Sound The Trumpet : World's Most Influential Apostate

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“World's Most Influential Apostate”
by by Bob Kirkland
October 1st, 2014

It Saddens My Heart to find it necessary to write an article like this. My mother, my father, my brother and myself were all saved as a direct result of Graham’s 1955 Crusade in Toronto.

I heard the gospel, walked down that long aisle, and trusted Jesus Christ as mypersonal Savior. However, B i l l y G r a h a m h a s changed s i n c e t h a t e v e n i n g . He i s an apostate going directly against the Word of God.

Graham has almost completely abandoned what he formerly professed to believe. The word "apostasy" comes from the Greek apostasia, which is translated "falling away." An apostate is one who falls away from the true faith.

To have an influence is to have the capacity to have an effect on the behavior of someone. Graham could have used his influence to direct people to obedience, instead he has influenced millions into apostasy.

Why Is Graham So Popular? Graham has met with virtually every countries President, Prime Minister. He met with Kings, Queens, Princes and Pope’s, no door was ever barred to his entrance.

Graham's magazine, Decision, reaches 1.7 million people, his column appears in more than 100 newspapers, his radio program is on 700 stations worldwide, and several of his books have been best-sellers. (Angels, published in 1975, sold one million copies in just 90 days.) Graham has reportedly preached to over 215 million people and once claimed that precisely 2,874,082 of them have stepped forward to "accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior." (11/15/93, Time magazine)”.

He has met with presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Bush's who referred to him as "America’s Pastor.” He recently met with Obama. In 1949 at the LA crusade even the movies theaters promoting Graham.

Graham was also given national coverage by the news mogul William Randolph Hearst. Hearst sent a telegram to his newspaper editors: "Puf f Graham," and within five days, he gained national coverage. With such media attention, the crusade event ran for eight weeks— five weeks longer than planned. Graham became a national figure.

Henry Luce a magazine publisher, was called "the most influential private citizen in the America of his day,” also promoted Graham with coverage at this time, and by 1954 featured him on the cover of his magazine TIME.

Jesus said, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:26).

Graham’s Early Compromise Graham made a profession of salvation in 1934 at the age of sixteen, at a revival meeting conducted by Mordecai Ham in Charlotte, N.C. Following that experience Graham went to Bob Jones University; however, finding the rules too ridged for him, after only one semester, he transferred to the Florida Bible Institute, where the first seeds of his ecumenicalism were sown.

Graham wrote in his biography that “...one thing that thrilled me [about Florida Bible Institute] was the diversity of viewpoints we were exposed to in the classroom, a wondrous blend of ecumenical and evangelical thought that was really ahead of its time” (Graham, Just As I Am, p. 46).

Graham’s compromise began as early as 1944 when he was befriended by one of the most influential Catholic leaders in America, Fulton Sheen. When Sheen died in December 1979, Graham testified that he had “known him as a friend for over 35 years.” (Religious News Service, Dec.11, 1979).

The Graham crusade committee in New York included 120 Modernists who denied the infallibility of Scripture. The wife of Modernist Norman Vincent Peale headed up the women’s prayer groups for the Crusade. Modernists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., sat on the platform and led in prayer. In the National Observer, Dec. 30, 1963, King said the virgin birth of Christ was "a mythological story" created by the early Christians. In Ebony magazine, January 1961, King said: "I do not believe in hell as a place of a literal burning fire."

In March, 1950 Graham wrote, “...a number of Roman Catholic priests and Unitarian clergy, together with some of their parishioners, came to the meetings along with those from Evangelical churches...this was a further expansion of my own ecumenical outlook. I now began to make friends among people from many different backgrounds and to develop a spiritual love for their clergy.” (Graham, Just As I Am, p. 167). Interesting when you consider that in 1948 Graham said, 'The three greatest menaces faced by orthodox Christianity are Communism, Roman Catholicism and Mohamedanism'. (Plains Baptist Challenger, July 1977).

Interesting also is the fact that in 1967 at the Belmont Abbey College, a well-known academic Catholic institution of the Church of Rome in North Carolina, Graham was invited to come that they might present him with an honorary doctorate.

The Gastonian Gazette of November 22, 1967, reported in full what he said. "Dr. Graham, what gospel do you preach?” Here is his answer: "The gospel that built this school and the gospel that brings me here tonight is still the way of salvation." Billy Graham is a turncoat, compromising apostate.

May 28, 1978 in the Japanese newspaper 'Mainichi Daily News' Graham said, 'I think communism's appeal to youth is its structure and promise of a future utopia. Mao Tse-Tung's eight precepts are basically the same as the Ten Commandments. In fact if we can't have the Ten Commandments read in the schools I'll settle for Mao's precepts'.

In McCall’s, Jan. 1978. p. 158 (I Can’t Play God Anymore) Graham said, “I’ve found that my beliefs are essentially the same as those of orthodox Roman Catholics, for instance....We only differ on some matters of later church tradition”

In 1952 from the Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph of September 6: "Many of the people who reach a decision for Christ at our meetings have joined the Catholic church."

1957, San Francisco News, November 11: "Even if the penitents are non-Protestant they are referred to the church of their choice." San Francisco is a heavily concentrated Roman Catholic city. "Anyone who makes a decision at our meeting is seen later and referred to a local clergyman--Protestant, Catholic or Jewish."

1963: "I admire Pope John [XXIII] tremendously. I felt he brought a new era to the world." (Chicago Tribune, June 8, 1963).

1966: "I find myself closer to Catholics than the radical Protestants." (Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, Radical Protestants? One has little doubt he meant fundamentalists.

1977: In Manila, the Philippines, Graham said, "We have received wondrous support from the Catholic Church" (Christianity Today, Dec. 30, 1977).

In 1980 he wrote an article which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (Jan.-Feb. 1980). Graham said: "Pope John Paul II is one of the greatest moral and spiritual leaders of this century. He is an evangelist."

In 1989 Graham spoke further in the Today newspaper of June 8, and he said this about the Pope: "There was a pause in the conversation, suddenly the Pope's arm shot out and he grabbed the lapels of my coat, he pulled me forward within inches of his own face. He fixed his eye on me and said, `Listen, Graham, we are brothers.'"We are brothers! Graham said that was a great happening in his life, when the Pope took him by the lapels, pulled him into his cheek and said, "We are brothers."

An Interview with Midwest Today, (January 1997) called A Conversation with Billy Graham asked one question and the answer was...

Question - “You talked about emphasizing more the love and mercy of God in the later years of your ministry. Can you tell us a little bit about how that applies to people of other faiths?”

Grahams Answer - “Well, you know when I was growing up and after I came to Christ in the beginning of my life and went to school, I didn't know much about Catholics; I didn't know much about Lutherans; and people who were more ritualistic in their worship. Through the years I have been thrown [together] with them and have a great many friends in the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, when we go to a city now nearly all of the Roman Catholic churches support it. When we went to Minneapolis for the crusade -- St. Paul, which is next door joined with Minneapolis, it’s largely Catholic and Minneapolis is largely Lutheran -- they all supported the crusade, which wouldn't have happened 25 years ago. But it does today. The same is true with the Eastern Orthodox churches, because when I went to Russia, long before Communism fell, I was the guest of the Orthodox C h u r c h . " h t t

Larry King Live-April 2, 2005 Billy Graham said the late Pope was “the most influential voice for morality and peace in the world in the last 100 years.”

Larry King: “There is no question in your mind that he is with God now?”

Graham: “Oh, no. There may be a question about my own, but I don't think Cardinal Wojtyla, or the Pope -- I think he’s with the Lord, because he believed. He believed in the cross. That was his focus throughout his ministry, the cross, no matter if you were talking to him from personal issue or an ethical problem; he felt that there was the answer to all of our problems, the cross and the resurrection. And he was a strong believer.”

I Cant’ Play God Any More. McCall’s, January, 1978 - “I used to think that pagans in far-off countries were lost -- were going to hell -- if they did not have the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them. I NO LONGER BELIEVE THAT...I believe there are other ways of recognizing the existence of God – through nature, for instance -- and plenty of other opportunities, therefore, of saying yes to God."

NEWS BRIEF: "Graham Believes Men Can Be Saved Apart From Name Of Christ", by Robert E. Kofahl, Ph.D.,

A television interview of Billy Graham by Robert Schuller, on May 31, 1997. The following segment is an exact transcript of an excerpt close to the end of the broadcast. Reported by The Christian News, October 20, 1997, page 15.

SCHULLER: “Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?”

GRAHAM: “Well, Christianity and being a true believer -- you know, I think there's the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ...I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God's purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that's what God is doing today, He's calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think they are saved, and that they're going to be with us in heaven."

SCHULLER: “What, what I hear you saying, that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they've been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying?”

GRAHAM: “Yes, it is, because I believe that. I've met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they've believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they've tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived."

SCHULLER: [He trips over his tongue for a moment, his face beaming, then says] “I'm so thrilled to hear you say this. There's a wideness in God's mercy.”

GRAHAM: “There is. There definitely is." Again, Graham said, "I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ."

No person on the face of the earth has had more influence that has lead us into our present day apostasy than has the apostate we call Billy Graham. His October 1948 crusade in Augusta, Georgia, marked the beginning of an openly ecumenical program. Sponsored by the city ministerial association. The Graham organization began demanding broad denominational support for his crusades. During Graham’s 1949 Los Angeles crusade, his ministry began to receive national press coverage. Graham’s final rift with most Fundamentalist leaders did not occur until 1957, though.

In 1955 (two years prior to the New York campaign) during Billy Graham’s Scotland crusade an i n t e r v i e w e r asked him t o d e f i n e the fundamentalist label he had been plastered with. Billy objected saying, "I don’t call myself a fundamentalist," Graham said, "I prefer to call myself a "constructionist," Billy said, explaining he was seeking to rebuild the church (March 1956, Christian Life).

Concerning the San Francisco crusade Graham refused two invitations to come to California under fundamental sponsorship (one by the Christfor- San Francisco Committee which included about 100 fundamental churches and one by the United Evangelistic Churches of Oakland). However, the liberal council of the Bay Area invited Graham to hold a campaign and this invitation was accepted. On September 26, 1957, sixty-five fundamental ministers of the San Francisco area issued a proclamation in which it was stated that these fundamental men would cooperate with the Graham Crusade if all participating churches and ministers were required to subscribe to the following minimal doctrinal statement:

• The full inspiration of the Bible.

• The virgin birth of Christ.

• The vicarious blood atonement of a sinless Christ on the cross.

• The bodily resurrection of Jesus.

• Salvation by the grace of God through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Graham refused to make belief in these doctrines a prerequisite for participation in the crusade.

As a result the General Crusade Committee for the San Francisco Crusade was dominated from the start by men who were advocates of liberal theology. Amongst others in support of the crusade was Bishop James A. Pike, Episcopalian Bishop of the diocese of California. Pike was asked to lead in prayer before the crowds. Pike considered the Garden of Eden and the Virgin Birth to be mere myths.

It was around this same time that Graham separated from John R. Rice and The Sword of the Lord. Rice asked Graham if he could conscientiously sign the doctrinal statement which appeared on the front page of every issue of his paper.

The statement reads as follows: "An Independent Christian Weekly, Standing for the Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, the Deity of Christ, His Blood Atonement, Salvation by Faith, New Testament Soul-Winning, and the Premillennial Return of Christ. Opposes Modernism, Worldliness, and Formalism."

In reply Graham stated that he did not believe he could sign the doctrinal statement as carried by the paper, and requested that his name be dropped from the Cooperating Board.

Billy Graham’s separation from fundamentalism is also evidenced by the fact that he helped to launch the magazine Christianity Today, a magazine that generally opposes fundamentalism and promotes the new evangelical philosophy. Graham told a ministerial friend that he gave $10,000 to start the magazine, and that he influenced others to give largely. The magazine has consistently featured his campaigns and has promoted his philosophy of coexistence with modernism.

In a letter to Dr. John R. Rice, dated May 10, 1952, Dr. Graham said: "Contrary to any rumors that are constantly floating about, we have never had a modernist on our Executive Committee, and we have never been sponsored by the Council of Churches in any city, except Shreveport and Greensboro, both small towns where the majority of the ministers are evangelical."

In a letter to Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., June 3, 1952, Graham said, "The modernists do not support us anywhere. We have never been sponsored by the Council of Churches in any cities except Greensboro and Shreveport."

In 1954 Jack Wyrtzen, a noted New York youth leader, along with several other fundamentalists, issued an invitation to Billy Graham to come to New York sponsored by born-again believers. This invitation was rejected by Graham, on the grounds that not enough churches were represented. At about the same time, the Protestant Council of New York, which is predominantly liberal, invited Dr. Graham to New York under their auspices. After some delay the invitation from the Protestant Council was accepted. Thus the invitation from the liberal Council was accepted; the invitation from the fundamentalists rejected. As a result, the crusade was held in 1957. Lawyer James Bennett, a longtime resident of New York City and strong Christian leader there for years, estimates that the General Crusade Committee in New York was composed of about 120 modernists and unbelievers and about 20 fundamentalists, and the Executive Committee contained about 15 modernists and 5 fundamentalists.

Dr. Henry Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, an extremely liberal Seminary.

John A. Mackay, the former Princeton president and undoubtedly a liberal theologian.

Dr. Ralph Sockman, well known Methodist Modernist.

Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell who wrote in Look Magazine (March 23, 1954): "Presbyterians do not believe in the literal inerrancy of the Scriptures.... Most Presbyterians do not believe in a material (literal) heaven or hell." etc. etc.

According to Christian Life [Sept. 1957, p.25] the church that received the most decision cards of any New York Church was the Marble Collegiate Church, pastored by "positive thinking" Norman Vincent Peale (a man who did not preach the true gospel in his pulpit or in his writings).

On April 3 Graham addressed the National Association of Evangelicals and said, "Our New York Campaign has been challenged by some extremists on two points. First as to sponsorship, I would like to make myself clear. I intend to go anywhere, sponsored by anybody, to preach the Gospel of Christ, if there are no strings attached to my message. I am sponsored by civic clubs, universities, ministerial associations and councils of churches all over the world. I intend to continue" [Christian Beacon, April 4, 1957].

The following is written by Dr. John R. Rice and is but one example of how fundamental men pleaded with Graham to adhere to a separated position:

“I talked with Dr. Graham again and again about the danger of yoking up with modernism. Again and again he assured me that he had vowed to God he would never have a man on his committee who was not right on the inspiration of the Bible, the deity of Christ, and such matters. I visited Dr. Graham in his own home in Montreat, North Carolina, by his invitation, and we talked earnestly on such matters. Again and again we have talked by long distance telephone sometimes as long as thirty minutes. At his own request, we sent him THE SWORD OF THE LORD air mail, week after week, in his tour around the world. I wrote him in great detail on matters where I thought he was wrong. And all the time I defended him openly and publicly, excusing his mistakes, until he openly declared he had decided to keep company with modernists and put them on his committees and to go under their sponsorship. Then I was compelled, in order to be true to Christ, to come out openly against that compromise.

The issue is not Billy Graham. I have loved him through the years. I have prayed for him daily for many years...The warmhearted, friendly Cliff Barrows, the beloved Beverly Shea, the dear friend Jerry Beavan, and the assistant Grady Wilson—God knows how I have prayed for them all! I did all that a good man could do privately to help keep Billy Graham for the historic Christian position, and for working with Biblebelieving Christians instead of unbelievers.” [from pp.304-305 of "Cooperative Evangelism" in Earnestly Contending for the Faith by Dr. John R. Rice].

Other fundamental leaders, such as Bob Jones and Charles Woodbridge, also approached Graham personally about the dangers of cooperation with liberal churchmen.

Why This Article At This Time?

Some might ask why this article at this time? Graham is not preaching anymore and he will soon pass away. The truth is when Graham passes away he will have more influence than he is ever had in his life. His work will be featured on every magazine every television station every news broadcast around the world will once again promote the apostasy of Billy Graham. He will have more influence upon his death that he ever had during his life.

What Does The Bible Say? Second Thessalonians 3:6 “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.”

Second Thessalonians 3:14 “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.”

Ephesians 5:11 “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”

Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that

thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing

thou hast forgotten the law of thy God,

I will also forget thy children.”

Ecclesiastes 8:11

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13