Billy Graham Sells Out Before Checking Out – Mormonism No ‘Cult’

I don’t mean to sound crass, but Billy Graham is suffering from a long list of ailments that may soon “call him home.”  But before he does that, he needs to help a Mormon get elected by selling out his long held beliefs.

NOTE: This is not an anti-Mormon post.  I don’t care about the religion of the president.  Except if it’s Dudism.  Why?  Well, as you know, “The Dude abides.”  That’s a nanny state, to me.  And that, I cannot “abide.”

A blog post on Patheos by Tony Jones reports that Mitt Romney had met with the Evangelical stalwart in his home, and Graham said he would do anything to help him get elected.  To begin the process, the Graham people scrubbed his website:

A Billy Graham Evangelistic Association article labeling Mormonism a cult has been removed from the group’s website following the 93-year-old televangelist’s meeting with the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week.

Graham pledged to do “all I can” to help Romney get elected during the meeting

The Citizen-Times at 4:56 p.m. on Thursday captured the article, which said cults are “Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, the Unification Church, Unitarians, Spiritists, Scientologists, and others.”

Graham met with Romney at his Montreat home just hours before. The article is not on the association’s Website today.

The post also suggests that Billy’s son, Franklin–who has been a lightning-rod for criticism for his political statements–is manipulating his father like a puppet.

Why do I care?

Last week–in a post here–I recounted research I’ve come across that suggests the church is shrinking for a host of reasons.  Among the most glaring reasons is that the church appears “too political.”  This kind of weak-spined, ideological capitulation is exactly too blame.  While we can credit TV frauds like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell for their efforts–including things like “The Moral Majority”–to make their particular ideologies victorious, we can also blame FOX News analyst and Bush-whisperer Karl Rove for setting “the church” up as a major political player.

This is all to the detriment of the gospel, unfortunately.

Graham is just the latest evangelical leader to lose themselves in the sea of political hogwash.  It’s not the fact that Christians shouldn’t be involved in a political process, but this move by Graham (whoever is truly responsible) makes it appear that Christians are only interested in a slim set of ideological talking points–and not about the gospel.

I think this is what I’m going to do during the duration of this campaign season.  I’m going to keep calling out the hypocritical capitulation of Christians.  More than likely, it will be to no avail, but I’m gonna do it.  It needs to be pointed out, because we need to root it out.