
Billy Graham, charismatic evangelist with worldwide following, dies at 99 - nwatson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/billy-graham-charismatic-evangelist-with-worldwide-following-dies-at-99/2018/02/21/acf3f446-170a-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.f1d978c7c605
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majos
Evangelists are perhaps not much of a HN thing, but Graham was a legitimately
interesting world figure. Wikipedia describes him as a "close friend" to both
LBJ and Nixon, with the latter relationship including Graham's suggestion of
the following to Nixon:

"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.

~~~
donquichotte
Interesting! It would appear that religiousness and impirialistic warmongering
make a splendid match. Of course, we must not forget that that was the time
when a completely insane Nixon proposed nuking North Vietnam.

~~~
ixtli
I came to this thread to try and find the "hacker news-acceptable" way of
saying he was an utterly horrible person and you've delivered :)

------
judah
Graham did a fantastic TED talk[0] on technology, faith, and suffering.

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...](https://www.ted.com/talks/billy_graham_on_technology_faith_and_suffering)

~~~
wavefunction
I reject the notion that humans have a propensity towards evil. That's a
fundamental tenet of Catholic and Protestant theologies but that doesn't make
it a truth necessarily.

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.

~~~
judah
Graham addresses that in the TED talk. It'd encourage you to watch it - it's a
short 15 minutes.

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.

------
andrewl
Graham's conversations with Nixon were taped. In at least one of them he has a
lot of negative things to say about Jews and the Jewish community:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/us/billy-graham-
responds-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/us/billy-graham-responds-to-
lingering-anger-over-1972-remarks-on-jews.html)

~~~
oldandtired
There have been a lot of negative things said about Jews and the Jewish
community. From those who are ignorant (of which there are many), they will
oppose the majority of a group for the actions of a few. This is applicable to
many different groups.

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.

------
iambateman
Today is a sad day for those of us who think of Billy Graham as a spiritual
father (or in my case great grandfather).

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.

------
indescions_2018
Got to see his "Crusade in Central Park" when I was pretty young. Felt like
about a million people had come to see a single man speak ;)

New York Hears Words of Hope From Billy Graham

[http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/23/nyregion/new-york-hears-
wo...](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/23/nyregion/new-york-hears-words-of-
hope-from-billy-graham.html?pagewanted=all)

------
throwanem
Perhaps not a great man - or perhaps he was. But certainly one who had his
eyes firmly fixed on the hope of a better world, and did all he could to help
people feel less afraid. I can imagine no more noble purpose.

~~~
etse
Not to assume that the deceased are always remembered fondly, but I'm a bit
confused by your comment. If he isn't great, but had noble purpose, I'd love
to know how that works–at least, to learn a different way of quantifying a
life lived.

~~~
throwanem
Not for us to judge the historical impact of his work; we haven't the
perspective.

------
arebop
Billy Graham had a TED talk addressing the tech community specifically
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90mj79GqWhc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90mj79GqWhc)]

------
ams6110
RIP. Unlike the fraudster televangelists such as Jim Bakker, he always seemed
genuine to me.

~~~
NoGravitas
Genuine, but also genuinely evil.

~~~
VickBear
Why evil?

------
felideon
As a friend said, it's a shame his son seems insistent on whoring out his name
for the GOP.

------
Isamu
He had wide appeal because he tried to be non-partisan and always genuine.

His son doesn't seem to be as non-partisan.

