I know I'm a day late and a dollar short on this, but rest in peace, Billy Graham. Check out Gavin Ashenden on the late evangelist:
The constant dismissal of him as a fundamentalist sets up a hierarchy of assessment based on an admiration of intelligence and sophistication. Those who guarded the study and practice of academic theology in his and our day were aghast and even disgusted by his spiritual and theological values and practice.
They had created a value system which was based on a rationalistic study of theology set in a humanist intellectual and cultural context which looked down on Graham’s evangelism with intense disrespect. The fact that their kind of intellectual snobbery produced adverse results for what became in their hands a dying faith, while his touched increasing numbers in real existential need, was wholly lost on them; obscured by the fog of pride and the heat of hubris.
The fog of pride and the heat of hubris. Well said, you can read the whole thing here.
God bless,
LSP
I met and spoke with him for something on the order of half an hour once. The memory of that meeting is fresh, though it took place many years ago. I did a blog post of my own when he died but then I deleted it. His origins were in the realm of self promotion but I think that in the end he proved to himself and to others that he was a good man who tried to draw close to Christ and to bring others along with him. RIP.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I never paid him much thought, coming at things from a catholic pov. But I'm with you, it seems he did well in the end. A bit like Johnny Cash's clean living brother, perhaps.
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