# Billy Graham; he's one of the good guys, right? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 28, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085 "2012-09-28T01:47:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/41 "2012-09-28T18:54:35Z")
> [@davekhps](#): > > This wishy-washy, touchy-feely ecumenical cafeteria Catholic pseudounitarian pablum makes my skin crawl far more than fundamentalist beliefs. It really shouldn’t. The wishy-washy people usually don’t want to kill you and they usually pay more attention to scientific and social progress. These are people who are willing to live and let live. Save your scorn for people who deserve it. > [@](#): > > Again, it’s GOD, you’re _supposed_ to be fundamentalist Not really. Fundamentalism and literalism are pretty recent developments and the idea that they’re more consistent and more authentic than other beliefs is just marketing by the fundamentalists. > [@](#): > > priests, pastors and imams shouldn’t be allowed to rewrite two-thousand-year-old rules First off, why would you insist they stick to rules that are outdated and which you don’t believe anyway? And second, how do you think the 2,000-year-old rules came into being? They were written and rewritten constantly for centuries or millennia. What’s the difference if someone does it now? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/42 "2012-09-28T19:03:23Z")
As a Christian myself, Billy is always one evangelist who didn’t embarrass me. He’s opposed to gay marriage but as far as I know he is not hateful of gay people. Many of his views on race and ecumenism have been downright progressive in the church, and he has touched hundreds of millions of lives. The conversation about “the Jews” was unfortunate, but I really think he was just trying not to contradict the President of the United States to his face. Also, a lot of folks in this thread have called him a fundy, but he’s really not a fundamentalist. “Evangelical” is more accurate. Finally, Franklin Graham is a douche. ---
**Author:** ![Fact\_of\_the\_Matter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Fact\_of\_the\_Matter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fact_of_the_Matter)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/43 "2012-09-28T19:13:06Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > True. But at the same time, he never tried to defraud his followers. Unlike Oral Roberts, who claimed that God would “call him home” unless he raised a certain amount of money by a certain date; or Jim Bakker, who sold accommodations that did not exist at his Christian theme park; Billy just preached, and his message boiled down to what Bill and Ted told us some years ago (and which we’re told Jesus taught two thousand years ago): be excellent to each other. > > That’s not a bad message, and I try to be excellent to others daily. > > “Being excellent to each other” seems to be all Billy Graham wants. Oh, he’ll take monetary contributions, but they are not his motivation. There are evangelists whose motivation seems to be money, but Billy Graham does not seem to be one of them. As such, I’ll call him one of the good guys. Since I am an athiest, by definition he is defrauding his followers. 25 million dollars for preaching? :rolleyes: If the money comes from other places other than his followers I might cut him some slack. Since when is it a christian value to become rich at the expense of others? He certainly doesn’t need that much money to preach the gospel. If the best that can be said of him is he is not as bad as some other famous preachers, that is very faint praise indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/44 "2012-09-28T19:41:13Z")
> [@Fact\_of\_the\_Matter](#): > > Since I am an athiest, by definition he is defrauding his followers. 25 million dollars for preaching? Yeah, but he’s not directly soliciting money from followers. He’s doing what Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh do, for example, and that’s selling content to radio, television, newspapers, magazines, etc. Sure he could perhaps be distributing more of his wealth, but he earned it the good old-fashioned American way, all by himself. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/45 "2012-09-28T20:12:31Z")
> [@Fact\_of\_the\_Matter](#): > > Since I am an athiest, by definition he is defrauding his followers. 25 million dollars for preaching? :rolleyes: If the money comes from other places other than his followers I might cut him some slack. > > Since when is it a christian value to become rich at the expense of others? He certainly doesn’t need that much money to preach the gospel. I don’t know how far to trust the cite for the $25million net worth, and even if it is completely accurate, it leaves me with all sorts of questions, such as How exactly did/does he earn that money? and What does he do with it? I tried a bit of googling to see if I could find any answers on-line. Here, FWIW, is what I came up with: A 2007 article from Time magazine titled “[Why Christopher Hitchens Is Wrong About Billy Graham](http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1662757,00.html)” defending Graham from Hitchens’ accusations, notes: > [@](#): > > The charge that Graham went into ministry to get rich is just as easily refuted, both by what he did and didn’t do. Well aware of how easily a famous preacher could be destroyed by financial or sexual scandal, Graham took pains early on to protect himself from both. He insisted that crusade accounts be audited and published in the local papers when the crusade was finished. Having founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 1950, he took a straight salary, comparable to that of a senior minister of a major urban pulpit, no matter how much in money his meetings brought in. He was turning down million-dollar television and Hollywood offers half a century ago. He never built the Church of Billy Graham, and while he lived comfortably, his house is a modest place. If he had wanted to get rich, he could have been many, many times over. A piece on “[Billy Graham’s Fiscal Leadership](http://www.christianleadershipalliance.org/?page=billygrahamleader),” which notes > [@](#): > > Early in his ministry, Billy was concerned about integrity in all areas. In Modesto, California, he and his team discussed the issues that were often the downfall of evangelists, and made a series of resolutions. The very first on the list was to maintain financial integrity. Billy knew that for many evangelists at the time, “there was little or no accountability for finances. In Modesto we determined to do all we could to avoid financial abuses.” A Beliefnet article “[Billy Graham Organization Is Exemplary, Charity Auditors Say](http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2002/10/Billy-Graham-Organization-Is-Exemplary-Charity-Auditors-Say.aspx)” in which I read > [@](#): > > Want to read the association’s income tax records? Three years’ worth are up on the [billygraham.org](http://billygraham.org) Web site ? along with the past four annual reports and their audited figures. A Web surfer can easily find out how much Mr. Graham was paid in 2000 ? $209,700, which includes a housing allowance and health insurance and other benefits. And, on the other hand, a blog post critical of the above-quoted Time writers’ “cheerleading,” “[Just as he wasn’t: New Billy Graham biography carefully shades the truth](http://bothwellsblog.wordpress.com/2007/08/27/just-as-he-wasnt-new-billy-graham-biography-carefully-shades-the-truth/)” accuses > [@](#): > > Graham’s nonprofit enterprises have profited nicely from the high profile that presidential palavering has, in no small part, afforded him. While his annual personal income from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association only totalled a bit over $500,000 in recent years, he enjoyed a well-appointed “log cabin” estate in Montreat with high tech communications gear and a swimming pool, a vacation home in the posh country club community of Pauma Valley, California, and controlled tax-exempt properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars in North Carolina alone. Nor do these figures include income from books, recordings and television appearances, and may not include the receipts of the individual LLCs created for each of his crusades. To top it off, he bragged that he “never paid for a suit or a hotel room,” though he seems to have preferred lodging in various mansions, both public and private, to the common discomforts of life in commercial rooms. And if we want to keep bashing his son Franklin, there’s plenty of ammunition for that, such as “[Franklin Graham moves to address concerns about his $1.2 million pay packages](http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2009/10/franklin_graham_moves_to_addre.html).” ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/46 "2012-09-29T00:36:10Z")
> [@Fact\_of\_the\_Matter](#): > > Since I am an athiest, by definition he is defrauding his followers. That makes no sense. To defraud anybody you have to consciously lie to them. By every account I’ve seen, Graham really believes what he preaches. Is he a homophobe? You bet Is he an antisemite? a case could be made Is he a lying con man like Jim Bakker or Oral Roberts? absolutely not. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/47 "2012-09-29T00:47:59Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Not really. Fundamentalism and literalism are pretty recent developments and the idea that they’re more consistent and more authentic than other beliefs is just marketing by the fundamentalists. Until at least the Age of Enlightenment or probably even the late 19th Century, most religious people were by default a fundamentalist and a literalist (with occasional exceptions like Giordono Bruno). ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/48 "2012-09-29T04:07:34Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Until at least the Age of Enlightenment or probably even the late 19th Century, most religious people were by default a fundamentalist and a literalist (with occasional exceptions like Giordono Bruno). No, not really. Catholicism hasn’t really ever pushed for literalism, or fundamentalism. The Bible was never seen as taken “literally”. The Age of Enlightenment, I’ll grant you. But after that? Not really. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/49 "2012-09-30T13:56:28Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Dash you, Sir, for making me chortle at mine own comeuppance! Well, you just left it hanging out there… 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![opeongo66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9bcb4/32.png) [@opeongo66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/opeongo66)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/50 "2012-10-01T20:04:17Z")
He was an avowed anti Semite proven by his own words in his own voice on the Nixon tapes. He tells lies to children and weak gullible adults about the nature of reality. He believes in vicarious redemption as a moral strong point. For those who don’t know what that is, it is also called scapegoating. Like all religious leaders he wishes damnation and hellfire upon those who do not agree with his personal brand of insanity. Nice guy? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/51 "2012-10-01T20:32:40Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > As a Christian myself, Billy is always one evangelist who didn’t embarrass me. He’s opposed to gay marriage but as far as I know he is not hateful of gay people. Many of his views on race and ecumenism have been downright progressive in the church, and he has touched hundreds of millions of lives. The conversation about “the Jews” was unfortunate, but I really think he was just trying not to contradict the President of the United States to his face. > > … Amen. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/52 "2012-10-01T20:59:41Z")
> [@opeongo66](#): > > Like all religious leaders he wishes damnation and hellfire upon those who do not agree with his personal brand of insanity. Not true, and certainly not true of all denominations of Christianity. The largest denomination of Christianity, the Catholic church, does not teach this. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/53 "2012-10-01T21:05:10Z")
Only because they’ve discovered it’s politically expedient to make ecumenical noises and watch out for Ratzinger. His noises are becoming less and less ecumenical as the days go by. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/54 "2012-10-01T21:08:00Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Only because they’ve discovered it’s politically expedient to make ecumenical noises and watch out for Ratzinger. His noises are becoming less and less ecumenical as the days go by. So John XXIII was able to see into the future? Neat! I know they accomplished a lot at Vatican II, but I didn’t know THAT! ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/55 "2012-10-01T21:13:30Z")
Spare me. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/56 "2012-10-01T21:55:00Z")
When you get your facts straight, I will. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/57 "2012-10-01T22:00:50Z")
The RCC used to condemn non-catholics to hell. They no longer do this. Is it because: A) They received a divine revelation that said dogma was wrong. (Note: this answer disqualifies them from being a moral authority as what prevents a future church from finding current dogma wrong? Either you have a pipeline to god or you don’t but you can’t claim patchy reception without losing your authority.) B) They lied before and are telling the truth now. C) They were telling the truth before and are lying now. D) It doesn’t matter because it’s all made up nonsense and they’re simply trying to find the most palatable load for people to swallow. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/58 "2012-10-01T23:38:26Z")
I wasn’t claiming to speak for the RC. I was correcting a poster who said that all Christianity teaches non-Christians go to Hell. Which isn’t true. I’m not a Catholic scholar, nor do I claim to be one. I’m only repeating their position. Hell, I’m not even a practicing Catholic anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/59 "2012-10-02T00:05:14Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > The RCC used to condemn non-catholics to hell. They no longer do this. Is it because: > A) They received a divine revelation that said dogma was wrong. (Note: this answer disqualifies them from being a moral authority as what prevents a future church from finding current dogma wrong? Either you have a pipeline to god or you don’t but you can’t claim patchy reception without losing your authority.) > B) They lied before and are telling the truth now. > C) They were telling the truth before and are lying now. > D) It doesn’t matter because it’s all made up nonsense and they’re simply trying to find the most palatable load for people to swallow. How about E) They realized that there was an inconsistency in the idea of a just and loving god condemning all non-Catholics to hell, and their emotional and philosophical commitment to the idea of a just and loving god was greater than their commitment to the idea that non-Catholics go to hell. Look, I’m an atheist and a rationalist and I think there’s a lot of truth to item D, but I used to consider myself a liberal Christian and studied for the ministry and I wasn’t evil or cynical or fraudulent or stupid. I was wrong , and my error was a relatively simple one to explain, though not one people tend to think of. I honestly and reasonably believed at the time that my participation in the church helped me to be a better person, I believed that accepting the doctrines of the church in the manner most compatible with reason and empiricism (and doing the mental gymnastics necessary to accomplish this) was part of what helped me to be better, and I believed, naively, that I could believe something to be true because it was morally beneficial. When I examined this thought process in detail I quickly realized its fallaciousness, but I managed to maintain it for quite some time and with quite a deal of fervency without examining it closely. Whatever you may think about that temporary but long-term failure and the intellectual dishonesty it exemplified, I hope you can see that it was a particular kind of failure, and not a general one exemplifying an overall lack of morals, intelligence, or sanity. I also hope you believe me when I tell you that over the course of many, many long and deep conversations with believers of various types, I have been convinced that many believers including many in high institutional positions in various churches are guilty of similar failures and that nothing more is necessary to explain their behavior or the behavior of most churches at a denominational level. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085/60 "2012-10-02T00:12:15Z")
> [@opeongo66](#): > > He tells lies to children and weak gullible adults about the nature of reality. Again, all signs are that he genuinely believes. They are not lies if he really believes them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-graham-hes-one-of-the-good-guys-right/636085.md?page=4)