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September 27, 2007

Will Bothwell Wake Up Christian America?

William Hughes today tells of an upcoming exposé on the Rev. Billy Graham by Cecil Bothwell, an award-winning investigative reporter. The book, which is due out Nov. 15, is entitled, “The Prince of War: Billy Graham's Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire.”

Bothwell's unflattering portrait of Rev. Graham shows him as a wily warmonger and a lackey for the Establishment. He describes Rev. Graham as a public figure who: "Undermined the Founders' skeptical Deism and sought to rebrand the U.S. as a Christian nation, [and] its armies [as] the rightful instruments of [a] Christian crusade and empire."

Hughes says the book paints a very unflattering portrait of the man – as someone who is motivated by fame, rather than by a true calling to serve the Prince of Peace – and will reveal Rev. Graham’s warmongering, including:

- Urging Nixon to bomb North Vietnam ("There are tens of thousands of North Vietnamese defectors to bomb and invade the North. Why should all the fighting be in the South?...Especially let them bomb the dikes which could over night destroy the economy of North Vietnam.")

- Inviting Nixon to address his crusade shortly after the Kent State University student killings by the National Guard. ("All Americans may not agree with the decision a president makes--but he is our president...")

- Railing against anti-war protesters in 1969 (they were "radicals and those seeking to overthrow the American way of life").

- Calling Martin Luther King, Jr.’s criticisms of the Vietnam War "an affront to the thousands of loyal Negro troops who are in Vietnam," but refusing to join Dr. King in the Civil Rights march in Selma, Alabama, and avoiding Dr. King’s funeral.

- Joining Pres. George H.W. Bush at the White House to watch the Jan. 16, 1991 bombing campaign on Iraq on CNN.

- Staying mute about the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Hughes concludes:

I'm convinced that unless the Christian community in this country, Protestant and Catholic alike, opens its eyes to what Rev. Graham and his Establishment-serving ilk have been doing "in Christ's name," this nation is headed for a fall that will make the collapse of Rome look like a Sunday picnic.

If you ask me, it’s already too late. I believe that within the next few months, the proverbial birth pangs, in one form or another, will begin in earnest. And I fear Americans of all faiths and belief systems are simply not responding quickly enough to quell them.

Posted by Becky at September 27, 2007 12:51 PM