Is Franklin Graham headed to hell when he dies?
That’s a tricky question, but one he’d do well to wrestle with.
The answer to that is found in how one views the Bible– is it the inerrant, inspired Word of God? Is the Bible true? Is it authoritative?
If one were to answer yes to those questions, which Franklin Graham does, the Bible itself pronounces condemnation for him on multiple counts. Mainly, he stands condemned as an unrepentant liar and hypocrite– both offenses that his Bible declares as actions that exclude one from God’s Kingdom (Matthew 23:13-15, Rev 21:8).
While the examples of his lying and hypocrisy are endless, let’s take a few recent examples. This is what Graham said on Facebook today in response to the election of unregistered sex-offender, Donald Trump:
“Did God show up? In watching the news after the election, the secular media keep asking “How did this happen?” “What went wrong?” “How did we miss this?” Some are in shock. Political pundits are stunned. Many thought the Trump/Pence ticket didn’t have a chance. None of them understand the God-factor.
Hundreds of thousands of Christians from across the United States have been praying. This year they came out to every state capitol to pray for this election and for the future of America. Prayer groups were started. Families prayed. Churches prayed. Then Christians went to the polls, and God showed up.
While the media scratches their heads and tries to understand how this happened, I believe that God’s hand intervened Tuesday night to stop the godless, atheistic progressive agenda from taking control of our country.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence are going to need a lot of help and they will continue to need a lot of prayer. I pray that President-elect Trump will surround himself with godly men and women to help advise and counsel him as he leads the nation. My prayer is that God will bless America again!”
Graham is clearly rejoicing that his candidate won the election, even going as far as saying God did it! But here’s the thing: Graham has spent the last six months claiming he left the Republican party, that he wasn’t endorsing a candidate, and traveled to all 50 states asking Christians to pray and “vote their conscience.” He didn’t fool any of us, but he portrayed himself as a simple Christian standing in the gap with no dog in the fight, and we all know that was a blatant lie.
While Graham portrayed his 50 state rally effort as being a nonpartisan religious event, let’s call it like it was: Franklin Graham traveled to all 50 states to campaign for Donald Trump. He knew he was doing it, and we knew he was doing it– but he had to clothe it as something that it wasn’t in order to appear he was a non-biased Christian (and he also likely had to disguise his Trump rallies to steer clear of IRS regulations).
It was deceitful, and we all knew it.
Furthermore, during the campaign Graham criticized “media bias” as if he were clean and pure, all the while being guilty of the very thing he claimed he opposed (the very definition of a hypocrite). For example, after the Vice Presidential debates he praised Mike Pence for discussing his faith openly during the debate, but made no mention to the fact that Time Kane also discussed his faith openly, because he was a Christian, too.
It was dishonest and hypocritical, and we all knew it.
And then there’s the consistent trope he claimed again today— that progressivism is “atheistic” and “godless.” This claim is as blatantly dishonest as one can get, as most progressives are Christians, and both of the candidates who ran on the democratic ticket were Christians too. Of course, Graham knows this, because you’d have to be stupid not to. Which means once again, he’s lying in order to discredit and malign and entire group of people.
He’s done the same thing with the lies he tells about LGBTQ people, claiming they are godless and anti-Christian when in fact, half of them are Christians.
With today’s celebration, Franklin Graham is finally openly and honestly showing his true colors. While he was pretending to be someone fed up with politics who left the Republican party, he spent months traveling the country campaigning for Donald Trump on the tax-free donations given to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He daily spewed bias and hate on social media, all while claiming it was everyone else behaving with bias. And now, he continues his lies of claiming that progressives hate God and are atheists, when that is absurdly untrue.
So, is Franklin Graham going to hell? Does he stand condemned?
I don’t believe in hell, and even if I did, I don’t believe we know who is in and who is out.
BUT…
The irony is that if he is right about the Bible being the authoritative, inerrant Word of God, if what Franklin Graham himself teaches is true, if it’s true that “all liars will have their place in the lake of fire,” and if it’s true that hypocrites are sons of hell who will be excluded from God’s Kingdom, Graham is on the list of people the Bible says will go there.
In fact, it seems clear that by Franklin’s own standards, he condemns himself.
Unless Graham repents and turns to Jesus, he’d better hope he’s wrong about the Bible– and that progressive Christians were right all along to dismiss the idea of hell.
13 Responses
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“But the world, especially the Christian world,” says the Professor at the close of one of his long and pungent epistles, “is yet to be instructed that every thing supernatural is not necessarily infallible; and this, I doubt not, is the grand lesson designed, by an overruling Providence, to be taught by the permitted appearance at this day, of the present, most stupendous psychological phenomena.”
Prof Rev George Bush (1796 – 1859)
quoted in Memoirs and Reminiscences of
Hello everyone, Eugene here. I believe in Gehenna . I believe it is God’s garbage dump. It is where all that is unredeemable is put to be eternally destroyed, where it parishes, where it is burned up and becomes as if it never was. I also believe that before the eternal destruction there will be a judgement where all will come to understand the why & where of their future or fate. Then I believe that justice will finally be administered and what remains will be clean.
Of course, I do agree with Mr. Graham, God’s most gracious law freedom is allowing us the right to suffer or to enjoy the rewards of our decisions. But in especially a Democratic Society we all enjoy the rewards if or not we voted for it.
So Graham is correct in it was God’s Will, God again in his gracious love for us have given us as a society a choice of two paths and we, as a society, have voted for the most evil path. The unfortunate consequence of that vote is that we all shall suffer for it. I believe that the Hindu word for that is karma.
Frank Graham would do better to get back on his motorcycle and trundle back out on the open road and let the wind blow through his hair again. Perhaps good clean wind could blow some of the cobwebs of bigotry, spite and pretentious hypocrisy out of his numb-skull.
Franklin Graham does more good in one day that most you will do in your entire lifetime.
And his politics is one reason that I won’t participate in Samaritan’s Purse.
Powerful argument Mr. Corey! Thank you for calling him out. I have detested his attitudes for a long time.
the saddest part that there is no god, no satan no heaven and no hell because people like franklin graham surely do belong in hell
[While the media scratches their heads and tries to understand how this
happened, I believe that God’s hand intervened Tuesday night to stop the
godless, atheistic progressive agenda from taking control of our
country.]
Part of why Five Point Calvinism is the only type of Christianity I respect is that they reject the concept of free will right off the bat. Evangelicals claim we have free will but then claim God can sweep in and circumvent it at will.
Yes God can sweep in and vent circumvent free will but very seldom does that happen and when it does it is about not forcing someones free will to change but about changing the consequences of the actions caused by the decisions of free will.
Time for a new term….evangelicals is a misnomer….and a disgrace to the term.
There is no good news in them….
What’s the Greek for that? non-angelicals?