It’s easy to argue about Franklin Graham.
For starters, he is the heir of much of the ministry of the Rev. Billy Graham, and it’s hard to name a figure in mainstream Christianity who was more beloved than Billy Graham.
At the same time, Franklin Graham has openly aligned himself with Donald Trump, turning away from even the modest criticisms he offered during the primary season before the 2016 shocker. His theological critique of all of this has been blunt, to say the least.
That’s his style, and people love to argue about that. As I said in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), Franklin Graham has rarely used a flyswatter when a baseball bat will do.
But the fact that so many people ARGUE about Franklin Graham implies that there are good things to say about him (from multiple points of view) as well as bad things to say (from multiple points of view). It should be easy to write provocative, balanced news stories about him because there are so many people, with so many different perspectives, who have strong opinions about him.
However, mainstream press coverage of Franklin Graham tends to portray him as — let me state this mildly — the tacky son of a great man who is now one of the bigoted evangelical vandals who want to sack the American Rome (that would be New York City).
This brings me to an interesting, and in many ways admirable, New York Time story that ran the other day with this sprawling two-deck headline:
Franklin Graham Is Taking Down His N.Y. Hospital, but Not Going Quietly
His critics accuse him of discriminating against L.G.B.T. people. “Just because I don’t agree doesn’t mean I’m against them,” he said.
This lengthy story contains quite a bit of material in which Graham defends his organization and his own beliefs. It helps that he came to New York City — there is a lesson here for other religious leaders, especially evangelicals — and was willing to stand in front of microphones and answer questions.
The story, however, doesn’t include much in the way of information about what Samaritan’s Purse does and how long Graham and his team has been doing what they do.
Does that matter? I would argue that if a story is going to raise questions about, for example, pushy evangelism and this man’s fiery quotes about Islam, then it would help to know how long Samaritan’s Purse has been going into dangerous hot spots and treating everyone, with no religious questions asked. In other words, this is what Franklin says about Islam. Yet this is what his organization has done to serve suffering Muslim people without attempting to convert them.
The Times team, as the headline noted, is primarily interested in LGBTQ issues. Thus:
[Franklin Graham] has compared same-sex marriage to polygamy and incest and opposed a bill banning anti-gay conversion therapy in 2017, calling homosexuality an “abomination.”
Ann Northrop, a member of the Reclaim Pride Coalition, which has organized protests of Samaritan’s Purse, said Mr. Graham’s group had made many L.G.B.T. New Yorkers feel “personally attacked and personally at risk.”
“Just because they say that they wouldn’t recoil or try to proselytize you or start praying over you loudly about how Jesus will change you or save you, all of this comes to mind whether it is an actual possibility or not,” Ms. Northrop said.
Thus, it doesn’t matter that Samaritan’s Purse volunteers DO, in terms of service, the problem is what they BELIEVE. However, let me stress that it was totally valid for Gray Lady pros to interview activists with that point of view. That’s part of the story.
So is this section of the piece:
Mr. Graham’s critics have received their share of backlash. In an op-ed for The New York Post, Jonathan S. Tobin, the editor in chief of Jewish News Syndicate, said Mr. Johnson and other Democrats had demonstrated “ingratitude” to Samaritan’s Purse.
“Rather than welcome the group’s unselfish sacrifice, our local bigs greeted it with suspicion and hostility, thus treating the pandemic as one more culture-war battle line, rather than an opportunity to unite across the old divides,” he wrote.
Notice that the Times talked to the critics of Graham, yet only quoted critics of his critics via printed statements (from a rival newspaper, even). There are plenty of people who would line up to defend Graham (just as there are multitudes who would attack him), why not interview them? Ask them questions? Treat them like ordinary sources?
Let me offer an example of an interesting source for this story. If you follow progressives who remain evangelicals in terms of doctrine, then you know the name Ron Sider — author of the classic “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.” In a long Facebook post, Sider made it clear that there are many issues on which he disagrees with what Franklin Graham has said. After listing a few, he added:
But here is the problem. As Jim Wallis often tells me, there is a radical “fundamentalist” left in this country which is just as intolerant as the “fundamentalist” right.
Later, Sider gets to his main point:
My concern is about religious freedom, choice, pluralism, and respect for those who disagree with us. The key point of our constitution’s first amendment on religious and political freedom is this: Precisely because society is and always will have many diverse views, we therefore respect and affirm the freedom of those who profoundly disagree with us. We will argue vigorously with each other and explain why we think certain views are profoundly wrong and even harmful. But we will defend the freedom of those who disagree with us — even those who disagree vehemently with us! And we will not try to use government to silence or exclude them.
This used to be called “liberalism.”
Sider’s comments, as a whole, will make Trump supporters quite angry. They will also upset many on the theological left. To me, this makes him an interesting source, someone who upsets the familiar battle lines on debates at Samaritan’s Purse. I would predict, because of Sider’s decades of activism helping the poor, that he is familiar with this Graham’s work in that area.
To wrap things up — it was good to see a rather balanced Times piece about Samaritan’s Purse. It was good that Graham came to New York City and faced journalists, a move that improved the coverage. It was good that critics were quoted. I would have been good to have interviewed critics of the critics and other Graham defenders.
Let’s also note that this piece had a strong ending, featuring quotes from two of the Samaritan’s Purse volunteers who came to New York City to put their own lives on the line — as they have done in other parts of the world.
Workers there said they had been warmly welcomed by New Yorkers, who sent food and gathered to cheer for them at 7 p.m.
“We have been so well loved here, truly,” said Jill Pike, 30, a nurse who traveled with her husband, Brendan, from Medford, Ore., to work in the hospital. The couple said their faith had led them to Samaritan’s Purse.
“We work here with people who all share a common sense of purpose,” said Mr. Pike, 28, who is also a nurse. “We are all here because Jesus died for us and for our sins, so we came here to lay down a small part of our lives to help others. How could we not? Giving sacrificial love is very important to us.”