Billy Graham 1918-2018

[David]

Billy Graham 1918-2018

By Boyd C. Purcell, Ph.D.

Today [2-21-2018] marks the passing of an American religious icon, the Reverend Billy Graham at the age of 99. Rev. Graham was known nationwide and around the world for his Christian evangelistic crusades. Graham was a graduate of Wheaton College, a Christian college in Wheaton, Illinois, with a degree in anthropology. Though he did not go on to graduate school and thus had no seminary degree, and his doctorate was an honorary degree, he became the best-known Christian Evangelical Evangelists of the 20th Century. He also became a prolific writer, being the author of more than 30 books. His first book, “Peace with God,” a best-seller, was published in 1953, the year I was ten years old. Unfortunately, I did not hear about this book, get, and read it until more than ten years later. If I had gotten it the year it was published, it would have mitigated a lot of spiritual abuse I was experiencing and saved me from spiritual terrorism, the most extreme form of spiritual abuse. I have also called spiritual terrorism “spiritual insanity!”

I was brutalized, traumatized, and terrorized in Fundamental Churches, due to a strong emphasis on eternal conscious torment [ECT] in literal hell fire. As a result, Billy Graham became my favorite TV evangelist in that, while he preached about hell, he did not emphasize it. And he strongly preached the truth of salvation by grace without equivocation. In the churches in which I grew up they gave lip service to salvation by grace, but quickly added, “But you must live the life!” So what did living the Christian life mean? It meant faithfully adhering to a long list of legalisms: NOT dancing, going to movies, smoking, drinking, having pre-marital sex [not even thinking about it or it was “lusting in your heart” that would get you condemned to hell forever], etc. The “thou shalt nots” included females not wearing makeup, or cutting their hair, or wearing jeans [“men’s apparel”], and not wearing dresses with necklines too low and/or hemlines too high. Anything that looked, tasted, smelled, or felt good was a sin, which carried the penalty of ECT.

What was so refreshing about the preaching of Billy Graham was that he did not preach on any of these legalisms, and he preached much more on the love of God than the wrath of God. And, unlike the Fundamental Churches in which I was reared, Graham preached the security of the believer, which means that once you accept Christ as your Savior you cannot lose your salvation. The legalistic churches preached that you could lose your salvation for violating even one of the legalisms listed above. This created anxiety, worry, and terror of being slow-roasted alive in literal hell fire forever! Graham, in his preaching and writings, referred more to hell as “eternal separation from God” rather than hell being literal fire. This sounded much better than what I had always heard preached, but I did not find out until many years later that it is impossible to be eternally separated from God. Why? Because God is omnipresent even in Sheol/hell (Ps. 139:7-8).

It was many years later that I heard Graham being interviewed by David Frost on TV. Frost said to Billy that some people say that hell is forever, but others say that it is not. He then asked Graham what he believed, and Billy responded, “I just leave that up to God.” I thought, “Wow! Billy, I wish you had preached that when I was a youngster; it would have saved me so much spiritual pain and suffering due to daily living in terrible fear of ECT!

Billy Graham, as he aged, seems to have done what the Apostle Peter admonished Christians to do, “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). He apparently grew so much that he became what has been called an “inclusivist.” This term means that all people, who lived up to the spiritual light they had, even if they never heard of salvation in Christ before dying, will be saved, because God will impute Christ’s righteousness to them. Consequently, many Fundamentalists have called him a heretic, due to believing in Universalism, the belief that all people will be saved. No, Graham, was not a Universalist, just, as an inclusivist, almost one. I can relate to Rev. Graham’s spiritual journey in that I too became an inclusivist before becoming a Christian Universalist, believing that Jesus is the Savior of the whole world, not just a small part of it. And, I also have been called a heretic for believing in too much of God’s unconditional love, amazing grace, infinite mercy, and perfect justice!

Boyd C. Purcell, Ph.D. Author of books:
Spiritual Terrorism: Spiritual Abuse from the Womb to the Tomb and
Christianity Without Insanity: For Mental/Emotional/Physical Health

Website: www.ChristianityWithoutInsanity.com

Email: dr.boydpurcell@gmail.com

Dave