Evangelist Billy Graham Passes at 99.....

[Zacha341]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ied/858017001/

[beachboy]

A humble man with a tightly focused message of forgiveness. Much admired for his integrity, simplicity, and humility -- despite his age,
he will be missed ... may he have a peaceful rest.

[Lowell]

If he had been a politician he would have been president. He had it all, looks, smarts, speech delivery, knew how to organize massive gatherings and understood and effectively used new media--TV for his time--far in advance of others.

He was tarred by getting in to an anti-semitic rant with Nixon, as revealed later when the Nixon tapes were released, but scored high on inclusion of minorities.

[CassTechGrad]

Billy's answer to the question of the day.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

A humble man with a tightly focused message of forgiveness. Much admired for his integrity, simplicity, and humility -- despite his age,
he will be missed ... may he have a peaceful rest.

Say goodbye to another homophobe. But Franklin’s even worse.

[Vitalis]

A magnetic figure. Valet to morally bankrupt U.S Presidents. A Jesus-huckster. Sinclair Lewis would have exposed him if they had been contemporaries. Someone who was a contemporary of Graham's in Canada - James Templeton - "the Billy Graham of Canada" finally gave up the ruse and in total shut-down mode went to Graham and asked how he - Graham - could still continue. Graham replied [[and I paraphrase), too late to stop now; we're in business. Like beer, cars, women, men, and song, Graham was an acquired taste. His crusades had the power of rolling thunder, as he produced exaltation in his followers - and they exalted him in return. But the "Reverend" was also a virulent anti-Semite, which got overlooked, though his hatred for Jews can be found on oral tapes in the presidential records of one, Richard Milhous Nixon, a kindred bigot.

[gnome]

I hear he liked cake and cowboy hats.

[oladub]

I noted elsewhere that Kamala Harris seems to have used the casting couch to advance her political career so I suppose its ok to summarize the legacy of Billy Graham as being anti-Semitic based on a few sentences he said to Nixon in private. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, Mohatma Gandhi shunned his wife, MLK chased after women in a motel hallway, Bill Clinton had fun with cigars and Monica, Judge Roberts may or may not have attended a party at some unremembered location and year, etc.. So it is not surprising to see the Billy Graham's career similarly distilled into being anti-semitic while discounting his fealty to Israel.

But really, all of these people, except maybe Kamala Harris, also did some important or even great things in their lifetimes that became their reasons for being remembered except to disgruntled naysayers. I lost track of Billy Graham decades ago but it seemed like he was steering some people away from alcoholism and suicide. To me, that more than offsets a couple of sentences he said in private to Nixon. Nixon, by the way, ended Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam War and the draft.

[Zacha341]

Hah! Not a Graham follower, but it's seems to be such good sport to mock Christian icons [[the fallen and the good). Got that...... But when it comes to education, it's noteworthy to mention that many private Islamic schools in the US are not given over to tide of secularism.

They will pray and push back and not apologize for it.

And I'm sure they'll be mocked a tad less *sarc* as they make other choices in what their children will be taught/ exposed to.

Billy's answer to the question of the day.