My friend Steve Knight saw another similar message making its way virally around the internet, this one appealing to a prime Evangelical icon, Billy Graham, while simultaneously evoking the Anti-christ's partner in absolute evil: Adolf Hitler. The viral message (complete with the predictable "If you agree this is important, pass it on. The mainstream media will not do it for you!") was a critique of Barack Obama - in complete harmony with the McCain-approved TV ads. It claimed to be written by "Bill Brown, a highly respected retired member of the Billy Graham team."
Some skeptical readers assumed that Bill Brown was a fictitious name, but Steve, who also formerly worked for the Billy Graham team, knew that Bill Brown was a real person who had in fact worked for the Graham organization. So Steve took the initiative to contact Brown, a cancer patient who had just been released from the hospital.* Steve contacted Brown by email and a few days later received this response.
From: William Brown
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 12:31 AM
To: Steve Knight
Subject: Re: A message from Bill Brown Sr
Steve...I neither wrote the letter or the reference of Billy Graham. Some one else did that, I don't know who...and the[n] added a reference to Billy Graham. So, please ignore it. Thanks BB
Evangelical Christians have been considered in recent elections to be securely in the pocket of the Republican Party. But Evangelicals are in play in a surprising way this year. Many of us, as members of the Matthew 25 Network, have gone public with our support for Senator Obama. That support does not imply the same kind of naive, uncritical support for Democrats that many of our friends have given Republicans ... as a recent dialogue at the Sojourners' blog made clear.
All of us "people of faith," whatever our voting plans this year, had better be careful of being manipulated by unscrupulous political operatives who have studied us carefully and are willing to push any button - not just the old abortion and gay marriage buttons, but now even the Anti-christ and Hitler buttons - to instill fear and so secure our vote. What the Apostle Paul wrote in the 1st century - about smooth-talkers who "deceive the minds of naïve people" (Romans 16:17-29) - is no less applicable in the 21st.
*To read Steve's email, go here.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Cheryl, It is not enough to be inspired to action. It is right (correct) action, that moves governments to righteousness. I pray for my enemies as commanded in the NT but I also believe we must provide protection and safety for our nation as God provides wisdom to do so. We cannot ever be safe as long as our leaders ascribe to supporting abortion and homosexuality as an "acceptable" lifestyle decision with God. The bible says that we must stand for the orphans and widows, the poor and the hopeless. In this we fail as a nation, not because of God fearing believers, but because of a government that supports lust, perversion, laziness, Godlessness and lacivious behavior. God loves the sinner, hatyes the sin, our purpose as evangelicals is not to accept sin but to expose it and lead sinners toward Jesus, the "waay, the truth, and the light." Now, Obama may seem to convey hope, however, a man cannot serve two masters, he must at some point choose, and if a man has already said the he supports late term abortion and the right of a mother to terminate an already born child, then at what point to we know he has changed his position; and, has he repented of this travesty or is he continuing in the back of his mind to aligned himself with the socialist leanings of his youth? Cheryl, look closely at the Bible, don't be tickling your ears with unsound doctrine. Endure the Gospel of truth and the doctrine of the apostles, read the prophets and learn the ways of the righteous, they are not a social liberation political religion, the are fire to your bones and cannot stand for murder and derision.
I appreciate someone providing the truth of the situation. I get bombarded with this junk from my "believing" relatives, who unfortunately seem to believe most anything that claims to be Christian. This is all over the internet and internet blogs. I wish someone would start suing for slander. If I were Bill, I wouldn't want my name used without my permission, particularly to slander any person publicly. Thank you for making this public post.
There's a real fear in many when the idea of change is brought up. The present administration has road the wave of Christian support to economically devastate many American families like a tidal wave washing out many hopes in home investments, retirement funds, and service careers. It seems the only antichrists, in the context of denying the humanitarian purpose for which Christ came, are those who are the most publically vocal in claiming Jesus Christ as their lord while accusing others for sinning and being supposed antichrists.
Thankfully, this topic addresses the ways in which most Evangelicals are being exploited by fear mongers who reveal they will take the lowest moral roads to undermine and scandalize others whom they dislike or want to gain advantages over. That behavior is unlike Christ who enforced the law that forbid bearing a false witness against ones neighbor. As someone mentioned, if people were sued for libel, slander and defamation, maybe such issues as this topic addresses would not be such a common practice among people running for public office or everyday backstabbing and gossip done by everyday people to degrade and devalue the worth of fellow US Citizens.
I have studied Brian McLaren, and he is more interested in electing liberal politicians than he is in supporting Christianity.
He talks about the fact that Obama may be the anti-Christ, but none of us can know that for sure.
What we DO know for sure is that Obama fought HARD to make sure unborn boys and girls who survived an abortion did not receive any medical care. Obama said that if we help these live born babies, that might be a slippery slope to taking away our so-called "rights" to kill these same babies when they are still in the womb.
This is an anti-Christian position. It is infanticide.
McLaren and Obama can blather on and on about how much better Christians they are because they are for confiscating more money from American working men and women, or they are better Christians because they would sit back and let Al Qaida establish safe haven's in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, but we as Christians are not buying it.
It's not Christian or non-Christian to want to vote for someone who believes in higher or lower tax confiscation rates. It's just one way ruins the economy by punishing success, and the other way, keeping taxes low, makes the economy do better by incenting more jobs and more economic activity.
So, Democrats and Republicans can have a disagreement on tax policy, but it is a political argument, a policy discussion about what works better to reach the same common goal: helping to raise more people out of poverty and give them the self-respect of a job and the ability to care for their own family. If McLaren and Obama want to increase handouts, that just keeps people dependent on big government...which may be what they want.
But there are no "two sides" to infanticide and abortion. They are wrong, sinful and anti-Christian. Obama is wrong in his policies that would enable the killing of more babies. He is wrong to push for no medical care for Born Alive Infants.
Therefore, we as Christians can't vote for Obama, and we can't support men like McLaren who support the anti-Christian Obama.
Uh, Brian MacLaren is .....weird.
His bandwagon is heading down the wrong road, not only in his skewed political fling, but his understanding of the Bible and doctrine.
Come to think of it, he thinks about Christianity in a sort of "different" "relative" way, kind of like Obama. Not a coincidence that they have both scored financially "using" their odd religious brand, in a capitalistic way, no less!
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.