Billy Graham, charismatic evangelist with worldwide following, dies at 99
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
"A secret thirteen-page letter (released to the public by the National Archives and Records Administration in April 1989) was written on April 15, 1969, by White House Chaplain Billy Graham to U.S. President Richard Nixon in which Graham encouraged Nixon to utilize a military campaign to bomb dikes across North Vietnam should the Paris Peace Talks fail to reach a negotiated settlement of the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. Graham had developed his dike bombing strategy during an earlier business meeting in Bangkok with his evangelists assigned to Southern Vietnam. Graham later told Nixon that this proposed escalation of the war in Southeast Asia was a plan that 'could overnight destroy the economy of North Vietnam' by employing 'tens of thousands of North Vietnamese defectors to bomb and invade the North.' Estimates from the Nixon administration concluded that such a military aerial bombing campaign against dikes in North Vietnam would have killed approximately one million North Vietnamese."
I'm not bringing this up to smear a guy who's recently died. It's just fascinating to me that the same person who's perhaps the most effective (and, by all appearances, genuine) evangelist ever would also have opinions on the right kind of bombing tactics to force a military agreement by crippling civilian infrastructure.
- He drove out money changers from the temple with ropes as whips https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple
- He said, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_10#Verse_34
- He said, "and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sell_your_cloak_and_buy_a_swor...
There are a lot more counter-examples, but we tend to forget he did the above.
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I'm sad that this article was flagged, but if it's going to cause regulars on Hacker News to make mean-spirited comments about Billy Graham, I suppose it's for the better.
Knowing someone sane held back the insane leaders of each superpower gives me hope for the future. If humanity was truly hopeless, we wouldn't be here.
In it, he admires how technology has improved life and changed the world, but rightfully points out that the human heart and its propensity toward evil can't be fixed by technology alone. Fantastic talk.
[0]: https://www.ted.com/talks/billy_graham_on_technology_faith_a...
Given that humans are by our biology and history a social and cooperative species, it stands to reason that humans have a propensity towards "good" instead.
And I've updated my post to put good in quotation marks because obvious good and evil are not exactly objective truths either.
Bertrand Russel, not a religious man by any means, said that "It's in our hearts that the evil lies, and from our hearts it must be plucked out."
Einstein said it's easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.
Whether we humans are inclined towards evil, or we are inclined towards good but become corrupted, the end result is the same.
"black hearted" evil is rare enough. Rampant justification of actions that serve self-interest is a little less rare.
Darwin said "survival of it fittest", but it's closer to "survival of the fit enough", which means not one, but a plethora of options are available for survival. Some of the options that allow survival are considered evil by a portion of society, some of the options that allow survival are considered good by portions of society.
We like to think of evil and good as ideas that can be erased or gotten rid of, but that is just unrealistic idealisms. Evil and good are just the outcome of acts. We, as a society can reduce the potential for some kinds of acts, but we cannot get rid of said acts we consider evil simply because they can be spontaneously discovered.
Humans do have a propensity towards evil.
Humans also have a propensity towards good.
This is because humans are the most able being in our known universe. Our potential is almost unlimited.
Perhaps, but not in the sense that this...
> Given that humans are by our biology and history a social and cooperative species, it stands to reason that humans have a propensity towards "good" instead.
...is a mutually exclusive alternative. In fact, I think most Catholic and mainstream Protestant theologians would agree with you that humans have an inmate propensity for good.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/us/billy-graham-responds-t...
What a lot of people have forgotten is that the vast majority of the first followers of Jesus Christ were Jews. There were sections of the Jewish leadership that wanted him dead and happily conspired with their political opponents and enemies to bring about this outcome.
Those first Jewish followers were persecuted and hunted down by the Jewish leadership. It is interesting that it was one of those ravening wolves by the name of Saul who ended up being one of the great evangelists for Jesus Christ going by the name of Paul.
The historical antipathy against Jews arose out of the idea that it was the Jews that killed Jesus Christ, when the crucifixion was carried out by the Romans (a particularly effective "law enforcement" technique under Roman law). This idea arose because of the claim by some of that Jewish leadership to having taken on the political kudos of causing his death - getting rid of a particularly thorny individual (thorny to their political and financial aspirations). Those in leadership who supported Jesus Christ were themselves attacked.
The fact that this Jewish sect had great impact on non-Jewish people and was the result of the evangelising by Jews is something that seems to be forgotten by and by.
Jesus Christ was sent to the Jews for the Jews and it went much further. So without the Jews, what is known as Christianity today would not exist. Without them we would not have the Good News.
I find it fascinating that amongst the Jews there is a growing group who recognise that Jesus Christ is their messiah and they are being persecuted by the various Jewish authorities for this recognition.
Without the Jews, the Gentiles are incomplete and without the Gentiles, the Jews are incomplete.
He was great for his influence over so many millions of people, generous for his message of peace, and flawed for his humanity.
While the 20th century will be remembered for its many violent moments, Mr. Graham joins Gandhi as one of the great luminaries of hope amid dark times.
On a personal note, my grandmothers life was changed by the preaching of Billy Graham when she turned on the TV after being stood up on a date and saw the preacher inviting her to a different kind of life. That moment changed the course of her life and mine, and for that I am grateful.
New York Hears Words of Hope From Billy Graham
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/23/nyregion/new-york-hears-wo...
Everyone is a mixed bag of good and bad, but pushing a military leader to kill so many (mostly civilian) people is not forgivable.
I'm sure he believed what he was doing was moral, just as the Bush administration thought invading Iraq was moral. That doesn't mean civilian lives instantly exit the equation.
His son doesn't seem to be as non-partisan.