Just saw it in the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/obituaries/billy-graham-dead.html?contentCollection=BreakingNews&action=Click&contentID=66562180&pgtype=article

Thank the gods!

He was one of my favorite televangelists.

I watched him as a young Mormon lass.

Now he's at peace with his beloved Ruth.

John Paul II and Billy Graham did more to help lead me away from Mormonism than anybody else.

When I was a rebellious teenager my mom didn't take me to see our bishop for counseling.

She took me to a Billy Graham event in our Mormon community.

I felt more love there than at the morg.

Amyjo Wrote:
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> I felt more love there than at the morg.

True of many other places like the food bank, 99% of other churches (Scientology & JWs excepted); even the times when people stand when orders & disabled don't have a seat on the bus or train...

My neighbor came over to help me build a fence I wanted regarding naturism/nudism (Maybe he just didn't want to see me, ja ja), I felt love then too.

"I watched him as a young Mormon lass."

Hard to believe he was once a young Mormon lass! He sure changed

He was boring. Literally had like one message about "accepting Jesus" ... one-line message he repeated thousands of times for sixty years. No follow up, no depth.

CNN reports he reached well over 200,000,000 people through his televised ministry. He was a powerful, enigmatic preacher.

I wonder what Frederick Douglas would have said.

It was a number of years ago I read he had a net worth of 110 million. Religion can be a seriously well paying gig.

Link or it didn’t happen.

"Celebrity Worth- puts Billy Graham’s net worth at $25,000,000...this does not include the MILLIONS of dollars in real estate which is owned by his Ministry- but given use to Billy Graham and his family…"

https://www.nolanchart.com/billy-franklin-graham-men-of-god-or-just-the-highest-paid-religious-ceos

Was that his ministry or his personal wealth? It makes a difference.

Not to Briggy Young it didn't...

I remember Bishop Fulton J Sheen on TV, anyone else?

Seldom watched - found him boring and creepy - but I do remember him.

He was a very talented and gifted preacher who led multitudes to Christ.

rubi123 Wrote:
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> He was a very talented and gifted preacher who led
> multitudes to Christ.

I don't think so. Televangelists are like advertising companies that work for the tobacco industry. They do not so much create new smokers as divert existing smokers away from the competition.

The victims of televangelists tend to be people who were already under the influence of religion, but until then, not in deep enough to part with such large amounts of money.

We can agree to disagree. From Wikipedia: "Billy Graham conducted 417 crusades in 185 countries and territories on six continents."

He wasn't merely a televangelist. He went to many, many countries and reached out to the masses.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2018 10:41AM by rubi123.

rubi123 Wrote:
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> He went to
> many, many countries and reached out to the
> masses....

...for their wallets.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree as well :)

Yes, because third-world countries have so much wealth!

That doesn't stop the mormons from heavily recruiting there, and asking folks for 10% of their meager income...

I don't believe he was money hungry. He was looked up to and respected by US presidents from Harry S. Truman on. They sought prayer and personal guidance from him. He lived humbly.

When meeting with Presidents he spoke lovingly of Jews.

Which he lovingly denied until he heard himself on tape, and complaining about what the Jews were doing...

Naturally he prayed for forgiveness and what do you know about ghawd forgave him!

Amyjo Wrote:
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> He lived humbly.

You and I must have different ideas of "humbly."

Personal net worth of around $25M.
Lived on a $27M estate home (rent-free, since it was owned tax-free by his "ministry").
Paid his son over $1M per year.
Had book income alone over the past 10 years in excess of $20M -- no sign of any of it going to charity.

Mom and I watched him at every opportunity. Him and Charles Stanley.

I love, love, love Charles Stanley.

He's getting up in years too.

He delivers the most heart felt sermons of any preacher I've heard speak - time and again.

Yes! I really like Charles Stanley as well.

The reverend elaborates on his admiration of the Jewish people......


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2002/03/whopper_of_the_week_billy_graham.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2018 09:59AM by Shummy.

The news of his death is all over TV, radio, internet. Monson’s death? Not so much.

Graham touched millions more lives, and changed hearts for good.

Exactly! Mormons won’t figure this out though. They’ll just be offended. How dare BG die and receive so much attention!

Graham worked quietly in the 1960s persuading Southern Baptist pastors to either support the civil rights movement, or at least stay neutral. He identified himself with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. by bailing him out of jail after King had been arrested in the 1960s, and sought to racially integrate his rallies.

“Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been,” King said.

He had a powerful message: that all were saved for believing on Jesus. That was sufficient for even the lowliest of sinners.

Compare to Mormonism and the Works Doctrine (v) Grace Doctrine.

Graham's Christianity wasn't one of doing. It was of being. People can't do enough to be saved.

What a potent message that grace is sufficient.

Powerful message?More like spiritual blackmail . Believe in Jesus or burn in hell. Because that at the end off the day that is really the bottom line of Christianity

How long will it take for his temple work to be done?

My understanding is they wait at least a year.

Yesterday.

He was just boring from the little I could stand to watch of him.

He literally had one message about "accepting Jesus" and that was it. A one-line message he repeated thousands of times all over the world for sixty odd years. No follow up, no depth to it.

At least 3 million people came to believe based on his spoken word.

He was a prolific, charismatic speaker.

God takes out the trash a little late with this one.

Graham was merely another scammer.

I thought you were an atheist?

At least you spelled Atheist correctly.

I'm definitely not a fan of Bible thumpers, but he was a lot
better than the crew at the forefront these days. And he was a
LOT better than Franklin Graham.

To all the wannabe con artists - yes you can become incredibly wealthy peddling "smoke and mirrors".

When I was in Brasil on my mission, 1968-1970, it wasn't uncommon to go into the homes of people who would have pictures of Billy Graham and sometimes JFK hanging on their wall. (Oddly enough, Billy looked much like Don Crump, who was the husband of my cousin Joyce in Pleasant Grove, UT. I tried explaining that once and decided it wasn't worth the effort)

And many members had the same pictures. It was just something that they did. I'm not sure I ever understood the connection but they didn't talk much about them. Many of them also had pictures of Pele’. They weren’t hanging on the same wall.

It was hard enough to get them to understand the JS story without bringing the other two guys into it, but it wasn’t as if they were worshiping them. Or were they?

Well say what you will about his kindly nature and purported good works, he was responsible for spawning an endless flood of tele-shysters who have eagerly adopted his rouse the masses style to enrich themselves.

That to me is his greatest legacy to mankind.

It's understandable you paint with a pretty broad brush, Shummy. You were burned badly by false religion, so you're inclined to see it everywhere, sort of like somebody who was badly hurt by a deceitful sweetheart, and tends to think that all women are like that, and "love" is just a selfish charade.

Okay, now I'm painting with a broad brush. It's just an analogy to make a point, but a very bad experience can be the lens through which a person perceives and evaluates things.

Graham comes from the itinerant evangelist/revivalist tradition of American Protestantism,which include Jonathan Edwards, the Welsey Brothers, Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Bill Bright ("Campus Crusade for Christ"). In addition to the legitimate preachers, and long before Jim and Tammy, there was Amy Semple McPherson, along with Sinclair Lewis' (fictional) "Elmer Gantry" plus plenty during and since.

I painfully acknowledge that with so many counterfeits it's hard to identify, let alone appreciate, the authentic. Unfortunately, Christ's message is problematic enough even without the bad example of the con artists.

When I was in high school, a classmate got his mother to force me into a date with him. His mother pressured my mother into letting him take me to a Billy Graham revival for youth on a school night. I would have preferred doing my homework to that experience. It was long and tiresome and I felt no stirrings to be saved. The guy who took me was a total geek. But then they had a performance by Cliff Richard. I'd never heard of the guy before. That's the only thing that opened my eyes and stirred my soul.

A few years ago I learned that this guy and his family shunned his brother because the brother "chose to be gay". The parents were ministers and I think his sister also became a minister.

Sorry, but the followers of Billy G. leave me cold, along with his preaching.

Point taken caffiend.

Sincere people have been getting burned ever since the burned-over district of New York was vexed by all manner of evangelism.

I hold no rancor for old Billy, may he rest in peace...... but that's out of my hands heh heh.

Let the dead bury the dead.

Good riddance to another religious charlatan.

HH =)

We could use more role models like Billy Graham, and fewer televangelists. He was quality.

On other threads, some people have noted, negatively, some Mormon men's practice not to be alone with women not their wives. Granted, this is sometimes taken to silly extremes, such as putting a female in the backseat, or not driving together at all. That strikes me as pharisaic thinking.

But Graham went to great lengths to protect himself from financial and moral scandal. Over his ministries, he kept boards of trustees and deacons which he could not control, and helped found Evangelicals For Financial Accountability, which set up legal and accounting standards for churches and ministries. And he never let himself get behind a closed door with women. As he became very prominent, he even had somebody check his hotel room in advance. Perhaps he was overly zealous with such cautions, but his life mission was preaching Christ, and he protected that...zealously.

I see it, cynically, as protecting his income.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2018 07:55PM by elderolddog.

U2's Bono sought spiritual guidance and prayer from Billy Graham.

"Billy Graham has had many high-profile friends over the years, and among them is U2 frontman and international rockstar Bono.

Bono is open about his Christian faith, frequently speaking on the importance of God in his life and incorporating spiritually-theme lyrics into his songs. And based on a poem the singer wrote to Billy Graham back in 2002, it seems the American evangelical leader has played a important role in Bono’s life.

The hand-written poem, which is on display at the Billy Graham Library in North Carolina, refers to “the voice of a preacher/loudly soft on my tears” which was the “lyric voice that gave my life/A Rhyme/a meaning that wasn’t there before.”

https://i.huffpost.com/gen/2056050/thumbs/o-BONO-570.jpg?6
bono
The handwritten poem penned by Bono for Billy Graham.

Bono composed the poem in 2002 after visiting Billy and Ruth Graham at their home in western North Carolina. Several years later he teamed up with pop singer Pat Boone and other musicians to record “Thank You Billy Graham” as a tribute to the preacher.

“I give thanks just for the sanity of Billy Graham,” Bono says in the tribute’s intro. “That clear, empathetic voice of his, in that southern accent, part poet, part preacher. A singer of the human spirit, I’d say.”

https://i.huffpost.com/gen/2056036/thumbs/o-BONO-570.jpg?6
bono
Ruth Bell Graham and Bono at the Graham family’s Montreat, North Carolina home in 2002.

Sojourners writer Cathleen Falsani spoke with Bono in 2005 on his friendship with Billy Graham and the surprise phone call the musician received in 2002 from the preacher’s office. Graham, as it turned out, wished to give Bono and his teammates a blessing.

“I told [my bandmates], I said, ‘This is a big deal. This is BILLY GRAHAM!’ And they all said, ‘That’s great. But we’re in the middle of a tour.’ So I rented a plane and flew there right away in case he might forget. I was picked up by his son, Franklin, and driven a couple of hours up to their house. I met briefly with himself and his wife, Ruth. I think I’ve mentioned to you before that the blessings of an older man mean a great deal to me. Particularly this man. I gave him a book of Seamus Heaney poetry, and I wrote a poem for him in it.”"

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/15/bono-billy-graham_n_5803978.html

Whatever Bono. I love U2 in spite of Bono .If not for The Edge Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton Bono would have some job pouring Guinness in some pub in Dublin .Iv see U2 from their first tour of the USA and about ten times since but I really hate Bono and his preachy bullshiite.

He lived 99 years devoted to a folly and made a great living selling it.

Ever since the first humans told stories, preachers selling afterlife pipedreams could always find buyers.