in those days. There is a serious problem and deception with this. While Graham was meeting with Fulton Sheen and befriending him as a fellow evangelist, Graham was assuring fundamentalist leaders, such as Bob Jones Sr. and John R. Rice, that he was opposed to Catholicism and that he was a fundamentalist. It is obvious, though, that Billy Graham was never committed to that position in his heart.

 When Graham met Sheen in 1944, it was three years before his first citywide crusade. Graham had started preaching for Youth for Christ in 1944 and was an unknown young man. Why would a Catholic leader as famous as Fulton Sheen go out of his way to befriend an insignificant young fundamental Baptist preacher like Billy Graham? Graham was only eight years out of high school at the time.

Boston's Archbishop Richard Cushing also "exercised a special influence over Billy Graham beginning in 1950." Cushing printed 'BRAVO BILLY' on the front of his diocesan paper during the January 1950 campaign. In an interview in 1991, Graham referred to this as one of the highlights of his ministry:

 "Another significant thing happened in the early '50s in Boston. Cardinal Cushing, in his magazine, The Pilot, put 'BRAVO BILLY' on the front cover. That made news all over the country. He and I became close, wonderful friends. That was my first real coming to grips with the whole Protestant/Catholic situation. I began to realize that there were Christians everywhere. They might be called modernists, Catholics, or whatever, but they were Christians" (Bookstore Journal, Nov. 1991).

 By the end of 1950, Graham had formed a permanent team of staff members who arranged his meetings. Willis Haymaker was the front man who would go into cities and set up the organizational structure necessary to operate the crusades. One of his duties even in those early days was as follows:

"He would also call on the local Catholic bishop or other clerics to acquaint them with Crusade plans and invite them to the meetings; they would usually appoint a priest to attend and report back. This was years before Vatican II's openness to Protestants, but WE WERE CONCERNED TO LET THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS SEE THAT MY GOAL WAS NOT TO GET PEOPLE TO LEAVE THEIR CHURCH; rather, I wanted them to commit their lives to Christ" (Graham, Just As I Am , p. 163).

In his autobiography, Graham acknowledged that he began to draw close to Rome very early in his ministry:

 "At that time [March 1950], Protestantism in New England was weak, due in part to theological differences within some denominations, the influence of Unitarian ideas in other denominations, and the strength of the Roman Catholic Church. In spite of all that, a number of Roman Catholic priests and Unitarian clergy, together with some of their parishioners, came to the meetings along with those from Evangelical churches. With my limited Evangelical background, this was a further expansion of my own ecumenical outlook. I now began to make friends among people from many different backgrounds and to develop a spiritual love for their clergy" (Graham, Just As I Am, p. 167).

 Need I remind my readers that the Catholic and Unitarian and modernist "clergy" that Graham learned to love in the late 1940s and early 1950s were men who denied the very faith that Graham claimed to believe. The Catholic clergy that Graham loved denied that salvation is through the grace of Christ alone by faith alone without works or sacraments and they denied further that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice. The modernist clergy that Graham loved denied that the Bible is the infallible Word of God and questioned or openly denied the virgin birth, miracles, vicarious atonement, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Unitarian clergy that Dr. Graham loved were men who denied the Godhead and blood atonement of Jesus Christ and who scoffed at the infallibility of the Holy Bible?

 Why did Graham not rather love those who were in danger of being deceived by these false teachers? Why did he not rather love God's Word enough to stand against its enemies? Why did he not rather love the Christ of the Bible enough to reject those who had rejected the true Christ and followed false christs? Graham's love was motivated in the wrong direction. He loved the false shepherds, but he did not love the sheep that were led to eternal ruin by these shepherds.

Only the Lord knows how much influence false teachers like Fulton Sheen and Richard Cushing had on the young evangelist. By the early 1950s, Graham was also very chummy with theological modernists.

  In a lecture to the Union Theological Seminary in February 1954, Graham testified that in 1953 he had locked himself into a room in New York City for an entire day with Jesse Bader and John Sutherland Bonnell that he might ask them questions and receive their counsel. By this action, Graham was actually locking himself into a room with the Devil, because these men were certainly the Devil's ministers (2 Cor. 11:13-15). Bader and Bonnell were both rank liberals who denied many doctrines of the New Testament faith. In an article in Look magazine (March 23, 1954), Bonnell had stated that he and most other Presbyterian ministers did not believe in the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, a literal heaven and hell, and other doctrines.
 
God had warned Graham to mark and avoid those who teach contrary to apostolic truth (Rom. 16:17). He warned him that error is like a canker (2 Tim. 2:16-18) and like leaven (Gal. 5:9), that "evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33), but the popular evangelist ignored the warning.

By 1950, Billy Graham had so fallen under the power of Catholicism that he turned to it for solace during an illness. During his 1950 New England campaign, Graham fell sick for several days in Hartford, Connecticut. Executive Secretary Gerald Beavan "stayed at his bedside and read to him from Bishop Fulton Sheen's Peace of Soul" (Wilson Ewin, The Assimilation of Evangelist Billy Graham into the Roman Catholic Church).

We have seen that Sheen was a great lover of Mary and was certain of God's mercy only because of his devotion to Mary. Why would a young fundamental Baptist preacher turn to the writings of such a man for comfort?

Graham's first citywide meeting was held in Los Angeles, California, in 1949. As early as 1950 there were rumors that Graham was cooperating with Roman Catholics.

 In 1950, Dr. Robert Ketcham of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches came across a newspaper article indicating that Graham expected Catholics and Jews to cooperate in a revival in Oregon and another which reported that Graham had turned over decision cards to Roman Catholic churches. Ketcham promptly sent a letter of inquiry to Billy himself. His letter brought him a strong rebuke from Graham's executive secretary, Jerry Beavan. Part of Beavan's reply was as follows:

 "For example, you asked if Billy Graham had invited Roman Catholics and Jews to cooperate in the evangelistic meetings. SUCH A THOUGHT, EVEN IF THE REPORTER DID SUGGEST IT AS HAVING COME FROM MR. GRAHAM, SEEMS RIDICULOUS TO ME. SURELY YOU MUST KNOW THAT IT IS NOT TRUE. ... FURTHER, THAT YOU SHOULD GIVE ANY CREDENCE TO THE IDEA THAT MR. GRAHAM WOULD EVER TURN OVER ANY DECISION CARDS TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH SEEMS INCONCEIVABLE" (John Ashbrook, New Neutralism II).

Graham was soon openly doing what Mr. Beavan labeled "ridiculous" and "inconceivable." On Sept. 6, 1952, reporter William McElwain, writing for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, remarked on Graham's ecumenical activities with Rome:

"Graham stressed that his crusade in Pittsburgh would be interdenominational. He said that he hopes to hear Bishop Fulton J. Sheen at one of the Masses at St. Paul's Cathedral tomorrow. Graham said, 'Many of the people who have reached a decision for Christ at our meetings have joined the Catholic church and we have received commendations from Catholic publications for the revived interest in their church following one of our campaigns. This happened both in Boston and Washington. After all, one of our prime purposes is to help the churches in a community.'"

 It doesn't sound to me that Dr. Ketcham's aforesaid questions were ridiculous. Graham publicly admitted he was already turning seekers over to the Catholic Church in the early 1950s.

In an interview with the Religious News Service in 1986, the 67-year-old Billy Graham admitted that his ministry was deliberately ecumenical even in the early days. He told the interviewer that one of his "very close advisers and friends" was the aforementioned Dr. Jesse Bader, a liberal Disciples of Christ clergyman who was secretary of the radical National Council of Churches (Christian News, March 31, 1986).

 Since then, Graham has moved ever closer into fellowship with Roman Catholicism and theological modernism. As John Ashbrook, author of New Neutralism II: Exposing the Gray of Compromise, observed, "Compromise takes a man farther than he intends to go." The Bible warns that "evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33).

How have Graham's ecumenical relationships affected him? The January 1978, issue of McCall's magazine contained an interview with Graham by James Michael Beam. Graham admitted his change in thinking:

"I am far more tolerant of other kinds of Christians than I once was. My contact with Catholic, Lutheran and other leaders--people far removed from my own Southern Baptist tradition--has helped me, hopefully, to move in the right direction. I've found that my beliefs are essentially the same as those of orthodox Roman Catholics, for instance. They believe in the Virgin Birth, and so do I. They believe in the Resurrection of Jesus and the coming judgment of God, and so do I. We only differ on some matters of later church tradition."

This is strange talk. The errors of the Roman Catholic Church are not mere matters of "later church tradition." Roman Catholicism is the utter perversion of the gospel and of the New Testament church by the intermingling of biblical truth with paganism and Judaism. Rome's false sacramental gospel of grace plus works requires that we label it cursed of God (Gal. 1:6-10); but Dr. Graham long ago determined to look upon Roman Catholicism as true Christianity, and he has led multitudes astray by that decision.


Updated December 5, 2013 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org)
The following was first published in the out-of-print book Evangelicals and Rome in 1999.
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« Reply #3 on: December 05, 2013, 11:13:19 am »

^^ Some thoughts on this very good article...

1) Yes, Graham's ecumenicism agenda has been going on since his YOUTH, and NOT recently(like the damage control people want to make you believe that he's "changed" somewhat recently b/c of his "health"). When he did a lengthy interview with Newsweek back in 2006, even my mom(who's a big fan of him), was taken aback b/c he said a lot of things in there that weren't biblical.

2) Martin Luther King Jr - yeah, read about his modernist views as well. He was also a supporter of Margaret Sanger. Ultimately, another enemy from WITHIN.

3) About Graham getting saved way back - pretty much the same "testimony" you hear from Churchianity folks - getting "water immersed baptized" all but summed up their "testimony". I'm not pointing fingers at them or anything, as I was in the same boat when I THOUGHT I was saved(after getting immersed water baptized) when I was a kid. Pretty much nothing about how they were a sinner, a child of wrath, the blood of Jesus forgiving all of their sins, the hope that is in them, nor anyone sitting down with them explaining bible passages to them on salvation.

4) Fulton Sheen - from what I've read, the Hollywood Sheen family(Martin and Charlie) changed their SAG name to this b/c they're admirers of Fulton(I believe their real last name is Estevez - Emilio is also in this family). Charlie has been one of those fake "truthers", a guest on the Jesuit Alex Jones show AND a close friend his. Hhhhmmm...

5) When Graham did his final(supposedly) "Crusade" in New Orleans in 2006(a year after Katrina hit), it was the NO's RCC Archdiocese's INTERFAITH group that pushed to get him to do it(a couple of Baptist pastors are also members of this group).

6) It seems like this isn't the first time an "influential" evangelical rose to fame like this AFTER being GROOMED from their YOUTH, and became popular inter-denominationally. Many, many years prior, Charles Spurgeon and DL Moody were other prime examples. Both of these men were groomed in their respective "Sunday Schools"(where they supposedly got "saved"), and then from there were put into positions of being pastors and evangelists at a very young age. It was from there, they became very popular, and their materials were widely read and used among ALL "denominations"(Moody did "Crusades" as well). And now Graham apparently was groomed from his youth as well.

Pt being that over the course of time on this earth, it seems, the NWO minions will target the youth to leaderships of power. Bill Clinton was a DeMaloy member as a youth(Freemasonry for boys). And over my time going through the school system, every year selected students would get these prestigious awards, and academic performance was NOT the only reason.(ie-one guy I went to junior high with many years ago was one of these people, and he eventually became a prominent doctor in his community)

7) Graham was also your typical "traditional pulpit" preacher - he would leave you SPELLBOUND. In scripture, Jesus nor his Apostles ever raised their voices, but just tenderly and meekly read scripture - either their listeners understood or did not. With Graham, you might have felt "converted", but really never understood Jesus' words.

Matthew 7:24  Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
Mat 7:25  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
Mat 7:26  And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
Mat 7:27  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Mat 7:28  And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
Mat 7:29  For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
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