Rev. Billy Graham receives birthday wishes in star-studded Asheville event at Omni Grove Park Inn

5 Comments

1. 

   FDR November 8, 2013

   Franklin really screwed up his dad’s birthday party by inviting Palin, Trump, and Murdock. Gotta keep your eye on this guy.

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   1. 

      NFB November 8, 2013

      Franklin is the problem. The way he exploits his aged father to promote his own partisan agenda is shameful. It borders on a scene from “Weekend at Bernie’s.”

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   2. 

      luther blissett November 8, 2013

      Regardless of whether you agree with Cecil on the old man, you can see what the son is up to just by looking at him.

      Franklin knows where the money is. He’s promoting Fox News and being feted by conservative heroes while ostensibly running a tax-exempt charity. Local media institutions remain cowed by their reverence of the elder Graham and don’t ask questions about the younger one.

      Franklin already shipped Ruth Graham’s mortal remains off to his kitschy theme park in Charlotte, and sometimes I think that Billy has stuck around so long in order to delay that same fate.

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2. 

   jtroop November 8, 2013

   yawn…..

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3. 

   Stewart November 8, 2013

   You can read the introduction to the first edition of Cecil Bothwell’s book, “The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire,” at http://bothwellsblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/hello-world/

   Here is how it ends:

   Like many another political figure, Graham has sealed most of the personal documents connected to his life and work until after—in some cases many years after—his death. Nor did he consent to be interviewed for this work. But the published and unpublished documentary record speaks volumes. It reveals a Billy Graham who has been an unabashed nationalist, capitalist, militarist and advocate for American empire. The picture that emerges is decidedly not that of a disinterested man of the cloth. Rather, Graham often appears as a well connected covert political operative. To the extent that this seems surprising, it stems from the public’s willful naiveté concerning a self-professed holy man coupled with intentionally biased reporting from the major media at the behest of ideologues including, most prominently, William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce.

   Perhaps we should pay heed to what Graham has actually said instead of accepting his own and others’ later versions of the facts. This tale is told in Graham’s words and those of the biographers, historians, public figures and Presidents who knew him well.

   You may be as surprised as I was at the picture that emerges in these pages. It is not the story of a man of peace.

   Reply