February 15, 2017
WN: I have copied the entire posting below, with a link at the end for where you may see the original, become a “Follower” of the author, etc.
Billy Graham was definitely right on in the citation below from 1981. Would that he too had stayed away form the kind of politics that renders God and (American) Flag inseparable. His son Franklin most certainly is poster boy for the marriage alluded to below. A recent local interest story about Franklin Graham is this article on the Gospel inappropriateness of the Canadian west coast evangelical community willing to identify with that kind of Christian perversion. Read also the Comments.
Please read on:
In his book, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts Faith and Threatens America, Randall Balmer cites Billy Graham’s concern about a marriage between the political right and religious fundamentalism.
Billy Graham warned, “I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” Parade Magazine, 1981.
His profound warning is exactly what is happening in our current culture. GOP policy and agenda have manipulated good people into succumbing to the perversion of Jesus’ teachings for monetary gain.
Therefore, I resist with a poem:
If being a Christian means I have to deny healthcare to another human being, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to deny equality to the LGBT community, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to turn a blind eye to the suffering of refugees, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to accept building a wall separating me from another human, so I can be privileged, and they can suffer, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to deny scientific evidence of climate change, therefore contributing to the destruction of the earth, our home, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to desire more guns, lack of gun regulations, and believe the mentally impaired should be able to purchase guns, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means that I have to support building an oil pipeline through sacred land of Native Americans, disrespecting them, their land, and the earth, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to deny another human’s entry into my country because they worship differently, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to deny women access to birth control, cancer screenings, and education regarding their bodies, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to call a woman a murderer for having an abortion resulting from rape, incest, fetal developmental abnormalities, or simply because she is in a bad situation, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to believe that God is going to destroy the earth and only save select Christians from that destruction after a rapture, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to accept that billions of earth’s species fit onto one boat, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to discredit evolution or science, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to deny suffering people the benefits of medical cannabis, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to pledge allegiance to a flag and nationalism, instead of Jesus and his teachings of love, equality, caring for the poor, and fighting for the least of these, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to deny human beings food because they are addicted to drugs, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to believe in the death penalty, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to believe that women should not be pastors, equal in their homes, or professionally, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to believe that others will go to an eternal hell because they were born in a different culture and religion, then I am not a Christian.
If being a Christian means I have to openly accept things that Jesus vehemently spoke against, then I am not a Christian.
Please click on: If Being a Christian Means…
