It is with great sadness that I reflect upon the death of Billy Graham—not because he died, but because he lived. I lament his death because I lament his life. Billy left scars upon mankind. For this reason we should be sad that he died, because it means that he lived, which is a shame.
Part of me wishes it were Pat Robertson instead, but I’ll take what I can get. America has freed itself of a powerful parasite. Billy infected our politics with evangelism and empowered pious fanatics. He was no more a Christian than a salesman. Alongside fellow frauds like Robertson and Falwell, Billy worked to theocratize secular-America. They succeeded. Hence “thoughts and prayers” have usurped political action on salient fronts. He leaves behind an unattractive legacy, the effects of which society will suffer for generations.
This was a man of sin paid to prattle of virtue. He was multitalented—a bigot as well as a liar. In 1972, in a demented colloquy with Nixon, he snarled, “A lot of Jews are great friends of mine. They swarm around me and are friendly to me, because they know that I am friendly to Israel and so forth. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country, and I have no power and no way to handle them.” He continued that the Jewish “stranglehold” on media “has got to be broken or this country’s going down the drain.” Like all good criminals and charlatans, Graham entirely denied having said this. Then, when the actual audio recording surfaced, he conveniently claimed amnesia. At this excuse one hardly knows whether to weep or laugh.
Yes, Billy was more vile a bigot than Nixon (talk about talent), and they maintained warm friendship even after Watergate. I suppose all liars and crooks are brothers under the skin. Graham harbored these sentiments while publicly preaching tolerance and love. It’s enough to make one sick.
Despite claims to being apolitical, he lingered round our last eleven presidents. But during the Civil Rights movement, when politics was needed to combat entrenched racism, he did nothing, advocating individual enlightenment over public action. In other words, his racket was too racist to accept systemic change. And priggish Billy was more concerned with sustaining power than spreading decency. He embodied the banality of evil. More often than kook fanatics, it’s clean-cut eloquent cowards and casuists who are most dangerous to society. Michael E. Long, author of “Billy Graham and the Beloved Community” states, “There wasn’t a major Protestant leader in America who obstructed King’s Beloved Community more than Billy Graham did.”
He proved, too, that the will to obey is just as seductive as the will to command. Aside from enslaving himself to scripture, Graham, according to William Martin in his book “A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story,” preached that “if the law says that I cannot march or I cannot demonstrate, I ought not to march and I ought not to demonstrate.” Besides the blatantly racist dimension, this precisely inverts the dictates of reason and subverts our most precious democratic right. Billy also rebuked Dr. King’s beautiful “Beyond Vietnam” speech for criticizing U.S. foreign policy. Being a fierce defender of the Vietnam War reeks enough, but the blind loyalism behind his position makes it far more foul—not that this mattered to our happy slave of the state.
After making a hucksterish career of telling children to find Jesus or face hellfire, one almost wishes there really was a hell for squalid little businessmen like Graham, Robertson, and Falwell to rot in. But no, they should never again taste of life—even a life rotting in hell. I hope the Reckoning comes sooner than later so we may all be saved…from evangelical bigots and freaks like Billy.
Billy lurked beneath humanity. Like the worm he was, he belongs encrusted to pavement after inclement weather, only to be demolished under human boots. I hope they bury his carcass. By composting soil and feeding maggots, it might finally contribute to society.
It is morning again in America, and a sweet spring petrichor succeeds his storm. It smells of progress.