On ABC’s “This Week,” the Rev. Franklin Graham was wrong when he said that earthquakes, wars and famines are occurring “with more frequency and more intensity.” The preacher, who is the son of the Rev. Billy Graham and president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, discussed the prophecy of Armageddon with host Christiane Amanpour during a special Easter edition of the Sunday talk show.
Alas… why dispensationalism is so widespread is such a mystery. It is utterly without biblical foundation and nothing more the wild imaginings of a 19th century guy who wasn’t much of a biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination. The biblical dictum ‘they prefer to believe a lie’ is certainly true when it comes to most people and their understanding of eschatology.
So it’s not at all surprising that Graham (and all those dispensationalists who believe as he does) is just dead wrong.
Graham, April 24: I believe we are in the latter days of this age. When I say “latter days,” could it be the last hundred years or the last thousand years or the last six months? I don’t know.
But the Bible, the things that the Bible predicts, earthquakes and famines, nation rising against nation, we see this happening with more frequency and more intensity.
And FactCheck notes
On all three counts, the preacher is wrong. Today’s famines and armed conflicts are fewer and relatively smaller than those in the last century, and the frequency of major earthquakes has remained about the same.
Do read the whole- and if you’re a dispensationalist, for the love of truth, toss out your Hal Lindsay, your Tim LaHaye, and all the other mind numbing spiritually deceptive trash of that ilk. They’re just dead wrong.
[Link via Irene Hahn on FB]
Zwinglius Redivivus 
You know, I really want to like Mr. Graham. Samaritan’s Purse does a lot of good things.
But this stuff, and his pro-Birther comments, and all of the nonsense in which he’s engaged, frustrates me to no end.
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when people get messed up with dispensationalism and christian zionism they just get off course and it is ‘impossible to restore them again to repentance’
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I know that just helping poor people and spreading the Gospel might not make as many headlines and get national coverage in the same way that challenging the President’s birth does, … but doesn’t Jesus have something to say about the meek and about not looking for rewards in this life?
I seem to think I heard something about that once …
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It seems that there are more natural disasters then before, but in time past there were far less people to die and reporting of said disasters were not as sensational as today. If you go back and look at the historical record and you will see that more people died in hurricanes and even earthquakes. Why, you ask. Simple. Better early detection of hurricanes and better constructed building in the case of earthquakes.
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Franklin Graham worries me a great deal, especially as he will be fully in charge of BGEA when Billy dies. (Why is it in the US that sons inherit ministries ?) Not only is it his public utterances which sometimes seem on a par with the idiocies of Pat Robertson but his support of Glen Beck, Sarah Palin and Liberty University cause Christians in the UK to doubt his intellectual ability. Many of us have reluctantly stopped supporting his annual Shoebox Christmas collections and diverted our giving to other organisations. Until recently there was also the questions about his rather large dual salary from Samaritans Purse and the BGEA and the fact that BGEA/ Samaritans Purse currently employs 3 of his 4 children in various capacities while laying off many of their low paid workers.
I suspect that some of Franklin’s anti-Obama remarks are probably due to “sour grapes” at not being asked to do the prayers at the Presidential Inauguration. There’s also a residual element of Southern Baptist racism within the BGEA and some of the Graham family.
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Patricia,
Racism is a big charge, as an Anglo-Irish Brit who has lived in the US for the last few years, I have found racism to be minimal here. The UK and this includes Ireland whole, not just Northern Ireland, has its own versions..and much of it is religious, now against conservative Christianity! So the British better keep their own house in order! And myself, I like Franklin Graham, and remember when his father came to England to preach. Would that “Billy” was able again, of course not perfection, but a true evangelist nontheless. But his time has passed. As it seems too British Christianity!
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Father Robert
I am not suggesting that British Christianity is free of racism or in any way better than US Christianity on that issue but I suspect that the degree of institutional racism in the States varies in different geopraphical areas and among different social classes. I presume that you are probably not living in a low income area in the deep South? I have an Anglo-Indian BIL and other mixed race relatives so I know the problems here in the UK only too well.
You will find that in the recent past Franklin Graham has spoken approvingly of men like Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell Senior and others who were opposed to civil rights legislation in the USA and supported apartheid in South Africa. He has also actively supported Glen Beck, who is a racist and who incites and encourages divisions in society on all sorts of issues rather than work for Christian reconciliation and social justice.
I too have fond memories of Billy Graham’s visits to the UK and attended meetings at Wembley, Earls Court and Norwich at different times of my life but was appalled at Billy’s lack of criticism of some very dubious US foreign policy in Vietnam, South America etc and his support of Richard Nixon and the Bushes. I feel that Franklin has failed to learn from his father’s political mistakes. UK religious leaders usually stand up to our politicians where necessary as did Robert Runcie at the time of the Falklands. Our religious leaders have also been a lot more diligent in querying why exactly we are in Iraq (oil) and highlighting human rights abuses at Guantanamo for examole or in illegal rendition flights across our airspace. In his public utterances Franklin certainly comes across to me as a right wing American Republican before he is a Christian.
I notice that you do not address the points I raised about Franklin’s salaries or the employment of his children in the family firm.
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Patricia,
We have a very different ideology, and no doubt both political and religious! My father, and great uncles, uncles to a man, and even my great aunts (nurses), and a few aunts were all in WW2 (they are all gone now, and before the Lord, RIP). My father was also a scientist and physicist, but I certainly received my conservative political upbringing from nearly all of them! And most of them remained conservatives all of their lives. Though we too had some so-called black sheep. 😉 We had some lively debates in that large Irish family! However, I was early taught to think for myself, something I am really eternally greatful for! There were no Irish clones in my family, just hardheaded Irish folk!
And btw, I fought with the American Marines in Vietnam, I was a Royal Marine attached to the 3rd Force Recon, in Phu Bai (1968). I was only 19 at the time. I was wounded later in A Shau Valley during my 9th month, but thankfully not badly. And yes, we were a “band of brothers”!
So ya see its all about value and perspective!
And concerning the Billy Graham family, I believe in their individual choices! I call this freedom somewhat. I don’t like or agree with your political or religious ideas, but I give you that freedom, and would and have fought for it! I know rather old and corny, but its what I believe and how I live my life! 🙂
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Patricia,
Ministries in the US are passed on from father to son for the same reason that bakeries, auction shops, moving companies, and the like are passed on.
They’re seen as businesses, and the sons are able to use the marketing in-roads made by their fathers to carry on.
That you see the absurdity of it shows your discernment.
Since American Evangelicalism is less a spiritual movement than it is a worldly one, it seems to fit, doesn’t it?
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Ken,
It just depends on what American “Evangelicals” you are looking at? I have found some good one’s in my opinion. And make no mistake, Christian Evangelicalism has been a past blessing for America and Americans!
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Robert, being an American and an Evangelical, obviously I know that.
However, the largest and noisiest voices in the movement, and thus much of the flock, are more focused on elections and tax rates than anything spiritual.
Since this is a blog comment and not a thesis paper, I don’t feel the need to cover every single potential meaning of every single word.
However, I stand by my statement — American Evangelicalism is more of a worldly movement than a spiritual one. Thus the need for books like “The Hole in Our Gospel” and “Radical” — to remind us that being rich Americans isn’t the role to which God called us.
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Ken,
That’s fine. Just about in every culture Evangelicalism has been compromised. And yes, the Church needs to be “radical” again, but radically Christ-like! And for me, this is historically both “catholic” and “reformed”, in the best of English Anglicanism. 🙂
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