Billy Graham, Legacy and Truth

There are few things that are more dangerous than questioning peoples idols. One never makes any friends by questioning objects of veneration. In modern evangelicalism few fit that designation like Billy Graham. The world renowned Evangelist is probably the best known name in 20th Christendom, at least in the English speaking world. But those who have studied his records and his methods have always raised serious questions. With his recent preaching of what may well be his last public message it is a good time to review.

A quote that has been attributed to Spurgeon said, "discernment is not the ability to distinguish right from wrong but from right to almost right." Billy Graham is certainly not Joseph Smith or Pastor Russell, but one does not have to look at the evolution of this thought over the decades to see a subtle and sometimes not so subtle drift to compromise and error.

• The Billy Graham who in the 40s opposed the World Council of Churches was praising it by the 70s.
• The Billy Graham who opposed Communism in the 40s was claiming there was religious freedom in the Soviet Union.
• The Billy Graham who once opposed Rome was sharing platforms with Romanist and telling Catholics "converted" at his rallies to remain in Rome.
• The Billy Graham who was preaching salvation on through Christ. By the 1970s he was making statements implying Salvation for those who have never heard or accepted the Gospel.
• The Billy Graham who staunchly condemned Theological Liberalism went on to have the Apostate Bishop Pike give the prayer at one of his rally's
• The Billy Graham who was supposed to be orthodox could say ".I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God."1 - See more at: http://www.oldearth.org/billy_graham.htm#sthash.Kt3JvvCm.dpuf"
• The Billy Graham Theology has one thing it has never yielded on which is the Finneyite revival system, so tailor made to produce false conversions.

Sadly Graham has tarnished himself by such compromises. Whether he did more harm than will only be known in eternity. Do the compromises reflect his true belief? Has he so craved public acclaim that he was willing to compromise his belief.? Only God, and Billy Graham know.