The Hypocrisy of the Religious Right’s Version of God’s Word

Last updated on April 8th, 2018 at 01:52 pm

Franklin_Graham

It is indicative of the Religious Right’s mindset that when infamous hater Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, writes about “God’s Word” it is to the Old Testament – not the New – that he turns. Rather than “turn the other cheek…” (Matt. 5:39) or “Blessed are the poor…” (Luke 6:20) or, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matt. 25:45) he gives us, “the wickedness of man was great in the earth” (Genesis 6:5).

And even when he cites the New, he turns to those passages most full of fire and brimstone:

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But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone” (Revelation 21:7-8).

This is much more to the liking of theocrats. It is the message that drives Talibangelical thugs like those from Operation Save America as they disrupt the church services of those denominations who aren’t really “Christian enough” for them. Christians in the Roman Empire hissed at Pagan rituals, disrupting them as well. The history of conservative Christian intolerance is a long one, and remarkably consistent.

Without batting an eyelash as his own hypocrisy, Graham, who regularly ignores big chunks of God’s word, tells us that “Christians cannot ignore parts of God’s Word because they are unpopular or cause division.”

Or votes, to judge by current Republican rhetoric, where turning the other cheek has never been less popular or cost more votes.

But if they cannot ignore sin, they can apparently ignore Jesus’ entire corpus of teaching because they focus on the poor and needy rather than on the rich and privileged, and because Jesus preaches love rather eternal damnation.

Graham writes in the July 10 issue of Decision Magazine,

We cannot sincerely proclaim the truth of God’s love while ignoring what He hates, and God hates sin. His love pours out the remedy for sin that holds mankind in bondage. It is found in His unmerited grace—the gift of salvation.

But when was the last time any Religious Right figure cited the beatitudes? It is apparently permissible in their eyes to proclaim God’s hate but to say nothing of his love.

According to Christian Bible Reference, the word “hate” appears 76 times in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Old Testament. It might not surprise you to learn that it appears only 18 times in the New. What might surprise you, after listening to all these Religious Right figures, is that the word “love” actually appears more often: 317 times in the Old Testament and 221 times in the new.

Graham says God hates sin. Jesus actually used one of his “hates” in the gospels on family: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

But Franklin Graham, like his fellow Religious Right preachers, is not interested in the poor or the little children or turning the other cheek, let alone in the entirety of “God’s Word.” He is interested in a limited social agenda and in imposing theocracy on America in violation of the secular United States Constitution.

According to Graham,

Followers of Jesus Christ, and especially pastors and church leaders, have a responsibility to speak the truth of Scripture, calling sin what it is, and acknowledging that it has always reigned in the hearts of the human race. It is not any worse today than it was “in the beginning.” After all, sin brought about the Great Fall and then the Great Flood because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth” (Genesis 6:5). It is not just a debate about abortion or homosexuality; all sin is immorality—and all immorality is evil. In America today we are experiencing an epic drought. It is not just the basic misunderstanding of the Word of God; it is the absence of God’s complete Word.

So not only do vast swathes of God’s Word go missing, but so does science and common sense:

Thirteen of the 14 hottest years on record occurred in the 21st century. The ten hottest years have all happened since 1998. NASA tells us that “With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the warmest years on record.” As Climate Central points out, 2013, the seventh hottest year recorded, was also the “37th straight year where the global temperature was above the long term average.”

When President Barack Obama said in his 2013 State of the Union Address that “the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15”, Politifact.com actually said he was understating the case, because NASA says 13 of them have come in the last 15, and according to NOAA, “14 of the hottest years on record have come in the last 15.”

Obama also pointed out that that “heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods – all are now more frequent and more intense.”

Science backs the president up. All Graham has is his hate.

So of course Franklin Graham points to God, not to anthropogenic global warming, as the cause. Or more accurately, not man’s pollution of the planet, but man’s sin.

So rather than stop pollution, Graham would have us stop sinning:

Christians are called to shun acceptance of sin in all forms, not because we are perfect people but as a testimony to the transformation God brings about in a life surrendered to Him; washed clean by the blood of Christ and clothed in His righteousness. We must be people of endurance in the face of criticism or any form of persecution. If we do not exhibit godly courage to stand strong in the faith, we cannot overcome Satan’s seducing spirit that grips the world. The Bible says:

“Now the Spirit [of God] expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared. … If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:1-2, 6).

Of course, Timothy itself is inherently dishonest, since it is an example of an author pretending to be Paul, and not Paul himself, but dishonestly is apparently not a sin on the Religious Right, then or now. Religious Right leaders lie often and freely, at every opportunity, really, when they ignore 90+ percent of the Old Testament and nearly all of the new in an effort to make the Bible one gigantic anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-woman diatribe.

Graham says,

If we as God’s people refuse to speak about sin because it will make others uncomfortable, we are cowards.

But what “God’s people” refuse to speak about is love, because love and forgiveness, and turning the other cheek, and the cause of the poor and downtrodden that Jesus championed, do not a theocracy and riches for those theocrats make.

Image from AmericanVision.org


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