RIP Billy Graham.
The world’s best-known evangelist, the Rev. Billy Graham, has died. He was 99.
From the gangly 16-year-old baseball-loving teen who found Christ at a tent revival, Graham went on to become an international media darling, a preacher to a dozen presidents and the voice of solace in times of national heartbreak. He was America’s pastor.
Graham retired to his mountain home at Montreat, N.C., in 2005 after nearly six decades on the road calling people to Christ at 417 all-out preaching and musical events from Miami to Moscow. His final New York City crusade in 2005 was sponsored by 1,400 regional churches from 82 denominations.
He was arguably the most influential Christian of the 20th Century outside of the Pope.
Nearly every evangelical Christian believes Billy Graham is home with Jesus in heaven.
What strikes me in the story is the false decision theology doctrine! It holds the incorrect Erasmus position: “…which wrongly concludes any command from God to believe or obey the gospel, must somewhow imply the moral ability to to do so.” Martin Luther corrected this position to Erasmus: “when you are finished with all your commands and exhortations … I’ll write Ro.3:20 over the top of it all” (“…through the law comes knowledge of sin.”).In other words, the commands exist to reveal not our ability but rather our inability, and this moral impotency does not take away our responsibility to obey [God’s commands].
Our spiritual nature is so corrupt, and so hostile to God, that we have no ability on our own to find Jesus apart from faith and the Holy Spirit, which is all God’s doing. Graham really discovered his INABILITY at that revival meeting that salvation was not of himself, but entirely the work of Jesus.
I hate it when the liberal media gets the basics of Christianity wrong.
Your issue is with Billy Graham’s theology, not the media, because he clearly and consistently promoted the idea that individuals could make a decision for Christ. The name of his organization’s magazine is ‘Decision’, for crying out loud.
By your standards, Kevin, he either remained ignorant of one of the central tenets of the faith he devoted over 80 years if his life to, or stood in willful opposition to the clear teachings of Scripture.
Major,
You never disappoint. One can make a decision on the external to read the Bible, study God’s Word, participate in the sacraments, go to church, etc. when it comes to the internal, it is the Word and the Holy Spirit that brings one to faith, not our hopelessly corrupted moral ability and corrupted human nature.
I would agree Graham may have been a little fuzzy, sometimes, on the last concept, but he always seemed to hold true in the doctrine where any church rises or falls, salvation through faith in Christ alone.
I don’t think media can ever accept the concept of our hopelessly corrupt human nature (original sin) because that would default acknowledge mankind’s spiritual need for Jesus to remedy the corruption. That would destroy their godless bias on nearly everything.