The spun 'blessing' of Sarah Palin by Billy Graham

Burned by Richard M. Nixon, whom he advised in various ways and for whom he wrote at least one speech, Southern Baptist evangelist Billy Graham no longer endorses those who would be president. Still, the big spin is that he gave something of a blessing to Sarah Palin after she dined with the family last week.

The elder Graham is 91 and apparently still speaks for himself. After dinner with Palin he issued the following circumspect statement:

It was an honor having Governor Palin and her family in our home this evening. I, like many people, have been impressed with her strong commitment to her faith, to family and love of country. I appreciated hearing her speak of her own spiritual journey and her life in Alaska. I shared with her my own memories of preaching in the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage in 1984. We had an opportunity to pray together. Life in the spotlight is not easy and I pray that whatever lies ahead for this family that their faith in God and His Son, Jesus Christ, would remain strong and that God would put a hedge of protection around her and all those she holds dear. Sarah and her family will always be welcome in the Graham home.

That's circumspect in contrast with the Raleigh News & Observer's suggestion Sunday that Palin had received Graham's blessing.

The N&O spin was drummed up out of son Franklin Graham's statement to The Charlotte Observer that his father has "followed her career and likes her strong stand on faith. Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up."

Even that seems too circumspect by far to be called a "blessing" from the Billy Graham Jr. we've all heard shake the foundations from pulpits around the world.

Warrenology (for heaven's sake?)

Warrenology was invoked by Mark Silk of Spiritual Politics yesterday for another run at Rick Warren's inauguration invocation.

He and Dan Gilgoff now agree with us that Pastor Warren's ever so carefully inclusive prayer, wasn't.

Until he actually stood to deliver at the inauguration, a great many of us thought Warren was a contender for the "America's Pastor" role created by the Rev. Billy Graham. As Beliefnet's Steven Waldman explained:

[Graham] pulled it off by using broadly inclusive language. In 1989 he referred just to "God" and in 1993 he declared: "I pray this in the name of the one that's called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace." Note, too, that he used the word "I" rather than "we," which would have assumed all in the audience were Christian.

Warren, says Mark Silk, "wanted to have it both ways--gesturing at inclusivity while sacrificing nothing to exclusivity."

It didn't really work, and one scholar and friend of Warren's has flatly called it "a mistake," although Warren's core audience on the evangelical right seems to have been well-pleased.

What were we to expect of a man given to inspirational references to Hitler youth, confusion of gays with pedophiles (and later denying that), support of condom-burning African regimes and other, similarly interesting views and involvements?

Whatever Warrenologists may conclude about the big guy's intentions and effects, he was never asked to audition for the role as "America's pastor." Not by a president who not only pulled an unprecedented range of American faith traditions into his inaugural festivities, but was also the first to acknowledge nonbelievers.

Ours is a more complex, democratic era than the one the elder Rev. Graham handled so well. Warren has the ambition but not the internal poise and or inclusive breadth of presence required to preside as Graham did.

This morning

• Christa Brown explains what the recently replicated Milgram experiment tells us about how clerical sex abusers abuse their authority and the trust of their victims.
• Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe writes that "The Christian Science Church faces declining membership and a series of unsuccessful ventures ... .
• Dan Gilgoff at God & Country defends Rick Warren from unflattering comparisons with Billy Graham.
• Mark Silk at Spiritual Politics notes Billy Graham's struggles with the "formidable" Christian right of the 1950s.
• Kyle reports on yesterdays call to arms against the administration of President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and Gary Bauer, president of American Values.
• Jonathan D. Sarna at On Faith says the only solution to the Hamas/Israel conflict is to temper inflexible religion with flexible politics.
• Holy Weblog is creeped out by the numbers of flag-waving angels on the heads of pins.

Should Billy Graham be active in a church close to his home

Aging evangelistic warhorse Billy Graham recently moved his church membership from Dallas, Texas, to Spartanburg, S.C. Although he lives in Montreat, N.C., some 60 miles from his new church, which he apparently "attends" almost exclusively via television viewing.

Why isn't Graham active in a church that is local to him?

Former Biblical Recorder editor Tony Cartledge thinks Graham should be.

Do you?