~ My Personal Encounter with a Christian Taliban of the Third Kind ~ [Archive]

Jane of Arc

08/11/06, 05:09 pm

-V-

08/11/06, 06:09 pm

Reminds me of when I hear Ann Coulter speak.

But fear not, Jane of Arc. A couple of hundred years ago a guy like him would light the fire under your stake. Now he manages your checking account for you.

As much as he would like to deny evolution, it is intellectual evolution that will make him and those like him extinct. Though the future is progressive, we must endure their ignorance in our lifetimes. Until then, there's Progressives Online.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/11/06, 10:37 pm

Hi, Jane or Arc and -V-. What you experienced was recently addressed by an ordained minister in a series of 6 sermons he delivered from the pulpit of the megachurch for which he is the pastor. The New York Times on July 30, 2006 illuminated your experience in their article below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=6e51918eb9327aca&ex=1311912000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Bill Alkofer for The New York Times

The Rev. Gregory A. Boyd leads a congregation outside St. Paul.

Correction Appended

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share.

“Most of my friends are believers,” said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, “and they think if you’re a believer, you’ll vote for Bush. And it’s scary to go against that.”

Sermons like Mr. Boyd’s are hardly typical in today’s evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

At least six books on this theme have been published recently, some by Christian publishing houses. Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Barnard College and an evangelical, has written “Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America — an Evangelical’s Lament.”

And Mr. Boyd has a new book out, “The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church,” which is based on his sermons.

“There is a lot of discontent brewing,” said Brian D. McLaren, the founding pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the “emerging church,” which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.

“More and more people are saying this has gone too far — the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right,” Mr. McLaren said. “You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word ‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people.

“Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’ ”

Mr. Boyd said he had cleared his sermons with the church’s board, but his words left some in his congregation stunned. Some said that he was disrespecting President Bush and the military, that he was soft on abortion or telling them not to vote.

“When we joined years ago, Greg was a conservative speaker,” said William Berggren, a lawyer who joined the church with his wife six years ago. “But we totally disagreed with him on this. You can’t be a Christian and ignore actions that you feel are wrong. A case in point is the abortion issue. If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70’s, it wouldn’t have happened. But the church was asleep.”

Jennifer_SFBA

08/11/06, 10:42 pm

Continued:

Mr. Boyd, 49, who preaches in blue jeans and rumpled plaid shirts, leads a church that occupies a squat block-long building that was once a home improvement chain store.

The church grew from 40 members in 12 years, based in no small part on Mr. Boyd’s draw as an electrifying preacher who stuck closely to Scripture. He has degrees from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary, and he taught theology at Bethel University in St. Paul, where he created a controversy a few years ago by questioning whether God fully knew the future. Some pastors in his own denomination, the Baptist General Conference, mounted an effort to evict Mr. Boyd from the denomination and his teaching post, but he won that battle.

Correction: Aug. 2, 2006

A front-page article on Monday about the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd, a Minnesota pastor who has preached against church involvement in politics, included an outdated reference to the school where he taught and where the Rev. Paul Eddy, a theology professor who called Mr. Boyd “an anomaly in the megachurch world’’ teaches. It is Bethel University, not Bethel College. (The name was changed in 2004.)

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock
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Published: July 30, 2006
(Page 2 of 2)

He is known among evangelicals for a bestselling book, “Letters From a Skeptic,” based on correspondence with his father, a leftist union organizer and a lifelong agnostic — an exchange that eventually persuaded his father to embrace Christianity.

Mr. Boyd said he never intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party or the religious right. He refuses to share his party affiliation, or whether he has one, for that reason. He said there were Christians on both the left and the right who had turned politics and patriotism into “idolatry.”

He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch’s worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing “God Bless America” and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses.

“I thought to myself, ‘What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?’ ” he said in an interview.

Patriotic displays are still a mainstay in some evangelical churches. Across town from Mr. Boyd’s church, the sanctuary of North Heights Lutheran Church was draped in bunting on the Sunday before the Fourth of July this year for a “freedom celebration.” Military veterans and flag twirlers paraded into the sanctuary, an enormous American flag rose slowly behind the stage, and a Marine major who had served in Afghanistan preached that the military was spending “your hard-earned money” on good causes.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/11/06, 10:43 pm

Continued:

In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek “power over” others — by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have “power under” others — “winning people’s hearts” by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said.

“America wasn’t founded as a theocracy,” he said. “America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn’t bloody and barbaric. That’s why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

“I am sorry to tell you,” he continued, “that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.”

Mr. Boyd lambasted the “hypocrisy and pettiness” of Christians who focus on “sexual issues” like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson’s breast-revealing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. He said Christians these days were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public.

“Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act,” he said. “And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed.”

Some Woodland Hills members said they applauded the sermons because they had resolved their conflicted feelings. David Churchill, a truck driver for U.P.S. and a Teamster for 26 years, said he had been “raised in a religious-right home” but was torn between the Republican expectations of faith and family and the Democratic expectations of his union.

When Mr. Boyd preached his sermons, “it was liberating to me,” Mr. Churchill said.

Mr. Boyd gave his sermons while his church was in the midst of a $7 million fund-raising campaign. But only $4 million came in, and 7 of the more than 50 staff members were laid off, he said.

Mary Van Sickle, the family pastor at Woodland Hills, said she lost 20 volunteers who had been the backbone of the church’s Sunday school.

“They said, ‘You’re not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way,’ ” she said. “It was some of my best volunteers.”

The Rev. Paul Eddy, a theology professor at Bethel University and the teaching pastor at Woodland Hills, said: “Greg is an anomaly in the megachurch world. He didn’t give a whit about church leadership, never read a book about church growth. His biggest fear is that people will think that all church is is a weekend carnival, with people liking the worship, the music, his speaking, and that’s it.”

In the end, those who left tended to be white, middle-class suburbanites, church staff members said. In their place, the church has added more members who live in the surrounding community — African-Americans, Hispanics and Hmong immigrants from Laos.

This suits Mr. Boyd. His vision for his church is an ethnically and economically diverse congregation that exemplifies Jesus’ teachings by its members’ actions. He, his wife and three other families from the church moved from the suburbs three years ago to a predominantly black neighborhood in St. Paul.

Mr. Boyd now says of the upheaval: “I don’t regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn’t know the price we were going to pay for doing it.”

His congregation of about 4,000 is still digesting his message. Mr. Boyd arranged a forum on a recent Wednesday night to allow members to sound off on his new book. The reception was warm, but many of the 56 questions submitted in writing were pointed: Isn’t abortion an evil that Christians should prevent? Are you saying Christians should not join the military? How can Christians possibly have “power under” Osama bin Laden? Didn’t the church play an enormously positive role in the civil rights movement?

One woman asked: “So why NOT us? If we contain the wisdom and grace and love and creativity of Jesus, why shouldn’t we be the ones involved in politics and setting laws?”

Mr. Boyd responded: “I don’t think there’s a particular angle we have on society that others lack. All good, decent people want good and order and justice. Just don’t slap the label ‘Christian’ on it.”

Correction: Aug. 2, 2006

A front-page article on Monday about the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd, a Minnesota pastor who has preached against church involvement in politics, included an outdated reference to the school where he taught and where the Rev. Paul Eddy, a theology professor who called Mr. Boyd “an anomaly in the megachurch world’’ teaches. It is Bethel University, not Bethel College. (The name was changed in 2004.)

FDRfollower

08/12/06, 12:42 am

Hi Jane D'arc. Have you read Elmer Gantry?

Well, as far as your Taliban friend goes, I found his 'cousin', just so you know this is nothing new. :)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
Chapter IX

Bad as all slaveholders are, we seldom meet one destitute of every element of character commanding respect. My master was one of this rare sort. I do not know of one single noble act ever performed by him. The leading trait in his character was meanness; and if there were any other element in his nature, it was made subject to this. He was mean; and, like most other mean men, he lacked the ability to conceal his meanness. Captain Auld was not born a slaveholder. He had been a poor man, master only of a Bay craft. He came into possession of all his slaves by marriage; and of all men, adopted slave-holders are the worst. He was cruel, but cowardly. He commanded without firmness.

(snip)

In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting held in the Bay-side, Talbot county, and there experienced religion. I indulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if he did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane. I was disappointed in both these respects. It neither made him to be humane to his slaves, nor to emancipate them. If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before. Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made the greatest pretensions to piety. His house was the house of prayer. He prayed morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his brethren, and was soon made a class-leader and exhorter. His activity in revivals was great, and he proved himself an instrument in the hands of the church in converting many souls. His house was the preachers' home. They used to take great pleasure in coming there to put up; for while he starved us, he stuffed them. We have had three or four preachers there at a time. The names of those who used to come most frequently while I lived there, were Mr. Storks, Mr. Ewery, Mr. Humphry, and Mr. Hickey. I have also seen Mr. George Cookman at our house. We slaves loved Mr. Cookman. We believed him to be a good man. We thought him instrumental in getting Mr. Samuel Harrison, a very rich slaveholder, to emancipate his slaves; and by some means got the impression that he was laboring to effect the emancipation of all the slaves. When he was at our house, we were sure to be called in to prayers. When the others were there, we were sometimes called in and sometimes not. Mr. Cookman took more notice of us than either of the other ministers. He could not come among us without betraying his sympathy for us, and, stupid as we were, we had the sagacity to see it.

(snip)

I have said my master found religious sanction for his cruelty. As an example, I will state one of many facts going to prove the charge. I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture--"He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes."

MAGI

08/12/06, 07:29 am

My head is spinning.

I just had a conversation with a guy who works at my bank. He was very pleasant. Appears well-groomed for success. Wore a crisp white shirt and tie. Has a responsible job. There's a picture of his wife and kids on his desk. Big smile. Praise Jesus.

I don't know how it got started ... but we talked religion. Mistake? Who knows.

He calls himself a Christian. I've never encountered a Christian like this before. But then I'm fairly new to the South.

He said he would happily put a bullet in the head of an abortion doctor. He owns a gun. He's pro-war. He views Christ as a warrior that kicks ass. The Bible is law. It's absolute. Science lies. And he's college educated so he knows. (What college?) God created the world in 6 days. Fossils aren't real. He's seen the data. Islam is a fake religion. George Bush is doing God's will. These people have to die.

"What about thou shall not kill?", I asked.

"It depends on the definition of the word 'kill?'", said the Christian Taliban.

"Huh? What about the meek shall inherit the earth?" I pushed on.

"The 'meek' really means aggressive people willing to do God's will but they have to keep a low profile", he said.

"Oh. Low profile. Well, how about turn the other cheek? Love thy enemy as thyself? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?" I labored on.

No worry. He had an angle on everything. He could not only out talk me and over talk me, but he could double talk me under the table. Praise Jesus.

After my meeting with this Man of God, I felt an emotion I couldn't put my finger on. It wasn't sadness or anger ... it was a sick, spinning feeling. It's fear for a world gone mad. It's fear of a world with no compassion. These people are in positions of power from the bottom up. How terrifying.
************************************************** **********
Jane of Arc, I feel exactly as you do about ALL the evil that is happening in the name of God!

Your last paragraph relects my feelings and knowing this hate surrounds us is "terrifying" indeed!

Jennifer I also was uplifted to read of Reverend Boyd and wrote about him in one of the the threads below............"One honest to God, Evangelican Christ~ian.! I felt "this is a man I would go to church to listen to a sermon once again".

Your account Jane of Arc, sent me on a search looking for the many names of God & I found this:

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Messiah;

and one that speaks of of Jesus as a warrior:

"Menahem ben Judah

Menahem ben Judah, the son of Judas the Galilean and grandson of Hezekiah, the leader of the Zealots, who had troubled Herod, was a warrior. When the war broke out he attacked Masada with his band, armed his followers with the weapons stored there, and proceeded to Jerusalem where he captured the fortress Antonia, overpowering the troops of Agrippa II. Emboldened by his success, he behaved as a king, and claimed the leadership of all the troops. Thereby he aroused the enmity of Eleazar, another Zealot leader, and met death as a result of a conspiracy against him. He is probably identical with the Menahem ben Hezekiah mentioned in the Talmud (tractate Sanhedrin 98b) and called "the comforter that should relieve".

Bar Kokhba

With the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem the appearance of messiahs ceased for a time. Sixty years later a politico-Messianic movement of large proportions took place with Shimeon Bar Kokhba (also: Bar Kosiba) at its head. This leader of the revolt against Rome was hailed as Messiah-king by Rabbi Akiva, who referred to him, Numbers xxiv. 17: "There shall come forth a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite through the corners of Moab,", and Hag. ii. 21, 22; "I will shake the heavens and the earth and I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms. . . ." (Talmud tracate Sanhedrin 97b). Although some doubted his messiahship, he seems to have carried the nation with him for his undertaking. After stirring up a war (133-135) that taxed the power of Rome, he at last met his death on the walls of Bethar. His Messianic movement ended in defeat and misery for the survivors."

Mankind seems to find or invent a God to fit their cause and convince some of the SHEEPLE to follow!

Seems we have found and live the HELL of evil fanactical religions today which will put an end to planet Earth via "the mushroom cloud" unless SANITY RETURNS!

This ignorant barbarianism MUST END before it is too late!

Which religion do you suppose IS the CHOSEN ONE & ONLY that will exist afterward?

:confused:

Jane of Arc

08/12/06, 08:24 am

Thanks for your input POL friends (in order of appearance) ... -V-, Jennifer, FDRfollower & MAGI. Good articles, insights and we can always depend on FDRfollower for the vital historical perspective.

Here's a question: Is this fundamentalist 'Christian Taliban' religious movement growing in other parts of the country? Or does it still just have it's stranglehold primarily in the South?

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 01:07 pm

Hi, Jane of Arc, MAJI, FDRFollower, -V-. Thank you for that interesting historical perspective, FDRFollower. I very much enjoyed reading it.

Jane of Arc, your question brought up for me thoughts I share with you below.

The more evil people do, the more people turn to their religious texts, their god(s) and the old ways of their god's to be able to accept the feelings that dwell within them and that they use to justify their actions.

My faith, though not pure because I am a human living among humans, understands that love and compassion tempered by wisdom are spiritual values. Largely, I think people agree on that point. Interviening, transgressing and over-writing those values stemming from over-population are dwindling resources and the increasing competition for them leading to unbridled greed, environmental degedation, increased stress, the devaluing of life, scapegoating, etc. that do not encompass the values of love and compassion.

Many New Age spiritual groups are forming, and they are growing in number. Some New Age spiritualists seek to acquire land together, to grow their own food and to live together in more harmonious communities away from the pressures and strains of mainstream life. More than a few New Agers have been experimenting with meditation and mass consciousness building, energy decentraliztion, creating environmentally sustainable living environments, etc.

Most of the people on our one small planet, Earth, though, are continuing to try to make the old ways work, but their old ways are clashing. Keynes is not the answer, and we're now too far down the road for Galbraith's economic vision for the world to work either. Facing us is a new feudalism under a one world government.

The good and the bad news is that We, the people are the ones who are at choice about what our world will be.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 01:48 pm

Traditional religious views of the world posit that god is at cause. New Agers say people are. Traditionalists agree with New Age people in part believing that god rewards and punishes based on "what people do." What people do comes from what people think, and what people think comes from social values, how people are raised and what they are taught. New values and thinking is crucial now and inevitable over time. What will the world be, though, in-between?

The interview below with Billy Graham is illustative:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11780382/

God, Satan, and Katrina
Billy Graham on the storm, the mystery of evil, and a regret from his long ministry.

Bill Haber / AP
The evangelist at First Baptist Chuch in New Orleans on March 9

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By Jon Meacham
Newsweek
Updated: 8:53 a.m. PT March 12, 2006

March 20, 2006 issue - In New Orleans to preach to 1,000 clergy gathered at the First Bap*tist Church there—his first sermon in eight months—the Rev. Billy Gra*ham toured the hard-hit city last week. Afterward, the 87 year-old Graham, who has al*so just published a new book, “The Journey: How to Live by Faith in an Uncertain World,” spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Jon Meacham by telephone. Edited excerpts:

This is your first trip to the coast after Katrina. What are your impressions?

This is the greatest disaster that I have ever seen, and I’ve seen many, all over the world. Mile after mile after mile, and not a house standing, not a thing that has been left un*touched by Katrina. It’s over*whelming to me. After my first tour, in fact, I was so emotion*al that I could not even talk to my wife for a while.

What do you tell people who ask how a loving God could let something like this happen?

Well, I spoke yesterday to the clergy and I asked myself why, and I told them don’t know why. There is no way I can know. I think of Job, who suf*fered the loss of everything—seven sons and three daugh*ters, all of his cattle, all of his sheep and his flocks, every*thing gone. He couldn’t help but ask why, but he didn’t find the answer immediately, and he really never had the answer at the end.

God came back and restored to him all these things, but the cause of the thing in his life was not God, it was the Devil. I didn’t mention that yesterday, because I don’t think this is the place to talk about Satan and the Devil, because I don’t know. The Devil might have had nothing to do with this; I don’t know. But God has al*lowed it, and there is a purpose that we won’t know maybe for years to come.

People are always struggling with the question of evil in a universe that many believe to be created and governed by a God whose central instinct is sup*posed to be love. Do you believe that there is a personification of evil at work in the world, con*tending against that God?

… Well, the Scripture teaches that there is a devil, and his name is Satan, which means “destroyer.” He’s an accuser; he accuses us to God, and we are told that the victory over him has come through the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, he was not only dying for our sins but he was dying to destroy the power and the works of the Devil. We don’t see that destruction yet. We are living in a period that Jesus predicted would be a very serious and difficult time, and as we approach the end of the age, it is going to get worse and worse. We see it on every hand today. But at the end of it, it’s going to be the coming of Christ, and that’s the hope that we really have …

I was born at the end of World War I and then came World War II, which was even worse. It’s been one thing after another, through natural dis*asters, and men fighting men, the rise of communism, the rise of Nazism, and that all came in my short lifetime.

I don’t see much improve*ment in man’s heart. The whole thing is in man’s heart: his desire, his greed, his lust, his pride, his ego. All of these things meshed together bring about sometimes a world war and sometimes a small war, but wars are going on every*where, even in families. It’s a personal thing with each of us.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 01:51 pm

Continued:

God, Satan, and Katrina

SPECIAL SECTION: HURRICANE KATRINA

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And in your world view, the answer to those problems is through the Gospel.

Yes, absolutely. There is no other answer. But the Gospel that we talk about is good news to the individual that his own sins are forgiven … beyond that, national and in*ternational peace will come, I believe, when Jesus comes as the Messiah.

When do you think that will be?

I have no idea. Jesus told us not to try to set dates. And we are not to set a date, but he gave us signs to look for, and it seems to me that nearly all of them are being fulfilled right now. Maybe that’s been true throughout his*tory, but it’s certainly true today.

How are you feeling physically?

I feel fairly good. I have my struggles at 87, and those are normal I think for men and women of my age. I was crip*pled when I fell twice—once I broke my hip and had to have a new hip put in, and I broke my pelvic bone in three places, and all those things take time to recover, and I have not recovered totally. I still walk with a walker because I don’t want to fall again.

If a young evangelist asked you how much time he should spend on politics versus purely pastoral work, what would you say?

In my own life it’s been a mixture. I’ve been concerned about our nation, our world and the political processes, but also I have regretted that I have not spent more time in prayer, in Bible study and in the pastoral ministry that pastors are usually called to do. An evangelist is a little different. The word evangelist means “the spreader of good news,” and my job, it seems to me, has been to go all over the world and proclaim that good news, and that’s my primary mission. But I did learn a great deal in my travels about our world, and I became con*cerned about it, and I spoke about some issues in that peri*od of time. To a young man today, I would say: “Put your emphasis on your Bible study and prayer.”

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 02:35 pm

There is the interview below too with Billy Graham:

Pilgrim’s Progress

In the twilight, Billy Graham shares what he's learned in reflecting on politics and Scripture, old age and death, mysteries and moderation. A NEWSWEEK exclusive.

NEWSWEEK ON AIR
Billy Graham: Lord's Lion in Winter
Guest: NEWSWEEK's Jon Meacham, author of "American Gospel." (Random House: April, 2006)

Friend to Presidents

• Over nearly six decades in the ministry, Billy Graham has been a spiritual advisor to American presidents regardless of their political viewpoints or affiliations. From 'Billy Graham: God's Ambassador' courtesy Gaither Film Productions / Bill Carter

• It's been more than half a century since Billy Graham began his crusades. War

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Talk Transcript: Meacham on Billy Graham

NEWSWEEK Managing Editor Jon Meacham appeared for a Live Talk on the life, legacy and future of Billy Graham on Wednesday, Aug. 9.

By Jon Meacham
Newsweek

Aug. 14, 2006 issue - Earlier this summer, on a warm Carolina evening, Billy Graham awoke in the middle of the night. He had been asleep in his bedroom at the end of a long hall off the main part of the log house he and his wife, Ruth, have lived in for 50 years. The house, which sits atop a small mountain in Montreat, N.C., is sprawling but simple; the only hint a celebrated figure lives here is a mechanical gate, a precaution suggested by J. Edgar Hoover. At 87 Graham uses a hospital bed; Ruth ("that angel in there," he calls her) sleeps next door. Over the stone fireplace in his room—dark this time of year; the air conditioner hums loudly—hangs a homemade family tree decorated with snapshots of his five children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. An enormous television sits in the corner. Graham remains a news junkie, following developments in the Mideast, North Korea—and in nearby Durham, where he keeps an eye on coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape case.

On this particular night, Graham lay in the darkness, trying to recite the 23rd Psalm from memory. He begins: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ... " Then, for a moment, he loses the thread. "I missed a sequence, and that disturbed me," Graham recalls. It was frustrating—the man who has preached the Gospel to more human beings than anyone in history does not like to forget critical verses of the Bible—but in the end the last line comes back to him: "Surely thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Relieved, he drifts back to sleep.

To everything there is a season, says the author of Ecclesiastes, and for Billy Graham this is the season of coping with the toll of time. Getting around is harder; so is recalling familiar Scriptures. Yet rather than simply withdrawing into the shadows to enjoy a few richly deserved quiet years with his wife and family, Graham believes he may have been called to a last mission: to soldier on by faith, praying and pondering and sharing what he has come to see and feel and think in the twilight of his life. In the same way he refused to give up searching his memory for the verses to the psalm, he seems congenitally incapable of surrendering completely to the weakness of the body. "All my life I've been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old," Graham remarked one day to his daughter Anne Graham Lotz. "And I told him, 'Well, Daddy, you are now teaching all of us'." The lesson of age, Anne says, is this: "When you get older, secondary things, like politics, begin to fall away, and the primary thing becomes primary again—and for Daddy, the primary thing is, as Jesus said, to try to love God totally, and to love our neighbor as ourselves."

And that, in a way, is Billy Graham's last testament. As his days dwindle, the man whose heyday was consumed with preaching and with presidents is increasingly reflective. In interviews with NEWSWEEK in recent months, Graham has made it clear that partisan politics and the culture wars feel far away. He will not offer opinions on stem-cell research, for instance, and he has stopped giving political counsel to the powerful, a habit that began with Eisenhower. He was tempted to call President George W. Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war to advise him on the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, but decided against it.

You can see more from a mountain, and from the perspective of years. Graham believes both the right and the left in America have sometimes gone too far, elevating transitory issues when, in Graham's view, the core message of the Gospel, and the love of God "for all people" should take priority: "The older I get, the more important the eternal becomes to me personally." His mind is on the heavenly more than the temporal, on the central promises of Christianity more than on the passing political parade.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 02:41 pm

Continued:

Pilgrim’s Progress

JonMeacham.com

It was not always this way. After the 1963 March on Washington, Graham said: "Only when Christ comes again will the little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children." In 1965, he dismissed demonstrations for peace in Vietnam, saying, "It seems the only way to gain attention today is to organize a march and protest something." Just 10 years ago, he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that "I don't think there is a single social issue I haven't spoken on."

But more recent years have given him something he had little of in his decades of global evangelism: time to think both more deeply and more broadly. As he has grown older, Graham has come to an appreciation of complexity and a gentleness of spirit that sets him apart from many other high-profile figures in America's popular religious milieu—including, judging from their public remarks, his own son Franklin Graham, and men such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Others relish the battlefield; Graham now prizes peace. He is a man of unwavering faith who refuses to be judgmental; a steady social conservative in private who actually does hate the sin but loves the sinner; a resolute Christian who declines to render absolute verdicts about who will get into heaven and who will not; a man concerned about traditional morality—he is still slightly embarrassed that he kissed "two or three girls" before he kissed his wife—who will not be dragged into what he calls the "hot-button issues" of the hour. Graham's tranquil voice, though growing fainter, has rarely been more relevant.

An old man's musings will not bring peace to the Middle East or stop religious conservatives from demonizing homosexuality or religious liberals from demonizing religious conservatives, but they are musings that resonate in a global climate shaken and shaped by the war in Iraq, the threat of terror and the violence between Hizbullah and Israel. "I've been watching the news from the Middle East full time," Graham says. "I think that history began there, and it is going to end there. The whole Bible is centered in the Middle East and so many of the events that are taking place in some ways already have taken place many times, and my heart goes out to all those people who are suffering on all sides ... I pray for those people constantly—they're on my mind, they're on my heart. I pray that somehow they will find a solution. I'm not sure they will ever find a permanent solution. Christ, who I believe is going to come back, will settle all of those things in a great period of righteousness."

The administration cannot count on the Second Coming to resolve the crisis, but Graham's spirit of moderation, of concern for both sides, is welcome not only overseas but at home, for Americans seem hungry for a ceasefire in the culture wars. In a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 66 percent of all Americans want a "middle ground" on abortion. Six out of 10 white evangelicals also support compromise; meanwhile, 44 percent of white evangelicals—the highest figure recorded in five years of polling—back stem-cell research.

Though flocks of the faithful have lionized Graham, turning his crusades into epic events, his books into best sellers and even his house into a shrine, he remains contradictory and controversial. One of the most formidable figures in the 2,000-year story of Christian evangelism, he is the first to tell you he is far from perfect. He was caught on tape exchanging anti-Semitic remarks with Richard Nixon, and he allowed himself to be used as an occasional political prop in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon years, bestowing benediction on the presidents with whom he golfed, prayed and embraced—often as photographers clicked away. Such images have long led critics to dismiss Graham as a name-dropping, theologically naive showman.

The new interviews with NEWSWEEK, however, reveal a more intriguing figure than either his followers or his critics might assume. 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." And he is an old man who loved the life he led and acknowledges that aging and facing the prospect of death are things he has only recently come to embrace. "I can't say that I like the fact that I can't do everything I once did," he says, "but more than ever, as I read my Bible and pray and spend time with my wife, I see each day as a gift from God, and we can't take that gift for granted."

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 02:46 pm

Continued:

Pilgrim’s Progress

Graham has always been torn between absolutism and moderation. Born four days before the Armistice in 1918 and raised by Presbyterian parents on a 300-acre dairy farm near Charlotte, N.C., he left home for Bob Jones's fundamentalist college in the fall of 1936, but soon dropped out, moving on to a Florida Bible college and ultimately to Wheaton in Illinois. Ordained as a Baptist preacher in ed a conservative but not fundamentalist brand of Christianity with a style that took him to six different continents and into the company of 10 presidents. He was ubiquitous, opining on issues ranging from civil rights to Vietnam to nuclear arms. Given Graham's Southern roots, the Jim Crow question was especially fraught. Graham made occasional go-slow remarks that undercut the movement, but he also refused to hold segregated crusades and asked Martin Luther King Jr. to appear with him in New York in 1957. The two men once traveled together to Brazil, holding long talks. (Like many intimates, Graham called King "Mike.")

After years of vigor, infirmity came with little warning. Graham was perennially mindful of his health; his biographer William Martin once noted how much Graham amused his staff by "racing off to the Mayo Clinic at the slightest hint of illness." In 1999, when he turned 80, "All of a sudden it all changed, and I became physically very limited," Graham says. There were brain operations, a broken hip and a broken pelvis. He now suffers from prostate cancer and has shunts in his brain to fight hydrocephalus. Meanwhile, Ruth, a funny, devout and feisty woman, is also ailing. In 1979 she was fixing a swing for the grandchildren and fell from a tree—it was 14 feet to the ground, Graham says—breaking bones and inaugurating a long period of pain. (Ruth was, and is, a wonderful ballast to Graham. Barbara Bush, another formidable woman with a peripatetic husband, likes to tell this story: when Ruth was asked by an interviewer whether, as a Christian woman, she had ever considered divorce, Mrs. Graham replied, "Divorce? No. Murder? Yes.")

Graham spends hours now with his Bible, at once savoring and reconsidering old stories and old lessons. 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," Graham says. "This is a little difference in my thinking through the years." He has, then, moved from seeing every word of Scripture as literally accurate to believing that parts of the Bible are figurative—a journey that began in 1949, when a friend challenged his belief in inerrancy during a conference in southern California's San Bernardino Mountains. Troubled, Graham wandered into the woods one night, put his Bible on a stump and said, "Lord, I don't understand all that is in this book, I can't explain it all, but I accept it by faith as your divine word."

Now, more than half a century later, he is far from questioning the fundamentals of the faith. He is not saying Jesus is just another lifestyle choice, nor is he backtracking on essentials such as the Incarnation or the Atonement. But he is arguing that the Bible is open to interpretation, and fair-minded Christians may disagree or come to different conclusions about specific points. Like Saint Paul, he believes human beings on this side of paradise can grasp only so much. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror," Paul wrote, "then we shall see face to face." Then believers shall see: not now, but then.

Debates over the exact meaning of the word "day" in Genesis (Graham says it is figurative; on the other hand, he thinks Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale) or whether the "Red Sea" is better translated as "sea of reeds"—which takes Moses' miracle out of the realm of Cecil B. DeMille—or the actual size of ancient armies in a given battle may seem picayune to some. For many conservative believers, however, questioning any word of the Bible can cast doubt on all Scripture. Graham's position, then, while hardly liberal, is more moderate than that of his strictest fellow Christians.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 02:51 pm

Continued:

Pilgrim’s Progress

• JonMeacham.com

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."

Despite Graham's physical difficulties—walking uneasily, hearing poorly, tiring quickly—he felt called to come to New York to preach one last great crusade in the summer of 2005. In interview after interview, he underscored that he was going to discuss only the Gospel—a public hint that the man who had not shied away from the arena in past years had rethought his role. "I think the Lord led me in that decision, and that's where I am now," he says. "I spend more time on the love of God than I used to." He pauses, and, alluding to more politically active conservative ministers, adds: "But I have tried to maintain friendships with all these people."

One of those people is Jerry Falwell, who called on Graham after New York. They sat together in Graham's kitchen and discussed the distinction between an evangelist, whose job is to spread the Gospel, and a pastor, who, in Falwell's view, has a duty "to confront the culture." "There is no question that your role and mine are opposites," Falwell told Graham. "You are an evangelist; I am a pastor. I have prophetic responsibilities that you do not have." Falwell is unapologetic about his own calling. "I have spent the last 30 years forming the religious right," Falwell told NEWSWEEK. "I write a letter every week and send a newspaper every month to 200,000 pastors who are broadly called evangelicals, bringing them up to date on what is happening in Washington, in the state capitals, in the culture, and what we need to do about it. And of course I'm criticized for it, and of course I have calculated the positives and the negatives, but I have long been at peace with what I do."

For Graham, politics is a secondary to the Gospel, which transcends party lines and, for believers, transcends earthly reality itself. When NEWSWEEK asked Graham whether ministers—whether they think of themselves as evangelists, pastors or a bit of both—should spend time engaged with politics, he replied: "You know, I think in a way that has to be up to the individual as he feels led of the Lord. A lot of things that I commented on years ago would not have been of the Lord, I'm sure, but I think you have some—like communism, or segregation, on which I think you have a responsibility to speak out." Such proclamations, however, should not be "the main thing," and he admits he has no perfect formula: "I don't know the total answer to that."

A partial answer may lie in a distinction Graham draws between lobbying organizations and the spirit of individual Americans. "In the founding era of our country, it was not organized religion but personal faith that brought focus and unified the early leadership—maybe an unspoken faith in God, and certain values that came with that faith," he says. "So in that sense, we cannot discount, in my judgment, religious faith in politics." But he is talking about faith as one factor—perhaps the most important, but still just one—in the life of a people, not about churches or lobbies using the name of God to win votes.

One way for a minister to fulfill his duty to his flock on public-policy questions is to focus on ends while leaving the means to others. An example of this in Graham's own life was his work for nuclear disarmament. When he spoke out on the cold-war arms race, he urged a change of heart—he did not rally support for a particular treaty or a particular agenda.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 02:55 pm

Continued:

Pilgrim’s Progress

JonMeacham.com

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."

Despite Graham's physical difficulties—walking uneasily, hearing poorly, tiring quickly—he felt called to come to New York to preach one last great crusade in the summer of 2005. In interview after interview, he underscored that he was going to discuss only the Gospel—a public hint that the man who had not shied away from the arena in past years had rethought his role. "I think the Lord led me in that decision, and that's where I am now," he says. "I spend more time on the love of God than I used to." He pauses, and, alluding to more politically active conservative ministers, adds: "But I have tried to maintain friendships with all these people."

One of those people is Jerry Falwell, who called on Graham after New York. They sat together in Graham's kitchen and discussed the distinction between an evangelist, whose job is to spread the Gospel, and a pastor, who, in Falwell's view, has a duty "to confront the culture." "There is no question that your role and mine are opposites," Falwell told Graham. "You are an evangelist; I am a pastor. I have prophetic responsibilities that you do not have." Falwell is unapologetic about his own calling. "I have spent the last 30 years forming the religious right," Falwell told NEWSWEEK. "I write a letter every week and send a newspaper every month to 200,000 pastors who are broadly called evangelicals, bringing them up to date on what is happening in Washington, in the state capitals, in the culture, and what we need to do about it. And of course I'm criticized for it, and of course I have calculated the positives and the negatives, but I have long been at peace with what I do."

For Graham, politics is a secondary to the Gospel, which transcends party lines and, for believers, transcends earthly reality itself. When NEWSWEEK asked Graham whether ministers—whether they think of themselves as evangelists, pastors or a bit of both—should spend time engaged with politics, he replied: "You know, I think in a way that has to be up to the individual as he feels led of the Lord. A lot of things that I commented on years ago would not have been of the Lord, I'm sure, but I think you have some—like communism, or segregation, on which I think you have a responsibility to speak out." Such proclamations, however, should not be "the main thing," and he admits he has no perfect formula: "I don't know the total answer to that."

A partial answer may lie in a distinction Graham draws between lobbying organizations and the spirit of individual Americans. "In the founding era of our country, it was not organized religion but personal faith that brought focus and unified the early leadership—maybe an unspoken faith in God, and certain values that came with that faith," he says. "So in that sense, we cannot discount, in my judgment, religious faith in politics." But he is talking about faith as one factor—perhaps the most important, but still just one—in the life of a people, not about churches or lobbies using the name of God to win votes.

One way for a minister to fulfill his duty to his flock on public-policy questions is to focus on ends while leaving the means to others. An example of this in Graham's own life was his work for nuclear disarmament. When he spoke out on the cold-war arms race, he urged a change of heart—he did not rally support for a particular treaty or a particular agenda.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 02:59 pm

Continued:

Pilgrim’s Progress

• JonMeacham.com

As Graham draws farther from the arena, his son Franklin, 54, is in the midst of it. "My father certainly has views on politics," says Franklin, the founder of Samaritan's Purse, a global relief organization. "There are moral issues that do find their way into politics—he is very supportive of the right to life, for example. Now he doesn't go out and make a huge issue of it, or of any political question, because my father does not feel God has called him to speak out against any particular sin. He is against all sin, and believes the heart of man has to be changed by Christ. He doesn't get pulled into these political issues, and I think he's right."

Franklin, however, does get pulled in, and sometimes just jumps in. When a NEWSWEEK reporter mentioned the religious right in passing, the younger Graham said: "I don't think the Christian right dominates America in the way some in the media believe they do. I think the last election was a moral one—people of all faiths, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, felt that the gay agenda that the Democratic Party had essentially adopted and supported was scary. It scared a lot of people of all faiths."

In perhaps his most celebrated remark, Franklin has referred to Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion," and declines to back down. "After 9/11, there were a lot of things being said about how the God of Islam and the God of the Christian faith were one and the same, but that's simply not true ... ," Franklin told NEWSWEEK. "The God that I worship does not require me to kill other people. The God that I worship tells me I am to love my enemy, to give him food when he's hungry and water when he's thirsty." Asked whether he thinks such observations are helpful, the younger Graham said: "It's not the calling of my life to preach against Islam. You're a reporter; you ask me, and I answer the question. I don't go on television or into stadiums and make Islam or gay marriage or the right to life my theme. But in the work that I do I come up against belief systems all over the world. I see much of the damage that is done in the name of religion. In the Balkans, Milosevic would have Orthodox priests bless the troops before they would rape and kill. Man's heart is evil and wicked until it is changed by Christ."

Asked about his son's use of the phrase "evil and wicked" in reference to Islam, Graham says: "I would not say Islam is wicked and evil ... I have a lot of friends who are Islamic. There are many wonderful people among them. I have a great love for them. I have spoken at Islamic meetings, in Nigeria and in different parts of the world." The father's view, then, is different from the son's. "I'm sure there are many things that he and I are not in total agreement about," Graham says. "I'm an old man, he's a young man in the prime of life." Anne Graham Lotz, after expressing her deep respect for her brother's life and work, said: "When Daddy was my brother's age, he was saying some pretty strong things, too, so you have to remember that experience and the living of a life can soften your perspective."

For Graham the softening of perspective began with Watergate. He believed he had a genuine friendship with Nixon, only to find himself horrified by the president's misdeeds and by the ferocious profanity evident on the White House tapes.

Those recordings ultimately brought about Graham's own darkest hour. In a conversation released in 2002, Graham was heard exchanging anti-Semitic remarks about alleged Jewish control of the media. The shock of the revelation was magnified because of Graham's longtime support of Israel and his refusal to join in calls for the conversion of the Jews. "If it wasn't on tape, I would not have believed it," says Graham. "I guess I was trying to please. I felt so badly about myself—I couldn't believe it. I went to a meeting with Jewish leaders and I told them I would crawl to them to ask their forgiveness." In a statement, Graham said: "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." The lesson for Graham was that earthly power was alluring but perilous for a man of faith. The bitterness of the Nixon connection was complete, and Graham saw the wisdom of the Psalmist, who wrote: "Put not thy trust in princes."

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 03:12 pm

Continued:

Pilgrim’s Progress

JohnMeacham.com

If he had his life to live over again, Graham says he would spend more time immersed in Scripture and theology. He never went to seminary, and his lack of a graduate education is something that still gives him a twinge. "The greatest regret that I have is that I didn't study more and read more," he says. "I regret it, because now I feel at times I am empty of what I would like to have been. I have friends that have memorized great portions of the Bible. They can quote [so much], and that would mean a lot to me now."

A unifying theme of Graham's new thinking is humility. He is sure and certain of his faith in Jesus as the way to salvation. When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: "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." Such an ecumenical spirit may upset some Christian hard-liners, but in Graham's view, only God knows who is going to be saved: "As an evangelist for more than six decades, Mr. Graham has faithfully proclaimed the Bible's Gospel message that Jesus is the only way to Heaven," says Graham spokesman A. Larry Ross. "However, salvation is the work of Almighty God, and only he knows what is in each human heart."

The Grahams' days are largely quiet. He rises late in the morning, spends time with Ruth in her room and takes some of his meals in the big kitchen, watching the news on a big-screen television. Graham's retirement is as peculiar in its way as his career was. President George W. Bush telephoned one day to see how he was doing—"out of the blue," Graham says—and a handwritten letter from Queen Elizabeth arrived in the mail, checking in on him.

Ruth dwells at the center of his world. "At night we have time together; we pray together and read the Bible together every night," he says. "It's a wonderful period of life for both of us. We've never had a love like we have now—we feel each other's hearts." She suffers from macular degeneration, and so her secretary types out the psalms on a word processor, printing the words in huge type—there might be six or eight words on a page—and then collects the text in big black binders, from which Ruth reads.

At night, as they read and reminisce and sometimes just gaze at one another, the Grahams' conversation often turns to what they believe awaits them beyond the grave. "I think about heaven a great deal, I think about the failures in my life in the past, but know that they have been covered by the blood of Christ, and that gives me a great sense of confidence," says Graham. "I have a certainty about eternity that is a wonderful thing, and I thank God for giving me that certainty. I do not fear death. I may fear a little bit about the process, but not death itself, because I think the moment that my spirit leaves this body, I will be in the presence of the Lord."

Nice pictures to see too: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14204483/

There is good and evil in the world. Interdimensional beings and demonic possession exist. Exhorcism works in some cases. God is all. God is one. All are one and together is God. God had no beginning and has no end, otherwise, where did the first of anything come from? All there is came from nothing or it always existed. Those are the choices. Each appears impossible, yet, "I exist" as do the gods in interdimensional worlds.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/12/06, 03:58 pm

MAGI

08/12/06, 06:15 pm

Yes, we now have the Christian Tallban, a radical fundamentalist neo-conservative Christianity to go along with radical neo-conservative politics that is leading us into a one world government of the elite, for the elite and by the elite. The Christian Right don't yet see their neo-conservative Christian religious reflection in the mirror of radical fundamentalist Islam.

In the South, there is a particularly strong identity with military service that very often goes back many generations within families and that is intrisically tied to fudamentalist Christianity. That identity is strongest in the South and is weakest in the West.

Thanks Jennifer,
This is the BEST paragraph in your posts today, in my opinion:

A unifying theme of Graham's new thinking is humility. He is sure and certain of his faith in Jesus as the way to salvation. When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: "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." Such an ecumenical spirit may upset some Christian hard-liners, but in Graham's view, only God knows who is going to be saved: "As an evangelist for more than six decades, Mr. Graham has faithfully proclaimed the Bible's Gospel message that Jesus is the only way to Heaven," says Graham spokesman A. Larry Ross. "However, salvation is the work of Almighty God, and only he knows what is in each human heart."

:thumbup:

MAGI

08/13/06, 01:11 pm

reading Dailey KOS right now & couldn't resist posting this with a smile (first one on this LOOONNNG trying day) :

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/13/01517/7425

Please God (20+ / 0-)

let us win the Senate

and the House House House House too.

And if you can manage to hang with us on Lieberman...

I know I'm asking for a lot, and thy will be done, and all that, but I just can't see how thy will can be done without the majority going to the Democrats.

I promise I will stop swearing so much. I didn't use to swear so much before Bush was elected anyway, so that one will not be too hard to keep. I will also give up chocolate or something. I promise to be the best person I can be. Just help us out here and give us a chance.

Maybe I'll even start going to church again. Well, on second thought, how about if I just commit to prayer and meditation once a day?

Over and out.

by joanneleon on Sat Aug 12, 2006 at 10:26:31 PM

:) :thumbup:

Jennifer_SFBA

08/13/06, 10:30 pm

Imagine a religious war between the Christian Right in power in the Whitehouse and in Congress and in Coalition with Israel against Islamic states worldwide and their allies. It could happen. The Religious Right really should go home and think again before they decide to do away with our Constitutional provision for separation between church and state and secular government.

Jane of Arc

08/14/06, 09:59 am

My story with the man who I observe as a member of the Christian Taliban continues ...

I had to go back to the bank and deal with him. He had made an error and needed my signature so he wouldn't get in trouble. I went wayyyy out of my way to drive there at an inconvenient time for me to help him out. I wasn't looking forward to another encounter. But, I girded my loins and went. Life lessons.

I was very kind and gracious ... and he was SOOOOOOOOO rude! Wouldn't look me in the eye. He treated me like I was an insignificant bug. I could feel how much he loathed me because I didn't align myself with his militaristic version of Christ, the ass kicking warrior.

Now here's the grand snafu. I have to 'love' the guy. Even though he treated me with disdain, I must treat him with kindness. I have to forgive the fact that he said he would have no problem putting a bullet in the head of a doctor who performed an abortion. And I have to accept the fact he's pro-war and pro-Bush. I did.

It isn't easy. It's a continual exercise. I am an insignificant bug learning how to become my spirit. It's a bitch. ;)

Otherwise, aren't I just another person who hates in this world?

-V-

08/14/06, 03:53 pm

You are on the right path grasshoper.

Other's in that situation may have talked to or written his supervisor regarding his engaging you in an innapropriate discussion and performing his job unprofessionaly. A case could be made that your kindness serves to perpetuate his behavior and will be a disservice to future customers/clients if it is ignored.

Given your political passion I'm sure you played your part in encouraging the conversation and, under those conditions I'd probably "turn the other cheek" also.

I do, however, feel that there are times when it can be productive to make waves. A couple of weeks ago I was in a doctor's waiting room and the TV was tuned to Fox News, which, given the station's reputation, I felt was an innapropriate choice for a place of business. The next time I went to the office Fox was on again. I felt that if they were comfortable making a political statement I was too. Before I left I asked the receptionist whose decision it was to select Fox News for the waiting room. She smiled and said "the doctor, why do you ask?" I said, "I'm no fan of Fox News". I thought about adding that I would not be making an appointment here again but I bit my tongue and left it at that.

-V-

08/14/06, 03:59 pm

I'd be interested to know whether other's here feel it would be appropriate to complain about the bank employee or even Fox News in the doctor's office?

Jennifer_SFBA

08/14/06, 07:02 pm

Truthfully, I would have asked to talk with the bank manager and would have reported the bank employee's rude behavior. As for the doctor, I would have made a point of saying that FOX news in the doctor's waiting was indicative of political conservatism and is insensitive to patients who do not share FOX's view of the world, and by the way, I'm a liberal. Then, I would have said that because I do not support FOX's view and the doctor does indicating he is a political conservative, therefore, would you please provide me with my medical file so I can take it to a doctor who does share my view and hope for the world and that I can in good conscience support with my money, or at least does not flaunt their view, one that is contrary to mine and that is offensive to me. For me, doing that is separating the wheat from the chaff leaving the wheat to savor.

Jennifer_SFBA

08/15/06, 03:11 am

Thinking more about that man at the bank, he does sound dangerous and unstable to me. I might better decide to quietly change banks. Caution is the better part of valor.

MAGI

08/15/06, 05:09 am

Thinking more about that man at the bank, he does sound dangerous and unstable to me. I might better decide to quietly change banks. Caution is the better part of valor.

I'm with you, Jennifer. There are too many hostile people in our world today, and a face off with such a person is NOT worth it! I would definately find another bank. This man sounds like a ticking timebomb. Can you imagine being his wife or child?
:eek:

I would tell the doctor how offensive I find Fox news and ask him to consider a more neutral station ................because knowing truth and listening to most of the newcasters' spin raises my blood pressure!
:thumbup:

Reading the problem about ER doctors in The AZ. Republic yesterday, brings forth info I already know.
AZ. is NOT a good place to have a stroke or heart attack! It was bad enough ALREADY!
:(

Jane of Arc

08/15/06, 10:15 am

-V- pointed out something important.

During my First Encounter of the Third Kind with the Christian Taliban ... which was a long conversation that turned into a religious debate ... I questioned his core beliefs and his use of scripture to justify the present day policy of war.

I guarantee that doesn't happen to this man often and I was somewhat effective.

Here's the deal ... I live in the heart of the Bible Belt. The Christian Taliban is the norm. At least my debate with the man at the bank was 'out in the open.' Usually there's just a 'Christian attitude' one encounters. The majority of the people here do NOT believe in evolution. The majority of the people here think The Rapture is eminent. The majority of the people here are Republicans who think Dubya is a man of God. The majority of the people here agree with the guy at the bank. And somehow the less radical Christians here get swept along just keeping their mouths shut. Just like with the Taliban, the most aggressive, passionate and radically religious ... the fundamentalists ... become the leaders.

In this atmospehere ... changing banks, reporting the guy, filing a complaint would only reinforce the general attitude that Yankees from the north and west are arrogant, demanding, know-it-all, whining liberals who don't walk with God. I am the minority and I am on their turf.

What I will do ... is somehow learn to understand what makes these people tick. I will use the time I live in the South as an opportunity to learn how to care for people very different from me. I want to find more common ground.

Many progressives are feeling overwhelmed and angry and they believe fire must be fought with fire. They believe the only thing the Ann Coulter types understand is an equally vicious counter attack.

You can't fight dehumanization with dehumanization.

-V- ~ what you could do with the doctor and his Fox News choice is have your own encounter. Tell him how it makes you feel. Personalize it. Briefly explain your worries about America. Be kind, honest and sincere. And that's it. One human to one human. As Progressives, we must be the standard-bearers of tolerance promoting a humane, peaceful and tolerant future. I believe this 'consciousness' may just be the only hope humanity has.

-V-

08/15/06, 10:44 am

You know doctors. It's tough enough getting them to take the time to answer all your medical questions, let alone political ones.

Your right Jen and Magi. The banker probably already learned a lesson from his experience with the mighty Jane of Arc and taking it to another level would be a risky move with a fanatic who has all of your personal information.

Which brings me back to the doctor. If he feels strongly enough to politicize his waiting room what might he prescribe for -V- for the left? :eek:

Jane of Arc

08/15/06, 11:10 am

-V- ~ did you read my post below yours? I think we posted at the exact same time. Ya' know ... great minds think alike and all ... :sunny:

-V-

08/15/06, 11:49 am

If you mean your post #29 in this thread it is of the same philosophy as my post #259 in the war thread http://progressivesonline.com/showthread.php?p=7664#post7664 :agree:

-V-

08/15/06, 12:27 pm

Dealing with political and religious differences in our daily lives is a good topic which I'd like to continue to expand on here.

This 4th of July I got into a religious discussion with my cousin's wife who mentioned she was now going to church each week (which I later found out to be evangelical). I talked about how the Revelation prophecy was contributing to the Middle East conflict. Two weeks later, I saw The Secrets of Revelation documentary and called her to encourage her to watch it. We got into a debate on that and other Bible/church issues and I strongly suspect she is upset with me now.

She is young (in her twenties), a good spirit, wife and mother and it pains me to see her getting swept up into the evangelical spin.

My philosophy is to:
1. be open to civil debate with strangers (e.g. sitting next to someone on a plane)
2. avoid debate with neighbors or co-workers unless they raise the topic (you may have to live next to or work with these people for a long time)
3. not avoid and occasionaly raise religious and political issues with friends and relatives at appropriate times. (if you can't make an effort to change the immediate world around you there is little hope of change).

I am curious how other Progressives Online choose to deal with Regressives Offline? (or the opposite if you're conservative)