Fundamental
Evangelistic Association
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©FOUNDATION
A MAGAZINE OF BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM
Dennis W. Costella, Editor; Karel Beyer, Production Manager; Matt
Costella,
Copy Editor
M.H. Reynolds, Jr. (1919-1997), Founding Editor
Billy Graham Believes
Catholic Doctrine of Salvation Without Bible, Gospel, or Name of Christ
by Robert E. Kofahl, Ph.D
Television interview of Billy Graham by Robert
Schuller. Part 1, an approximately 7-minute-long broadcast in Southern California on
Saturday, May 31, 1997. The following is an exact transcript* of an excerpt close to the
end of this broadcast.
| 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. And I don't think that we're going to see a great sweeping revival, that
will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. 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 that 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: |
[R. S. 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.
|
Television interview of Dr. Graham by
Dr. Schuller continued: Part II was broadcast on Sunday, June 8. The following is an
accurate transcription of a segment.*
| Schuller: |
You knew ... Fulton Sheen. You knew these
men. Your comments on both of these men [Fulton Sheen and Norman V. Peale].
|
| Graham: |
The primary way of communicating is to live
the life, let people see that you're living what you proclaim.... [comments on his
friendship and conversations with Fulton Sheen] I lost a very dear friend, and since that
time, the whole relationship between me and my work, and you and your work, and the Roman
Catholic Church has changed. They open their arms to welcome us and we have the support of
the Catholic Church almost everywhere we go. And I think that we must come to the place
where we keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, not on what denomination or what church or what
group we belong to. |
Some historical background for
understanding Billy Graham's shocking profession of Roman Catholic Style Universalism in
1997:
Billy Graham's first great city-wide evangelistic campaign
was held in Los Angeles in 1949. At that time he made a public promise that he would never
have any theological modernists (theological liberals) on his platform. Dr. Graham's first
evangelistic campaign in England was held in the summer of 1954. On that tour he was
accompanied by Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in
New York City. Dr. Bonnell was also the president of the Ministerial Association of New
York City, which was dominated by modernist ministers and churches. On Dr. Graham's
British tour Bonnell was working to persuade him to hold a campaign in New York in 1956
under the auspices of the liberal Ministerial Association. During that time a group of
Bible-believing pastors and laymen sent Dr. Graham in England a telegram asking him to
hold an evangelistic series in New York City sponsored by "a committee of twice-born
men."
On his return to the States Dr. Graham announced that he
would come to New York in 1956 sponsored by the Ministerial Association of New York City.
The committee of Bible-believing men sent a delegation to Dr. Graham begging him not to
confuse the line between the gospel of grace and the false gospel of the modernist
churches represented in the Ministerial Association. Graham turned a deaf ear to them, and
came to New York with the requirement that all churches should be invited to participate
in the campaign. In that campaign, the Billy Graham Association trained counselors sent
from all sorts of churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. The policy was
established of directing each inquirer during the campaign to his or her home church. Some
Protestants were sent to modernist churches. Roman Catholics were directed back to the
priest of the Roman church nearest to their home address. This policy of cooperation with
the Roman Church continues to this day.
Dr. Graham has received honors from Roman Catholic
circles, including an honorary degree from a Catholic college. In his last campaign in the
British Isles, two leading prelates in the Roman Catholic Church in England sent out
pastoral letters encouraging Catholics to attend the Graham meetings. One of these
prelates explained to his parishioners that "Billy Graham knows our limits."
That is, the Roman Church can count on him not to touch on any theological doctrines that
contradict official Romanist teachings. Thus Dr. Graham will not explain that a sinner
trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins and eternal life must give up
any trust he might have in any other object of faith; that he or she must trust in the
Person, Jesus Christ, and Him alone, not trusting in Mary or saints, rejecting any trust
in the sinner's good works or religious observances, relying totally on His perfect work
of redemption, a substitutionary atonement on the cross, taking the sinner's place under
the judgment of God and receiving in His body the total punishment for sin that the sinner
deserves, and through repentance and faith receive the perfect righteousness of Christ,
imputed by God to the believer, that makes the sinner forever acceptable to a holy God,
and immediately a possessor of the gift of eternal life that cannot be forfeited or lost,
kept by the power of God throughout all eternity. If Billy Graham were to preach this
biblical and complete doctrine of salvation, he would at once lose the support of the
Roman Catholic leaders. Multitudes of Roman Catholics would be warned and frightened from
attending Billy Graham meetings.
The doctrine that Dr. Graham expressed to Dr. Schuller is
exactly what the Pope and the Ecumenical Institute in Rome have been teaching for years.
This is the idea that any pagan, practicing idolatrous worship, having no slightest
knowledge of the Bible, the gospel of grace, or the Person and name and redeeming work of
Jesus Christ-if he is a "good person" and if he is sincere in whatever he may
believe-is automatically "redeemed by the blood of Christ." This false doctrine
of salvation was clearly and explicitly asserted and defended in debate about four years
ago on radio stations KABC and KBRT by Father Vivian Benlima, then Director of the Office
for Ecumenical and Interdenominational Affairs of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who just
returned from a year's study at the Ecumenical Institute. It is the official teaching of
the Roman Church.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was the primary
force for the founding of the Lausanne World Evangelism Conferences back in the 1980s.
Especially in recent years these conferences have called on all churches, including the
modernist ecumenical churches of the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic
Church to cooperate with the evangelical churches in evangelizing the world for Christ. At
Amsterdam '86, billed as a "school for evangelists" and sponsored by the Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association, Graham revealed his ecumenical, inclusivist approach to
worldwide evangelism. In the final press conference, Dr. Graham was asked by Dennis
Costella, a news correspondent for Foundation magazine, how he could justify this melding
together of such a disparate crowd of theologically disunited religious groups. Dr. Graham
responded, "Evangelism is about the only word we can unite on. ... Our methods would
be different and there would be debates over even the message sometimes, but there is no
debate over the fact that we need to evangelize. ... I think there is an ecumenicity here
that cannot [be gotten] under any other umbrella." Therefore, he averred, all the
churches must be willing to disagree even on the question of what the Christian message to
the world is.
More recently, in the spring of 1994, a group of both
evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders signed a document called "Evangelicals and
Catholics Together" (ECT). This document asserts that there is one Church (including
both Protestant and Roman churches), that, therefore, they must work together in
evangelizing the world for Christ, and agree that there will be no sheep-stealing, that
is, proselytizing of members of one church to depart and join another church. ECT dismayed
multitudes of Christians and elicited vigorous criticism from many Christian circles.
There can be little question that Dr. Billy Graham during
almost forty years laid the major foundation for ECT. Where will the Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association go in the future? Will the leadership that succeeds the founder
continue down the same perilous path of compromising and diluting biblical truth until we
arrive at total syncretism and universalism? May God forbid and warn His people!
* Robert E. Kofahl, Ph.D., and the Rev.
Harold L. Webb certify the accuracy of the transcripts from Parts I and II, respectively,
of the televised interview of Dr. Billy Graham by Dr. Robert Schuller.
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