New Billy Graham book echoes
hard-line preacher of '50s, not grandfatherly evangelist of
love
TIM
FUNK The Charlotte Observer October 14,
2015
At
nearly 97 years old, Billy Graham has a new book out.
The cover of "Where I Am: Heaven, Eternity and
Our Life Beyond" features the face of Graham in his grandfatherly
years, when the Charlotte, N.C.-born evangelist appeared to mellow,
emphasize God's love and even offer what some interpreted as an
inclusive vision of the afterlife.
But on many of the 259 pages of Graham's 33rd
book, the words about heaven and especially hell echo his hard-line
sermons from the 1950s, when he stressed God's judgment, man's sin
and the lies of the devil.
One Billy Graham scholar said the book reads
like it was written not by Graham but by his son, Franklin, an
evangelist who has a combative style.
But Franklin Graham, in an interview with the
Observer, said his father is the author: "It's all him. Nothing in
the book was written that's not in his words."
In
"Where I Am," heaven is reserved for Christians who commit their
lives to Jesus and hell is real and delivers fiery punishment or
worse.
"Hell is a place of sorrow and unrest, a place
of wailing and a furnace of fire," the book says. "And it is where
many will spend eternity. If you accept any part of the Bible, you
are forced to accept the reality of hell, the place for punishment
for those who reject Christ."
'IT WAS ON HIS HEART'
Franklin Graham acknowledged that his father
"stressed certain things more than others" during different times
in his life. But he said Billy Graham "never backed away from" the
message in the Gospel of John that belief in Jesus' divinity is
necessary to get to heaven.
Graham added that his father originally wanted
his latest book to focus entirely on hell.
"Maybe this was a burden, that he felt he
didn't preach (about hell) strong enough in his latter years. I
don't know," the younger Graham said.
Franklin Graham, who is outspoken these days
in his condemnation of Islam and same-sex marriage, wrote the
foreword to "Where I Am." And his former longtime secretary, Donna
Lee Toney, helped write the book with Billy Graham.
Graham's son said he didn't write any of the
book - "I don't have time for it" - and that his role in the
project "was to encourage Daddy to do it 'cause it was on his
heart."
But some Billy Graham scholars say the book
echoes the stands and style of Franklin Graham rather than his
famous father.
"It (is) clearly, indisputably Franklin," said
Grant Wacker, a professor emeritus at Duke Divinity School who
authored "America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a
Nation," a well-reviewed study/biography released last year. "Over
the course of (Billy) Graham's career, he talked less and less
about hell until the end (of his career), when he barely mentioned
it."
The reason? "He wanted to bring people to
Christ, not scare them away," said Wacker, who added that Graham
had stopped talking about a literal hell of fire and referred to it
as a state of being separated from God.
CHANGE IN TONE
Though there is plenty in "Where I Am" about
God's love and forgiveness, its tone is harsher overall than the
one Graham projected in the latter years of his public
ministry.
In
2005, as Graham was preparing for his final crusade, in New York,
CNN's Larry King asked him whether Jews, Muslims and other
non-Christians would go to heaven.
"That's in God's hands. I can't be the judge,"
Graham said.
King followed up by asking Graham how he felt
when he saw Christian leaders on TV saying "you are condemned. You
will live in hell if you do not accept Jesus Christ."
In
his response, Graham said such leaders had a right to speak and
what they said was "true to a certain extent." But he told King
that he drew a distinction between himself and such
fire-and-brimstone preachers.
"That's not my calling," Graham said. "My call
is to preach the love of God and the forgiveness of God and the
fact that he does forgive us. That's what the cross is all about,
what the Resurrection is about. That's the Gospel. And you can get
off in all kinds of different side trails. In my earlier ministry,
I did the same. But as I got older, I guess I became more mellow
and more forgiving and more loving."
Years before that, in 1997, Graham went even
further during an appearance on TV evangelist Robert Schuller's
show, "The Hour of Power." Graham said some non-Christians around
the world are saved even though they may not even know the name of
Jesus.
"Whether they come from the Muslim world or
the Buddhist world or the Christian world or the nonbelieving
world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been
called by God," he said. "They may not even know the name of Jesus,
but they know in their hearts that they need something that they
don't have and they turn to the only light that they have. And I
think they are saved and they are going to be with us in
heaven."
Contrast those Graham comments with this from
the introduction of Graham's new book: "You may be thinking, Billy,
surely you do not believe all of this Hellfire and brimstone. My
dear friends, it is not what I say that counts. It is what the word
of God says. Jesus spoke more about hell than heaven. Why? Because
of his great compassion for souls. He gave his life to spare you
the agony, torment, and gruesome reality that hell is reserved for
those who reject Christ."
FATE OF NON-CHRISTIANS
Asked about his father's comments on TV,
Franklin Graham said that Schuller's questions - about the future
of Christianity - "led him a little bit" and "my father did not
fully understand some of the questions." As for Buddhists and
Muslims and others getting to heaven, the younger Graham said
they'd make it there "if they confess their sins and acknowledge
Jesus Christ as their savior and trust him as their
Lord."
Wacker said it is true that Billy Graham
always said that the only way to heaven was through
Christ.
But Wacker, who taught Christian history at
Duke, said Graham also held what Wacker called a "principled
agnosticism" about what happened to non-Christians after
death.
"He resolutely refused to judge what happened
to people who failed to affirm faith in Christ," Wacker said. "He
insisted that this was God's call, not his. ... His sole task was
to preach the Gospel and leave the rest to God."
The Observer also asked Franklin Graham about
the process of writing "Where I Am," given its author's advanced
age and physical limitations. Billy Graham, who will turn 97 on
Nov. 7, still has a sharp mind, his son said, but "he doesn't hear
well. You have to repeat things sometimes two or three times. And
he doesn't see well. ... If something is printed in real big print,
he'll work at it."
The younger Graham said his father started
working on the book before his 95th birthday. He did 80 percent of
what he needed to do - including an outline and summations of the
chapters, each of which is based on a book in the Bible.
"Then he got ill," Franklin Graham said. "We
put the book on the shelf. We didn't think he would finish
it."
But he did as his health got better, Graham
said, working with Toney, the writer assisting him.
"The way it works with Daddy - he can't read,
so you have to read it to him and he comments," his son said. "This
isn't a cut-and-paste of his old sermons or anything like that.
It's a new book. Where we needed to fill in some gaps, we went back
and checked his sermons to make sure it was accurate. ... It's all
him. Nothing in the book was written that's not in his
words."
Toney, the writer who has also worked with
Billy Graham on his last several books, authored an article about
the making of "Where I Am" in the current issue of "Decision," a
magazine published by the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic
Association. She writes that Graham was eager to work on the book -
partly because he didn't think today's pastors preached enough
about heaven and hell and partly because he didn't think enough
people understood their choice in "where they will spend eternity
after death."
Wacker, though, said that what appears in
"Where I Am" is "dramatically different from (Billy) Graham's
emphasis - especially in his spoken words � through the time when
he was in his mid-80s."
In
a recent story by Religion News Service, some Billy Graham scholars
echoed Wacker in noting that the words in "Where I Am" - including
its focus on biblical descriptions of hell - are a big shift from
the language he used after the 1950s.
Franklin Graham's response: "These people are
supposed to be experts on Billy Graham. A lot of them haven't
talked to my father in 20-some years."
Wacker had his own response: He said the BGEA
has kept outside reporters and others away from Billy Graham for at
least six years. "If these are Graham's words," Wacker said, "they
are being expressed only through the family and inside the (Graham)
organization."