{"id":6545,"date":"2006-08-11T13:29:12","date_gmt":"2006-08-11T13:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/on-billy-graham.html"},"modified":"2006-08-11T13:29:12","modified_gmt":"2006-08-11T13:29:12","slug":"on-billy-graham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/on-billy-graham.html","title":{"rendered":"On Billy Graham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Both Dave Pulliam and Terry Mattingly have things to say about Jon Meacham’s cover story on Billy Graham in his twilight years:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Surely Meacham knows that Graham has been giving these very same answers to basic questions for decades, at the very least since the hard lessons of the Watergate era. There is a reason that Christian fundamentalists have, since the 1950s or thereabouts, called Graham a dangerous man who has sold out to modernity. You can look it up<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

What we needed here were a few specific questions and then some solid direct-quote answers from Graham himself. Other than strident voices on the far right, no orthodox Christian would claim to be able to see into the human heart and pass judgment. Graham has been saying that for decades. At the same time, he will also affirm that Jesus did not call himself \u201ca\u201d way, \u201ca\u201d truth and \u201ca\u201d way to eternal life.<\/p>\n

In other words, I think Meacham needed to take a more journalistic approach. Ask the man specific questions. Print the answers. Read the man statements that he has made in the past and ask him to respond. Print the statements in the past and contrast them with his current words. <\/p>\n

Then again, I am more interested in what Graham has to say about Graham than what Meacham has to say about Graham. Silly me. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both Dave Pulliam and Terry Mattingly have things to say about Jon Meacham’s cover story on Billy Graham in his twilight years: Surely Meacham knows that Graham has been giving these very same answers to basic questions for decades, at the very least since the hard lessons of the Watergate era. There is a reason…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Billy Graham - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/on-billy-graham.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Billy Graham - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Both Dave Pulliam and Terry Mattingly have things to say about Jon Meacham’s cover story on Billy Graham in his twilight years: Surely Meacham knows that Graham has been giving these very same answers to basic questions for decades, at the very least since the hard lessons of the Watergate era. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}