In a very disturbing recent development, major British conference venues have cancelled bookings for a tour by the son of Billy Graham. The May 2020 mission has been planned to give Franklin Graham an opportunity to follow in his late father’s footsteps and preach the gospel in various UK cities.
It is true that Franklin Graham has been controversial in some church circles. His salary from the Samaritan’s Purse has been under scrutiny. His vocal support for Donald Trump has alienated some evangelicals. His style of evangelism may not always fit well with British churches. But it is important to remember that these issues are not the point.
At the time of writing, seven out of eight stadium venues have cancelled his appearances. In many cases city councils have put pressure on the venues to cancel.
With the cancellation of the Sheffield venue, the council leader described Graham’s views as ‘discriminatory and repulsive’.
The Glasgow venue stated: ‘As a business we remain impartial to the individual beliefs of both our clients and visitors … However, we are aware of the recent adverse publicity surrounding this tour and have reviewed this with our partners and stakeholders.’
The public statement from the Liverpool venue was: ‘Over the past few days we have been made aware of a number of statements which we consider to be incompatible with our values.’
A Newcastle city council leader put pressure on their local venue: ‘I would strongly say to the arena “That kind of act does not match the values of our city. Why are you giving him a platform for hate speech?”’
Silenced
So what are the grounds for this attempt to suppress Graham? What is the content that can be called ‘hate speech’? He has never promoted violence. His support for Trump’s presidency is shared by 44% of the American population at the last poll. The work of the Samaritan’s Purse has provided aid to victims of war and natural disaster and particularly worked for children including the famous Operation Christmas Child. His style of evangelism and preaching is hardly controversial in traditional evangelical circles.
But Franklin Graham holds a traditional Christian view of marriage. It is LGBT groups that have argued that his stance promotes hate. One group opposed to Graham claimed that he has given ‘direct hate speech and incitement to violence against LGBTQ+ communities and individuals’.
Faced with these widespread venue cancellations, Graham released a statement in which he stood by his views on sexuality but added: ‘The gospel is inclusive. I’m not coming out of hate, I’m coming out of love. I invite everyone in the LGBTQ community to come and hear for yourselves the gospel messages that I will be bringing from God’s word, the Bible. You are absolutely welcome.’
The real issue is freedom of speech. The issue is not whether we support Franklin Graham’s political views, his style of evangelism or even his views on LGBT. The issue is whether a stadium venue should be closed to a speaker because some of his views diverge from a vocal lobby group.
Back in 2012, Don Carson published The Intolerance of Tolerance in which he identified the fundamental problem of protecting free speech in contemporary culture. Interviewed about the book on its release, Carson noted: ‘… in many domains, in many discussions, the question is rarely “Is this true?” but “Is anyone offended?” Rigorous discussion of content soon shuts down; truth is demoted; various forms of class warfare are encouraged; in some domains it becomes wrong (supreme irony) to say that anyone is wrong.’
Franklin Graham has fallen foul of our intolerant liberals and the attempt to suppress his voice should concern us all.
