This week Billy Graham removed Mormons from the list of cults..a list that I assume God gave him. What would you call this?
It just blows my mind.
So is the next step for Mr. Graham to put black people on his list of Satan worshipers?
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10 Answers
He hasn’t removed Mormonism from the list, he has taken down the whole list. Regardless, I would call this just more proof that Billy Graham is full of shit. The guy has never been afraid of discussing politicized topics before, so this is clearly an attempt to avoid being called a spoiler if Christians fail to turn out for Romney.
Someone who wants votes is putting pressure on him…
I’d also go with political pandering, however, I would also argue that Mormonism is not really a cult, perhaps it used to be, but not really anymore.
I’m some guy on an island in the Mediterranean, and I know about them. I have also met them both here in Spain and in the UK, so they are quite big now. They have also had one of their guys run for president, and have a very high profile. Those things would go towards it not being a cult anymore in my opinion.
It is also much more open now days, allowing black people to join. They don’t have the polygamy thing going on anymore really, so not working outside the law like many cults.
Any point that still stands about them being a cult, can probably be argued by pointing out similarities in established religion.
Maybe it’s dementia, what is Billy Graham now, about 104?
I’m still not sure what Graham has to gain here since most conservative religionists equal an automatic vote for the Republicans anyways. This amazes me, but doesn’t surprise me, that he and others like him are quick to call other beliefs a ‘cult’, but yet is too blind to realize that his own belief/religion is more cultlike than many other beliefs that he attacks.
@Paradox25 I think there’s a real fear among Republicans that Romney is the kind of candidate who could split their base. The Christian right has spent a lot of time demonizing everyone who doesn’t fit its narrow definition of Christianity, and that could come back to haunt the Republicans—many of whom have gone along with this quite cheerfully—in November. The vote isn’t as automatic as it usually is this time, and that has a lot of people worried.
The churches are really between a rock and a hard place here. The public demonizing of non-mainstream denominations isn’t merely bigoted politics, after all. It’s also part of a long-standing competition over congregants (and, therefore, money). So we have the Republicans desperately trying to bring everyone together, and at the same time we have churches desperately trying to protect their bottom line. They clearly didn’t anticipate a time when those two goals might come apart.
When your strategies revolve around hate, it’s awfully hard to get everyone to kiss and make up all of a sudden when it suits you. But now that’s what both the Republican Party and the Christian right need to do. It’s in the interests of both groups to get Romney elected, yet it goes against so much of the message the churches have attempted to instill in their members. It seems they have forgotten their own book: “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
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