I could, however, respect Graham more. A lot more. The outrageousness of his comments about Islam ought to reveal why. It is not simply that he believes that Christianity is the only path to God-that the true God is the God of the Bible, not the Koran, as he told London's Sunday Times. His comments to NBC News in the wake of Sept. 11 were, to say the very least, curious: It wasn't Methodists flying into those buildings, and it wasn't Lutherans. It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith. Graham left no room for doubt about his conception of Islam, however, when he referred to it as "a very wicked and evil religion" and subsequently refused to apologize for that comment. (These quotations, all of them well-documented, are reported in Maureen Dowd's column, "A Tale of Two Fridays" in the April 20 issue of The New York Times.)
I don't need to go into how abhorrent I find these statements; I think their repugnance sufficiently shines through without any help. What disturbs me, aside from the fact that this man has such a large following in the United States, is that one of his fans appears to be the United States Pentagon. Guess who that institution, ignoring the protests of some of its Muslim employees, invited to deliver its Good Friday sermon? Graham himself. He managed "wisely" to omit explicit mention of Islam, although he did include comments like "There's no other way to God except through Christ" (see Dowd's column).
That this man was chosen at all is mind-boggling. The Chaplain Office at the Pentagon has told CNN in its own defense that it pursues "a policy of openness and inclusiveness," inviting speakers and religious leaders from all sorts of different faiths and organizations. That explanation, however, seems pretty insufficient to me. Can anyone imagine a situation in which a religious leader who had characterized Juda-ism or Christianity as an "evil and wicked religion" would be invited to lead a religious service at the Pentagon? It wouldn't happen. The Pentagon apparently is more tolerant of certain kinds of intolerance than others.
The selection of Graham would have been untenable at any point in time, but for it to occur now is particularly astounding. The timing is exquisitely poor. The United States is trying to convince a highly skeptical Arab world that it fought a war against terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and a brutal dictator-not a war against Islam. President Bush has repeatedly emphasized this, as well he should. Think of how fundamentally undermined that message is when the Pentagon, of all places, invites an extremist like Graham to lead its worship. Forgive me, but I simply don't care how popular Graham might be among many members of the United States Armed forces; there are many far more honorable Christian leaders whom the Pentagon could have invited in his place. The United States government should not implicitly send the message that it endorses this man's views.
That is exactly what it appears to be doing, however, and not only because of the Good Friday service at the Pentagon. It is doing the same thing by allowing his missionaries into Iraq. Graham, somewhat unsurprisingly, has promoted efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity for years. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he sent United States forces 30,000 Arabic-language Bibles for troops to distribute in Muslim countries. Come 2003, Franklin Graham is poised for action in Iraq yet again: Samaritan's Purse is headed in, ostensibly for the purpose of providing aid to the Iraqi populace, itself an indisputably noble endeavor. But while speaking to the religious website Beliefnet, Graham hinted at an alternative explanation for the Purse's presence: "I believe as we work [in Iraq], God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his Son."
What is even more troubling, to me, is that Graham's group is not alone in its thirst for Muslim conversion. The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, an organization whose mission is, as its website states, "to lead Southern Baptists in international missions to evangelize the lost, disciple believers, develop churches and minister to people in need" is planning to send several hundred volunteers to Iraq.
I don't believe that it is very difficult to see why the presence of such evangelists is so profoundly undesirable. Many Iraqis are grateful to the United States for having deposed their former leader; but those photos of Iraqis kissing United States Marines on the cheek, delightful as they may be, do not tell the entire story. Much of the Iraqi populace, like Arabs in other countries, suspects the United States of having imperial aspirations and is very skeptical of American motives. The suspicions many of them harbor can only be confirmed if the Americans providing them with necessary aid are treating them as "lost souls" and believers in "a very evil and wicked" religion. Americans will be mistaken as religious imperialists waging a war against Islam. Both Doves and Hawks alike should be able to appreciate the damage which evangelists in Iraq have the potential to inflict.
Graham's fundraising abilities need not go to waste; as Beliefnet Editor-in-Chief Steven Waldman has pointed out, Samaritan's Purse could easily write a check to one of the many secular relief organizations which are entering Iraq. This would help supply much needed humanitarian aid and prevent the highly undesirable proselytizationx. Regardless of whether we are talking about Pentagon sermons or Christian missionaries, however, the object of fundamental importance remans the same: our President and our military must cut their close ties to Franklin Graham.