Franklin Graham, Please Allow Us To Introduce You To Sweet Jesus, The Prince of Peace
Franklin, I am totally convinced that you are making little baby Jesus cry.
Tell me, Franklin, am I a Christian? Is Thelma? How about Junior and BubbaX, are they Christians? Since you know our hearts as well as you know Rick Santorum’s or anyone elses, surely you have an answer for us. We’re waiting.
I have no idea why you think that if you smile all the damn time, you can say hateful things about the souls of other men in a voice that you indicate is the voice of God on earth. Sweet Jesus cried, got angry, and even called out in desperation. Sweet Jesus understands out frailties and our hearts. You, Franklin, do not.
Sweet Jesus had plenty to say about poverty, war, greed, and haughtiness, which, of course, are the four planks of the GOP platform. Why don’t you talk about that for a while?
Look, I know I have backsliding blisters on my butt, but these Super DeLux brand Christians are really starting to get my goat.
This political season has put me so out of sorts that I finally decided to just look at the humor, to lighten up so I could fall asleep more easily. Read JJ and laugh. But, boy, has it been hard. I always prided myself on my quirky sense of humor. I’ve had to look hard for it lately. But all your posts and the fabulous comments are giving my hope!
1Keep it up!
Well, JJ, I backslide a lot. But the ways that I backslide on my religion the most are at the heart of Franklin’s and Santorum’s politics and ignored by their theology. I mean, like last week, I found five dollars on the street and bought a better than my usual bottle of wine, in stead of finding a homeless guy to give two fifty too; I own two jackets (not even counting suits) even though I live in Texas; I’m never holding a candle outside the prison when the state commits a murder, and I don’t throw a fit every time I buy something though I know some of that sales tax is going to pay for those murders. There are lots more too, but the wingnuts do not count my religious thoughts at all in there Idea of Freedom of Religion, do they? Freedom, to them, only means the right to do what they tell me to do.
2“Fryer” weighed in on ol’ Franklin:
“I usually like Graham crackers, but not this one, bless his heart. Not half the man his daddy was, rest his soul. “
3Franklin was raised in the same SBC tradition as I.
4SBC was founded by and for slaveholders in Alabama in 1845.
My church, in Haltom City, never told us about our origins and didn’t preach hate.
Franklin and Land have returned to the SBC origins and have driven me and my family away.
Now I attend a “non-denominational” church, complete with a rock band and smoke machines and a big screen TV.
At 68, I feel great, stomping and shouting with my 25 year old daughter.
GOOD-BYE FRANKLIN !!!
CEO Franklin Graham is a man of the account books not a man of God. He speaks to please his audience not to uplift them.
5I have so had it–the plan b idea–which I have secretly suspected as a way to get Jeb Bush into the primary and get the nomination–don’t laugh, its scary and the amount of money wasted–I am too old for a vaginal rape by the State of Virgin-(gin drinkers still to want to assault me, ’cause I’m pretty at closing time) I think the prince of peace would most likely order a pitcher of margarita’s and sit down with me and get totally wasted–it’s just that bad out there…I have daughters and granddaughters and I’m so angry
6I would be clearing out the moneychangers and exploding the clown car and that is as Christian as I can get right now–’cause Jesus, like me is a JEW–never was a cross worshiper-never–it’s downright gross!-Worship the stone rolled away–’cause there is no death and we are accountable for our behavior! No pass-no, no harm no foul!
Dang! I really am ANGRY!! So much wasted $$ when there re children to feed, educate and provide homes for…jobs necessary Dang!
per wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham he is still alive.
7“If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be___a Christian.” Mark Twain Notebook
8MCPO RET
9Amen to that!
Nothing has turned me off of religion faster and more thoroughly than these sanctimonious twits going on about who is and who is not a real Christian based on which political party they belong to.
I’m sick of all of it. I no more want to be in your club than I want a pack of wild dogs eating me alive. Jesus please rapture these idiots so the rest of us can live in peace.
10MCPO RET:
And to think the SBC thought they could bring folks like you back into the fold simply by changing their name.
They think we’re stupid.
11re: Warner… “Fryer” says, “Well, shut off my water and call me ‘Stinky!’ In the immortal words of somebody claiming to be Texan: ‘oops.’ I just figgered he was gone cuz Franklin obviously ain’t been to the woodshed, for awhile. I’m available as a stand-in. I’ll start the way MY daddy used to…
Franklin, go cut me a switch.”
12Franklin reminds me of people I know who didn’t want anything to do with their family business until they realized there wasn’t anybody in the real world who would hire ‘em.
13There was a time when almost all baptists, including Southern Baptists, talked about the “priesthood of the believer,” and disavowed every attempt at formulating church doctrine as an intrusion on the conversation between a believer and his Creator. One could suspect that others were hell bound, possibly deservedly, but that involved personal decisions.
Unfortunately, now the more visable Baptists have been infected with a conceit that leads them 180 degrees from their better traditions. (Some of their traditions, including segregation, were never good.)
Not coincidentally, a lot of Southern Baptists have left the ranks of “have nots” and moved uptown to Silk Stocking Row. Becoming invested in the status quo has injured their souls!
14I wonder why Franklin so easily proclaimed Rickie as a Christian when Rickie said that the Great Satan is attacking America through its universities, colleges, and Protestant churches. Last time I checked, Franklin belonged to a Protestant denomination.
Hmm, you know, I might just begin to think Rick Santorum knows what he is talking about if he’d come out and connect those dots and say Franklin Graham was acting on behalf of Satan – well, if I believed in Satan, which I don’t. Darn it.
15daChipster, I had to go look.
16There are religious leaders who respond to the Grahams and the Santorums. Consider Jim Wallis, author of GOD’S POLITICS: WHY THE RIGHT GETS IT WRONG AND THE LEFT DOESN’T GET IT and THE GREAT AWAKENING; REVIVING FAITH & POLITICS IN A POST-RELIGIOUS RIGHT AMERICA. Both books present strong, bible referenced arguments responding to the religious right.
17If anybody doubts the glee with which Satan interferes in human events, just look at the inmates running the asylum we call the Republican Party!
18Uncle Dave, Jim Wallis doesn’t get the press exposure he deserves because he is too reasoned and learned. He has actually read and studied the Bible (at accredited and respected institutions) Franklin et al only talk about. Franklin has ridden on daddy’s coattails all his life and it is catching up with him. One more emperor with no clothes.
One thing for sure. Jesus was no conservative. If he had been we wouldn’t have Christianity, only another form of Judaism. I’ll repeat my definition of conservatives: people fighting like hell to hang on to what progressives and liberals fought like hell to achieve in the first place.
19It’s going to get more ugly and soon. Rickey is a Catholic, a very, very conservative catholic.
20The Catholic church has never gotten along with other mainstream(or should that be lame stream religions?) protestant faiths and vice versa.
It is going to get real interesting when the christians start out christianing each other. And don’t forget the guy with the pointy hat and designer shoes, the pope. People are going to start asking (and they really should in rickey case) where he fits in in rickeys’ version on the USA of the christian faith.
People should be asking rickey if the pope will be dictating to rick how this country should be led. As an extraordinary good good catholic it should.
It is really very simple: God decides who is a Christian and who isn’t. Any human running around telling people he can make that decision is an apostate and will get his. God doesn have a sense of jhumor (look at the Rs) but She does draw the line.
21Ambrose Bierce got it said properly:
I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
22The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din —
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
“God keep you, strange,” I exclaimed. “You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too.”
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied — his manner with disdain was spiced:
“What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I’m Christ.”
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” – Gandhi
23One of the scriptures for our Ash Wednesday service was Matthew 6 about folks who pray loudly, do their good works with much publicity, and fast with great theatrics getting their rewards on earth, so do yours in private where only God can see to get your reward in heaven from God. Matthew 6:6 was a particular favorite of my former husband (may he rest in peace). It’s the one about going into your closet to pray. Once he pointed it out to me it became a favorite of mine, too.
24All my closets are like my garage and I can’t fit into either one.
25My dogs and my wife’s cockatiels are the witnesses to my prayers.