If ever you want to see how religion and power makes a spiritual pervert out of someone, just look at Billy Graham.

In a phone conversation the other day, a friend pointed me to an interesting Christian website (www.cuttingedge.org), in which I found a link to a lengthy profile of 88-year-old Graham, entitled “Pilgrim’s Progress,” published last year in Newsweek magazine.

“A unifying theme of Graham's new thinking is humility,” wrote Newsweek editor-in-chief Jon Meacham in his l-u-v-fest tribute to the wholly apostate evangelist, crowned by his worshipping media as “America’s Pastor.”

Meacham continues, “(Graham) is sure and certain of his faith in Jesus as the way to salvation. When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: ‘Those are decisions only the Lord will make. It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there and who won't ... I don't want to speculate about all that. I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.’ ”

So does that mean God loves Osama bin Laden in his “label” as a good Islamic terrorist?! Is it really “humility” that makes a world Christian leader of six decades take personal security in the fact his salvation is certain by his faith in Jesus Christ, but deems it “foolish” for him to speculate on anybody else?! Isn’t he, as a Bible preacher, supposed to report what the Bible has to say on this matter of eternal life or death?!

His comments certainly don’t suggest unselfish, godly love to me, even though Graham’s daughter assures in the article, "When you get older, secondary things, like politics, begin to fall away, and the primary thing becomes primary again--and for Daddy, the primary thing is, as Jesus said, to try to love God totally, and to love our neighbor as ourselves."

*****

Throughout the piece, the reader is given to believe Graham has matured in Christ-likeness through his obvious preference for human wisdom over Bible wisdom.

Meacham writes, “But more recent years have given him something he had little of in his decades of global evangelism: time to think both more deeply and more broadly. As he has grown older, Graham has come to an appreciation of complexity and a gentleness of spirit that sets him apart from many other high-profile figures in America's popular religious milieu--including, judging from their public remarks, his own son Franklin Graham. . .

“Others relish the battlefield; Graham now prizes peace. He is a man of unwavering faith who refuses to be judgmental; a steady social conservative in private who actually does hate the sin but loves the sinner; a resolute Christian who declines to render absolute verdicts about who will get into heaven and who will not; a man concerned about traditional morality--he is still slightly embarrassed that he kissed ‘two or three girls’ before he kissed his wife--who will not be dragged into what he calls the ‘hot-button issues’ of the hour. Graham's tranquil voice, though growing fainter, has rarely been more relevant.

“An old man's musings will not bring peace to the Middle East or stop religious conservatives from demonizing homosexuality, or religious liberals from demonizing religious conservatives, but they are musings that resonate in a global climate shaken and shaped by the war in Iraq, the threat of terror and the violence between Hizbullah and Israel.”

*****

By contrast, Graham’s son, Franklin, first made world-famous after 9/11 for his reference to Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion," was reported to have told a Newsweek reporter, "I don't think the Christian right dominates America in the way some in the media believe they do. I think the last election was a moral one--people of all faiths, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, felt that the gay agenda that the Democratic Party had essentially adopted and supported was scary. It scared a lot of people of all faiths."

Regarding homosexuality, Paul clearly states in Romans 1, “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

Jordan explains, “When it says they ‘did change the natural use into that which is against nature,’ in other words, God Almighty made you to function in a certain way. He made certain responses, and certain stimulus, and certain things in you a certain way, and that’s the way God made you.

“Homosexuality is not ‘an alternate lifestyle’; it’s sin and it’s unnatural, and God never made anybody that way. Nobody’s ever born that way. It’s an acquired lifestyle. I don’t care how many polls they take of 30-year-olds who said they didn’t learn it; they learned it and they’re all a bunch of liars when they said they didn’t.

“That term ‘burning in their lust’ is a very clear expression. It’s just talking about being passionately involved with other men. ‘Men with men working that which is unseemly,’ meaning it’s indecent and shameless.

“That’s what it is, and the result is that they receive within themselves ‘that recompence of their error which was meet.’ Folks, you never meet a happy one. They might can present a liberated outlook on life, and can get on the TV and talk real funny and sound real nice, but when they lay their head on their pillow at night, or when they get alone, they’re the most miserable, empty wretches that ever walked the face of the earth. And they get their judgment in themselves.

“You read about Sodom and Gomorrha in Genesis 19 and you’ll find out that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality and that’s why it’s on the books in cities today as the ‘sodomy law.’ That’s where the word comes from.

“If you’ll look up Leviticus 19, about verse 22-28 along in there, you’ll see that this kind of sexual perversion resulted in . . . God said of a certain group of people that ‘the land spewed them out’—it vomited them out. I mean, they were just so unacceptable and so indecent that it was, ‘Blechhh,’ and out they went!

“God said He turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha ‘into ashes condemn(ing) them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.’ (II Peter 2:6) You want to see God’s attitude toward that stuff, look at Sodom and Gomorrha—He said I made an example of Sodom and Gomorrha so that anybody else who wanted to live like that could see just what He thought about it.”

*****

From I Cor. 6:9-11, among other Bible passages, we know there is a cure for homosexuality. Paul writes, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
[10] Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
[11] And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

Jordan explains, “In the Corinthian church, there were people who, prior to their conversion, had been homosexuals (Editor’s Note: They are referred to in the passage as “effeminate” and “abusers of themselves with mankind”). God cured them, just like He cures a drunkard, a thief, a covetous man, or a reviler, or extortioners, or an idolater, or an adulterer.”

*****

In regards to Paul’s emphasis in Romans 1 that “even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature,” Jordan comments, “Paul just sort of shakes his head and says, ‘Even the women . . .’ I mean, it got that bad!

“You know, ladies and gentlemen, you can judge a society by the standards that it sets for its ladies. A woman has the capacity to be the crowning jewel in all of God’s creation. She can be something a man never can be in that regard and every man that comes along look up to her. But she can also be exactly the opposite of that. She can be the lowest of the low and she can get lower than any man ever can, and there’s something about that when you have that privilege.

“Now, I know some of you people don’t believe that, but that’s a fact. When you’ve got that privilege of being highly exalted you’ve got that problem of being brought the other way.”