Billy Graham on Jeffress and Cults

[Stephen Fox]

Billy Graham was long time member of FBC Dallas, where WA Criswell maligned the Gospel of Jesus Christ and George W. Truett and preached the Hunt Brothers, the Birch Society and the Texas Regulars.
See Curtis Freemans story Crazy from the Neck Up on Criswell and Stewart Newman.
For whatever reason Billy Graham was a member there.
Then Billy joined FBC Spartanburg where he could watch the preaching of Don Wilton Sunday Mornings live on WSPA; could see it in Montreat.

One thing Jeffress did not mention in his cult conversations on CNN was, Billy Graham's current pastor endorsed Romney for President in the S.C. Primary of 2008.

Somebody didn't get the Memo.

Meanwhile here is some wider discussion

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/pro-perry-sb ... -cms-18647

And

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispa ... _of_nerve/

And
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archi ... sm_a_cult/

I do like that picture with the Southerners link

[Sandy]

The Religion Dispatches post by Sarah Posner is right on target. If conviction, values and doctrine are so important in fine tuning who can serve as leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, to the point where the implication is made expressing doubts about the salvation of "liberal" Christians, then it would stand to reason that someone who belonged to one of those churches would also be on the outs with conservative evangelicals with regard to their politics.

It is worth pointing out that Richard Land went to the mat for Mit Romney during the 2008 go-round, when fellow Southern Baptist Mike Huckabee was still in the field.

Perry holds membership in the United Methodist Church, which most Baptists consider to be several spots past the left of center theologically, and further off to the left than that on social issues. And it seems that his involvement with the UMC, and participation in church, has been somewhat of a hit or miss pattern, mostly miss. It is ironic that the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas is trumpeting support for "a born again Christian candidate for President" who, as it turns out, is a lapsed Methodist who he would probably require to be re-baptized in order to become a member of his church.

Jeffress' other point, however, that Romney's faith should be taken into consideration by those who support him, is a good one. There is probably no other single factor that will tell you about the identity of a person, and how they would handle public office than their personal choice of expression of their faith. Few people know enough about the nuances of Mormonism, and what it teaches as fundamental doctrine related to the holding of public office, to see this as a problem. All they know is the good family image that they gather from the advertisements they see on television, all those regular, normal, but somehow accomplished people who tell you their name and then follow up with, "...and I'm a Mormon." The fact that these people believe they are racially, morally and intellectually superior to non-Mormons (whom they refer to as "Gentiles") and are destined to rule the world by taking over the US Government is never part of the equation, though any Mormon who has been through "primary" knows this.

If examining the practice of a candidate's faith is "religious bigotry," then examining everything else they do constitutes some other kind of bigotry.

In his heart of hearts, I wonder if Jeffress believes Catholics are Christians. No one has yet made an issue of Ron Paul's religious faith.

[Stephen Fox]

I am glad he shared it with us.

Sincerely presheate his dissection of the ins and outs of Methodism and Richard Land on the matter.

Even so the Kerygma on the doctrinal matter as it concerns Mormons and SBC fundamentalists is Harold Bloom's The American Religion. I hope Sandy will find a copy and read in the next few days.

[Chris]

Romney has called upon Perry to "repudiate" Jefress.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/1 ... 05603.html

What think ye?

[Ed Pettibone]

[Dave Roberts]

This story becomes more and more strange and seems to have a life of its own. It certainly doesn't help the fading Rick Perry.

[Stephen Fox]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

I think it the word "cult" has taken on so many different meanings that it is primarly considered an insult word. It would be better to say something like "Mormonism does not hold to the teachings of historic (or orthodox) Christianity." I've heard people call the Roman Catholic Church a cult or the Masonic lodge a cult, etc. So the word "cult" has become less descriptive and more pejorative meaning something like "people who don't agree with me" or in the press "people we think are religiously crazy." We know what a Christian means when they say that Mormonism is a "cult." It is a short cut for "Mormonism does not hold to an historic view of soteriology or christology." Well that doesn't mean a lot to a non-Christian. It just ends up sounding like we are picking on some nice people who live in Utah.

I think our discussion as Christians needs to be more nuanced if we expect others to understand what we are driving at. First we have to teach people what are the historic teachings of the faith and then we can talk about what is outside the faith. Of course the problem is we might have to first agree what the historic teachings of the faith are first. That's the trick.

The big problem with what Jeffries did was endorsing a candidate. That is the most objectionable thing he did IMHO.

[Chris]

[Sandy]

I have an outside reading requirement from a seminary class, "Kingdom of the Cults" by Walter Martin, who more or less defines the term in the same way Timothy does, as not holding to the teachings of historical or orthodox Christianity.

Perry is probably not that far away from being out of the race, since his financial contributions have fallen off and his standing in the polls has nosedived. I think that's a result of Republicans discovering that he has no substance to speak of, and once exposed, they realized there was really nothing there.

I also really wonder whether being a Mormon will make a difference to many conservative evangelicals if Romney turns out to be the party nominee. Most of them are so absolutely bent on defeating President Obama that they would vote for Satan if he were nominated by the GOP. The fact that a Mormon president would give a "cult" legitimacy, help them make gigantic inroads into the Christian community, and help advance Mormonism's own dominionist theology is secondary to that among most evangelical conservatives who are politically engaged.

[Ed Pettibone]

ED: Gee, I pretty much agree with Timothy, Chris and Sandy all at the same time. And we need to remember that Baptist where once considered in some quarters to be a cult. And when we talk about orthodoxy, who's definition of orthodoxy will we use?

My personal opinion is that the Mormon church in any form to which I have been exposed fits the term cult quite well. As I see it, they are a unique creation based on one mans quest for recondition and reliance on good works.
See:
Contemporary Mormonism, Edited by Marie Cornwall, Tim B. Heaton and Lawrence A. Young, University of Illinois Press, 1994

The Angel and the Beehive The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation, Armand L. Mauss, University of Illinois Press, 1994

Mormonism Mama and Me , Thelma 'Grann'" Geer, Moody Press,Chicago, Moody Edition 1986 earlier printings, i979, 80, 83 and 84

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Chris]

An Assembly of God minister once told me that that denomination was considered a "cult" in 1910. He was proud that it is now considered "mainstream" {not in MY book}. Does A of G meet any criterion (now or 100 years ago)?

[Ed Pettibone]

[rfuss]

[Tim Bonney]

[Chris]

@rfuss --- Would you consider AOG a cult (then or now)?

[Haruo]

When Catholic authors write about "the Marian cult" they are not disparaging either the Virgin or her devotees, and they are not referring to something that they regard as outside the pale of orthodoxy.

The Psalter Hymnal (Christian Reformed Church, 1987) contains a text of the Nicene Creed that purports to be translated "from the Greek" yet contains the filioque!

Certainly Islam doesn't claim to be a subset of Christianity, but it does claim to the a (and the ultimate) subset of the true religion revealed by God to a line of prophets among who is numbered Jesus. I.e., it sees Judeo-Christo-Islamic religion as one extended case of progressive revelation. And in the early centuries, Christians returned the favor by numbering Muhammad among the heretics (see Dante's treatment of Muhammad, for example).

And Unitarian-Universalism certainly is an outgrowth of Christianity, and many of its members are Christians. "It came upon the midnight clear" is of Unitarian origin.

Random thoughts when I should be going to bed.

[rfuss]

[Sandy]

I want to get back to the original title of the thread, because, after having time to peruse all of this, I want to know specifically what Billy Graham has said about Jeffress and cults. The connection has been made here, mainly through the "endorsement" of Romney back in 2008 by Graham's current pastor in Spartanburg, SC, which doesn't tell me anything about what Billy Graham thinks or has to say about this.

It looks like the idea of a pastor endorsing a specific candidate for office is going to get a court ruling in this particular case. I would prefer that pastors be a little more self-restrained in this area, and not openly or publicly endorse candidates, but some of them who are a little bit too big for their britches and thump themselves on the chest as pastor of a large, "prominent" church can't seem to resist using their influence in this way. And the counter argument is usually that African American pastors do it and get away with it.

Well, first of all, just because my pastor endorses a candidate, doesn't mean that I endorse him. So I don't know what Billy Graham's church membership has to do with this discussion. And second, if my pastor did endorse a candidate from the pulpit, I would leave the church that very day. That would be diluting the message of the church and its commitment to Christ.

[Chris]

[Cathy]