Has the magazine Christianity Today fulfilled or betrayed the legacy of Billy Graham by affirming the Articles of Impeachment? What should we make of an evangelical magazine teetering on the line between politics and morality, a place its founder was loathe to go?  And how do we compare Franklin, the son, with Billy the father, now that he is deceased?

First, I think Christianity Today made an honest attempt to divide politics from faith in its affirmation of the Articles of Impeachment. In many ways I think the Democrats made the same attempt in defining President Trump’s failings. They tried to make it a Constitutional case, rather than a liberal complaint. Clearly most opponents of the Impeachment were not impressed, as many Evangelical Christians did not accept Christianity Today’s statement as anything less than politics.  For me, the intent matters, and I applaud the attempt of the magazine to make a non-partisan statement, even though it was not received that way.

Second, any resemblance between the politics of Billy Graham and Franklin Graham is in the eye of the beholder. Franklin rushes in where Billy feared to tread.  He has joined forces with Jerry Falwell and the politicized leaders of the Evangelical church to make pronouncements and defend the President on every controversy. Billy Graham, on the other hand, increasingly withdrew from the political fray after the resignation of Richard Nixon. He could see how politics could soil the Gospel he loved.

When asked to join in common cause with Jerry Falwell after the foundation of the Moral Majority in 1979, Graham refused to yoke his organization to the cultural wars of the Religious Right and the Republican Party. And almost immediately after saying during a 1993 crusade in Columbus, Ohio, that AIDS might be “a judgment of God,” he retracted those words, telling the Cleveland Plain Dealer a few days later, “I don’t believe that and I don’t know why I said it. . . . To say God has judged people with AIDS would be very wrong and very cruel. I would like to say that I am very sorry for what I said.” (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/24/billy-graham-evangelical-decline-franklin-graham-217077)

In his declining years, Billy Graham spoke less and less about current affairs and tried to adhere to the Gospel message he had preached for a lifetime. We don’t know how he regarded his son’s stewardship of the organization he founded, but in my view Franklin was a Rehoboam to Billy’s Solomon.

⁰ The young men who had grown up with him replied, “These people have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. ¹¹ My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions. (I Kings 12:10-11)

History is full of sons who tried to outdo their fathers, but succeeded only in undermining their legacies. This is how I see Franklin. Not because his political stance differs from mine, but because he is willing to divide Christianity over the yoke of politics. By yoking politics with the Gospel his father treasured, Franklin has tainted his father’s ministry. He has made the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, an organization I once supported financially, into something cruel and divisive.  All because he wanted his little finger to be thicker than his father’s waist.

Christianity Today, in taking an apparently moral position on the Articles of Impeachment, has fulfilled the legacy of Billy Graham more than his son. We can only surmise what Billy would say about this watershed event in the history of this magazine. My guess is that he would not say anything. That is the example I wish his son would follow.