Warning from the Late Reverend Billy Graham

After a series of recent opinions and local news articles, I felt it was important to look at where we are as a community and how one’s faith has been weaponized by the local political environment.

Rev. Billy Graham publicly warned against the prospect of religious figures becoming too attached to a political stance. The elder Graham was quoted to say:

“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.”

The context of that quote was taken from the February 1st, 1981, cover story in Parade magazine, part of Billy Graham’s account of conversations with fellow Reverend Jerry Falwell, who, at the time, helmed the conservative political group, The Moral Majority. Graham said:

“I told him to preach the Gospel. That’s our calling. I want to preserve the purity of the Gospel and the freedom of religion in America. I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. Liberals organized in the ’60s, and conservatives certainly have a right to organize in the ’80s, but 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.”

In the story, Graham admitted that he no longer thought of communists as “disciples of Lucifer,” contrary to his own rhetoric from earlier in his career. He also cast himself as having no part of Falwell’s organization, which became a key conservative constituency before dissolving in 1989. To that end he is quoted as having said:

“It would be unfortunate if people got the impression all evangelists belong to that group. The majority do not. I don’t wish to be identified with them. I’m for morality. But morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak out with such authority on the Panama Canal or superiority of armaments. Evangelists can’t be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle to preach to all people, right and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future.”

Though the elder Graham had a cordial relationship with several U.S. presidents spanning decades, he told Christianity Today in 2011 that, given the chance to do anything differently in his life, “I also would have steered clear of politics.”

Together, as a community, we should carry Billy Graham’s wisdom and message forward. As our founding fathers intended in crafting the First Amendment, let’s keep religion out of politics and vice versa. Let’s live by Billy Graham’s values instead of trendy labels.

Michael Graham
Front Royal