>
>Eighty six year old Mr. Billy Graham has given a final grand Evangelical
>Christian Crusade. Known in his hey-day as 'Charles Atlas with a halo',
>the Reverend Graham, who now has trouble with eyesight, hearing and
>speech, and broke both his hip and pelvis in two separate falls last
>year, told reporters before his appearance last week at packed Flushing
>Meadows stadium in New York, that his death could happen at 'any day',
>and that he and his wife were 'looking forward to heaven and meeting God
>face to face.'
>
>A bit presumptuous, perhaps? Mr. Graham may be in for a bit of a
>surprise...
>
>In his Sermon on the Mount Jesus said: * *"Not everyone that saith unto
>me: "Lord! Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that
>doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Has 'America's Pastor'
>been doing the will of our Father during his long life dedicated to his
>'Lord'? Let's take a brief look and see...
>
>Well for a start, from since way back to the times of President
>Eisenhower, Billy's been spiritual counselor to each and every
>succeeding 'Commander in Chief' chosen to govern the USA.
>
>"I wanna attack another country! Call the Evangelist!" And Billy would
>come, and they'd pray together, and lo! There would be an attack! In
>Vietnam, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq to name but a few, each one with
>the blessing of the Reverend Billy. Millions of innocent people have
>been slain with the permission of the Christian pastor.
>
>/'Thou Shalt not Kill'./ That's one of the top ten commandments Moses
>brought down from the mountain after his chat with God. Jesus endorsed
>that commandment, and went further, making unwarranted anger and
>derision of others even more serious.
>
>So, just because Mr. Graham is not the one to pull the trigger - if he
>merely condones the sending of his brethren to a far off country to kill
>or be killed does that remove him from the culpability? Or does it not
>make him the one called for valued advice because he is considered a
>'holy' man, and who gave his approval for the slaughter an enemy of the
>Man of Peace he claims to represent?
>
>Examine further advice from Jesus, who rejected the old vengeance cry
>of* *'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth', and instead advised:
>'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
>you, and pray for them which disparagingly use you and persecute you
>that you may be perfect.'
>
>/"If anybody shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other
>also." /
>
>Were those words even considered when they bowed their heads and
>consulted 'God' at the daily 'prayer breakfast' in the Whitehouse, or in
>'the Prayer Room' created by Congress in the Capitol, before giving
>orders to blitz Afghanistan and Iraq?
>
>Hardly likely. Because the 'Christian' country that lost two of its twin
>trade towers on that shocking day is not truly a Christian country at
>all, but a nation that worships Mammon; peopled by the descendants of
>invading opportunity-seekers, their real motto not "Liberty and Justice
>for All but "Every Man for Himself, who decimated or subjugated the
>original inhabitants to virtual penury. The most ruthless exploiters of
>the 'new world' have reached the top and enjoy the power, spreading
>their manure world wide a huger version of the previously omnipotent
>British Empire, now reduced to the role of leeching sychophant to its
>former colony.. Both those greedy corrupt hypocritical powers brandish
>the name of a man executed for exposing the corruption and hypocrisy of
>a government and system, not unlike their own, in an occupied country in
>the Middle East two thousand years ago.
>
>Although anti-Semitic, Graham supports Zionism on the grounds that a
>Jewish state is a prelude to 'Armageddon', and, as the long-time trusted
>clean-shaven Rasputin to the Whitehouse, he is largely responsible for
>the molding of President Bush into an Armageddon-fixated, God-fearing
>millennial warrior, programmed to "live in anticipation and assist in
>the Second Coming."
>
>The gospel that Billy Graham and his evangelist brothers preach is
>false, and has been seriously damaging the emotions, minds and spirits
>of simple people in America and the world for more than half a century.
>Their utmost blasphemy, to have transformed Jesus into a god and twisted
>his words, keeping him nailed to the cross with nails of lies and
>ignorance. Instead of getting on with Jesus' plans for the creation of a
>just kingdom of God on earth, they try to persuade us to accept as
>inevitable the injustice and inequality that poison our lives, and wait
>for rewards in the life hereafter, available only to those who worship
>their Corporation Capitalist Christ. Apart from Doomsday, Graham
>preaches "Pie in the sky when you die.'
>
>And that might be a reason why in 1949, newspaper magnet William
>Randolph Hearst told his publications: "Puff Graham, a young and
>charismatic up-and-coming preacher man at the time." Puff they did, and
>catapulted him into the national limelight, from which he has rarely
>strayed since; the reason why he has been and is so highly loved by our
>rulers. He keeps the ignorant deluded with stories of angels, virgin
>births, tribulations and raptures, confusing and frightening them with
>apocalypses and end times, so that they become mad, on the look out for
>expected signs and omens, blind to their slavery and the breathtaking
>corruption of the corporations that rule the world.
>
>That's also probably why he was given the highest award of the American
>government, the* *'Congressional Gold Medal of Honor' which is presented
>"to any individual who performs an outstanding deed or act of service to
>the security, prosperity, and national interest of the USA"; the 'Ronald
>Reagan Presidential Foundation Freedom Award'; a star on the Hollywood
>Walk of Fame; and even bestowed an honorary knighthood by Queen
>Elizabeth of England for his 'international contribution to civic and
>religious life' for over 60 years. Such as?
>
>Ex-President Clinton introduced him on stage at his recent Crusade as
>"the man I love.
>
>"Wonderful friends," says Graham of Bill and Hilary. "A great couple."
>They all love him. Mr. Billy Graham is just the kind of preacher
>politicians like. Pie in the sky when you die, plus credibility for
>themselves: if they're friends of saintlike Billy, then they must be
>good people. . Every president since Eisenhower's called on Graham for
>spiritual counsel. He was closest to Nixon, but says he has tried to
>keep his message pastoral, not political. What does that mean? He used
>them and they used him.
>
>Doug Wead, a political advisor to George W's father, got to know Bush
>and recalls 'I was friendly with the guy who produced Billy Graham's
>television shows, and I suggested that we could have a camera isolated
>on the vice president [Bush], and he would be carefully following
>Graham's words, and at the right moment he would wipe away a [fake]
>tear. It was the only time I recall the older Bush getting angry with
>me. He didn't want political use made of it, but it happened anyway.
>They [George W. Bush and the other advisors] got shots of him, and they
>used them...'
>
>Billy says: 'I have known the Bush family for many years, and have seen
>how their faith in God has sustained them through some very trying
>times,' he continued. 'I pray for them daily, and it is a great honor to
>pray publicly for our president, his family, and our nation as he begins
>his second term.'
>But Jesus, who advised against public prayer, also warned:/ "Thou shalt
>not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the
>synagogues to be seen of men!"/
>
>Franklin Graham, clone-like copy of his father, also disobeys Jesus'
>instructions. Frankie boy read the opening prayer at the first
>inauguration of George W, where the ritual of the swearing-in of the
>President took place, hand on bible, and hand in air. I swear, it's as
>if they'd never read the Sermon on the Mount! What's that Jesus is saying?
>
>/"Swear not at all!"/
>
>Jesus said*: */"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's
>clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by
>their fruits."/
>
>Is Mr Billy Graham a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'? Let's examine his fruit.
>
>Ah, see! Here's one not far from the tree...
>
>Graham has been close to the Bushes since the 1950s, when he befriended
>George W. Bush's grandfather, Connecticut Sen. Prescott Bush. He has
>vacationed with them at their Kennebunkport, Maine, home annually since
>1962.
>
>In his autobiography, Bush says that it was at such a retreat in 1985
>that Graham 'planted a mustard seed in my soul' leading him to reaffirm
>his faith in Christ and culminating in his decision the following year
>to stop drinking.
>
>Graham participated in Bush's swearing-in as Texas governor in 1995, and
>Bush returned the favor, appearing at a Graham crusade in south Texas in
>1997.
>
>'Speaking of my great family, Dr. Billy Graham has meant a lot to all of
>us,' Bush said. 'He helped change my own life in a very personal and
>profound way.'
>
>President Bush is the fruit of Billy Graham. The mustard seed he planted
>in Bush's soul could not have grown and blossomed in any other way. It's
>also not surprising that after years under the holy influence of Doctor
>Billy Graham, the man in charge of the most powerful country in the
>world, with the biggest collection of deadly weapons, should say of his
>illegal invasion of Iraq, "God told me to smite Saddam Hussein, and I
>smote him.
>
>Billy's not long for the world now. It's a shame he won't be able to
>return from beyond the grave to warn his followers of the reception he
>received in heaven and tell them to repent. It'll be too late for him.
>Meanwhile here on earth, the evil fruit from his corrupt tree march
>madly on in their misguided Crusade, brandishing the Cross as a weapon
>of war.
>
>*MICHAEL DICKINSON* is a writer and artist who works as an English
>teacher in Istanbul, Turkey. He designed the cover art for two
>CounterPunch books, Serpents in the Garden
><http://www.counterpunch.org/books.html> and Dime's Worth of Difference
><http://www.counterpunch.org/books.html>, as well as Grand Theft
>Pentagon
><http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567513360/counterpunchmaga>,
>forthcoming from Common Courage Press. He can be contacted at
>www.stuckism.com <http://www.stuckism.com/>, where collages from his
>recently banned website can be seen.
>