Posted on 03/02/2018 9:09:48 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
For seven hours Wednesday, the remains of the Rev. Billy Graham lay in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Hundreds of people streamed past his coffin, many with tales of how the iconic pastor brought them closer to Jesus Christ. The coffin was to be escorted out of the Capitol Thursday morning for its journey to Charlotte, N.C. for a private funeral Friday.
Wednesday began with a private, televised memorial at the Rotunda, the nation’s three most powerful politicians — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and President Trump — speaking of Graham’s great gift to America: his evangelism....
....But Graham, who died Feb. 21 at age 99, was of a different era, a different America in which there was even roughly a shared idea of religion....
“I don’t think we’ll ever see anything like this again,” said John Fea, a historian of American religion at Messiah College. “Graham represented the white middle class religious revival of the post-World War II era. He was the embodiment of a mass culture that was largely white and Protestant....
Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the Miller Center for presidential and political history at the University of Virginia, said she thinks honoring someone whose primary service was the conversion of people to a certain faith with a Rotunda ceremony violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment....
“Not that he shouldn’t be lauded, but does he deserve to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol? And once you open that door, where do you stop?” Perry said. “Lying in honor should be someone who served their country. Well, how did he do that?”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
We’re looking at a heathenized society that doesn’t understand. It is the society that Billy was sent to address. They wouldn’t care about him if he came to tell them they were just peachy as they were.
If we had to see a mix of evangelists and Buddhists and Muslims that would still be better than nothing that asserted that it looked beyond this world.
It's not the government's job to look beyond. We aren't short of poets, artists, philosophers and the religious. That is their wheelhouse. The government should boring, myopic and secular.
The war on Christianity continues. This moron must not realize blacks are overwhelmingly Christian and Protestant.
Here is the messy border between affairs national and affairs government. Should the rotunda be a mere house of bureaucracy? The bible also disagrees: the government should speak well of those who do well.
Yep, Andy, better nip this thing in the bud.
Nip it in the bud.
Why, next thing you know, this business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.
Graham starts with “G” and that rhymes with “P” and that spells Pool.
yes, I was aware. And I hope you’re right.
In principle there could be another figure like him. In practice maybe the Lord returns so soon that it is moot.
“Exactly what are you trying to say?
We are a secular Republic. Put him in a church. There are plenty of churches in D.C. if you want to make some kind of national statement.”
We have a national cathedral in Washington. I think that would have been a more appropriate place.
Religion is nothing to fear. Fear those like yourself that fear others.
Nuttiness in the name of God should be abhorred. But that wasn’t Billy Graham’s legacy.
Maybe we will see the Democrats demanding the same honor be paid to Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson when they die.
It’s more complicated than that, she more than likely represents what is known as a deconstructionist, or critical-theory. Throw in a pinch of sophistry here, a little bit of anti-American training there, and a twist of anti-theism, and mix thoroughly. This is what passes for historical or intellectual thought. It’s designed ultimately to confuse and misdirect.
GONG !
Wrong;
The United States is a Christian Republic
I will bet they soon do the same with McCain.
Why do you fear religion?
That's your word, and you're projecting.
Religion is woven into the American government and always has been.
Another bad idea. Are we making a list?
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