Full Interview Billy Graham w/ Robert Schuller Reviewed HOUR OF POWER CONTROVERSY

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Hello, in this video I'm going to be reviewing the Billy Graham interview with Robert Schuller, where Billy seems to express the viewpoint that people do not have to believe in Jesus in order to go to heaven.

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So I'm going to play the short clip that you can find all over YouTube, and I'll comment on it briefly.

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And then I'll play the entire interview from that Hour of Power program so that you get the full context, because this is what a lot of people will say that we don't know what

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Billy meant because we don't have the full context. So we'll play the whole thing so you have the context.

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So here are the statements that people found so shocking. Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?

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Well Christianity and being a true believer, you know, I think there's the body of Christ which comes from all the

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Christian groups around the world, or outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves

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Christ or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the body of Christ.

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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.

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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.

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And that's what God is doing today. He's calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the

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Muslim world or the Buddhist world or the Christian world or the non -believing world.

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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 heart that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have.

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And I think that they are saved and that they're going to be with us in heaven. What I hear you saying is that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into a human heart and soul and life, even if they've been born in darkness and have never had an exposure to the

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Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying? Yes, it is, because I believe that.

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I've met people in various parts of the world and tribal situations that they had never seen a

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Bible or heard about a Bible and never heard of Jesus, but they believed in their heart that there was a

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God and that they tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.

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This is fantastic. I'm so thrilled to hear you say that. There's a wideness in God's mercy.

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There is. There definitely is. Okay, so the first time that I heard this clip,

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I couldn't believe my ears, so I wanted to get other people's response, so I asked people that I knew who liked

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Billy Graham and they responded in one of a few ways. Some people got angry that, you know, who do you think you are to disagree with Billy Graham or how dare you even think

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Billy Graham could teach something that's false. But the Bible tells us in 1

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Thessalonians 5 .21 to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.

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So we want to be like the Bereans and hear what people are saying in the name of God and compare it to the word of God.

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Who am I? Well, I'm nobody. But Billy Graham's statements need to be examined in light of what the scripture teaches.

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But that is a response that you will get when bringing this up, you know, how dare you. Another response is one

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I deal with later, that Billy is just getting old and he's not thinking clearly, so he misspoke or they will say he's being taken out of context.

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So let's look at the context. Here is the full clip from the interview. Never been more proud of any guest

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I've had in the 27 years of this television program than I am to welcome as my guest this morning the man that will be remembered as the single most spiritual impacting force of the 20th century.

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His name is Billy Graham. I first met Billy Graham nearly 50 years ago.

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I was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, a Christian college. And we invited a young minister who was about 27 years old to come from his little church in Chicago and preach to us for three days.

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And his name was Billy Graham. And he did something that I'd never heard before in my life.

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I grew up in a mainline Protestant church called the

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Reformed Church in America. And we never had what the

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Baptists had, that's altar calls at the end of the service. So it was a new experience for me.

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And the rest of my life, I want to lead people to a personal commitment to accepting

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Jesus Christ as their Lord, their Savior, their best friend. And I learned that from experience.

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Billy, that was 50 years ago. Well, I'm honored to have been the spokesman for the

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Lord on that moment. And Bob, God has honored and used you in the most remarkable way to reach people that none of us could ever reach.

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And we thank God for you. Well, Billy, I remember being with you at the

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Lausanne Congress. And then the Congress of Evangelism in Patia. And again in Amsterdam.

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And your face and voice is familiar to people in the cathedral. You've been here before. But today

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I'm having you because I want all of the people who watch The Hour of Power go to their bookstore and buy the book.

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It's called, Just As I Am, The Autobiography of Billy Graham. I have it.

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I've read most of it. And it is a phenomenal story. If you don't believe in God, read the book of Billy Graham.

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And you can't explain that kind of a life and a ministry without a sovereign God that was working in your life all those years.

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But tell me, when did you first make a commitment that would lead you into this life's work of evangelism?

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Well, it was in 1934. An evangelist came in our hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.

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And I didn't have much to do with evangelists because we went to an associate reformed

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Presbyterian church. And they didn't have an emphasis on evangelism.

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But he stayed for about, oh, four or five weeks. And finally one of the men that worked for my father asked me to go.

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And I went and I saw him open the Bible and preach right out of the Bible. And that was a new experience for me.

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And I went back night after night. And one night when he gave the call to come and commit your life to Christ, I went.

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And I stood there and received Christ as my Lord and Savior. And I went home that night and knelt down beside the bed on the little dairy farm that my father had.

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And I knew that something had happened. I couldn't explain it. I couldn't put it in theological language.

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But I knew that God had done something in my heart. And that was the beginning. Billy, I know the answer to the next question, but a lot of people don't.

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So I'm going to ask it. In all of your travels, in all of your encounters, all of the challenges you've faced on how can you believe in Jesus Christ, how do you know he wasn't a myth, and do you believe in miracles and how can you believe in miracles, how have you handled all of the intelligent questions that sincere doubters have thrown at you and at me and we who try to promote the faith?

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How do you keep your faith? Well, you know, faith is an extremely important word.

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And there are many different definitions of faith. But I think that one of the things that I remember when

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I went to Bible school, there was an illustration that someone told that I remembered about the little boy that was out flying his kite.

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And he'd gotten the kite out of sight into a cloud. And someone came by and said, what are you doing?

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He said, I'm flying a kite. Well, they said, we can't see it. He said, but I can feel the tug on the string.

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I know it's up there. And I feel the tug in my heart. And so I've gone by faith, believing that God has done things and is doing things that I cannot explain.

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There are many things in the Bible I don't understand. We were talking about that with our friends this morning.

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There are things that I do not understand in the Scriptures. And there are many questions I'd like to ask the

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Lord when I first see Him. And for example, a lot about evil in the world.

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And why God created Lucifer. And why did He fall?

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And why did He become the great Satan that with all of the demons that we see in the world today.

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And the human heart has remained the same through these centuries. And in the middle of all that, we read that God loves us.

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And God sent His Son to die for us and take our sins. And He became sin for us.

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To me, that's a tremendous thing. And love is the key to it all.

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God loves us. Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?

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Well, Christianity and being a true believer, you know, I think there's the body of Christ which comes from all the

10:24

Christian groups around the world or outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves

10:31

Christ or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the body of Christ.

10:39

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.

10:47

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.

10:57

And that's what God is doing today. He's calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the

11:05

Muslim world or the Buddhist world or the Christian world or the non -believing world.

11:12

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 heart that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have.

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And I think that they are saved and that they're going to be with us in heaven. What I hear you saying that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into a human heart and soul and life, even if they've been born in darkness and have never had an exposure to the

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Bible, is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying? Yes, it is, because I believe that.

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I've met people in various parts of the world and tribal situations that they had never seen a

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Bible or heard about a Bible and never heard of Jesus, but they believed in their heart that there was a

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God and they tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.

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This is fantastic. I'm so thrilled to hear you say that. There's a wideness in God's mercy.

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There is. There definitely is. Tell me, do you remember how this television program called

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The Hour of Power got started? Oh, I remember a few things about it. I remember when I was holding a meeting in Anaheim and you came over night after night and would sit in the little trailer that I had there as an office and we would talk and pray.

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And you had a great burden to reach people for Christ all over the world.

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And you said, Bob, you should think about televising your church service.

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Yes. And I said, but it would be too expensive. And I think it was either you or Fred Niner who said, why don't you let

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God make that decision? Why don't you take it to God the way you,

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Billy, took your hour of decision to Him in prayer in Portland, Oregon? That's right. Remember that?

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I do indeed. You put a fleece out. That's right. And so you and your folks prayed and we prayed that God would show us, without any

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PR, financial support to start this Hour of Power. I remember that very well.

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And it was out of that that this was born. And I think it was you or Fred Niner who said, well,

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Billy's an evangelist calling people to make decisions. And sure, you're a full -time pastor.

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Call yours the Hour of Power. That Hour of Power title came from you and Fred Niner. It didn't come from me.

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Oh, my. Well, I'm honored. Well, you're not honored. You were used, as we all are used.

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But today it's still reaching people. And the thought that you're with us today is just wonderful.

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How is your health? My health is fairly good. I've spent last week at the

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Mayo Clinic. And I go up there about every three months now. And I have to be checked for two or three problems that could be serious if we didn't watch them very carefully.

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You know, I'm getting to be an older person. And these things pop up when you get a little past 70 or 75.

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And I'm 78 now. And I'm looking forward to the day when the

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Lord will say, time is finished here. Come on up to heaven.

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Billy, a lot has happened since we met 50 years ago and I was just a student studying for the ministry.

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Mainline Protestant denominations—and I belong to the Reformed Church, which is one of these mainline denominations—are losing members.

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And the decline is serious. Do you want to comment on this?

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Why are Protestant denominations losing membership? Well, I think the same is true in the

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Roman Catholic Church. Yes. And I think that part of it, of course, is the tremendous competition we have from the world in which there is so much to attract young people especially.

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And the second thing, I think, is that we are not proclaiming the gospel as we should.

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I think that people are hungry today for the Bible. And I know churches that—

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In fact, my grandson is the assistant minister of a church that started about 10 years ago.

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And they average about 8 ,000 to 10 ,000 people on Sunday. They live close to a beach and they allow them to come dressed any way they want to.

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And I've been there and sat in the back and they didn't even know I was there. And I saw these young people opening their

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Bibles. They were all marked up. And the minister didn't do anything except just start from the

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Bible. He had very little humor. He just told them what those verses meant.

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And there seemed to be a hunger on the part of those young people. And there are churches like that all over the country that are unknown, small ones, large ones.

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And I believe that God is at work in an unusual way today, in maybe a quieter way.

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And perhaps it's not the big crowds that I have or we have. Maybe God is working in a way that he used to work in the smaller groups.

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Billy, if you look into the future, what challenges would you throw out to Christians?

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Join us next week as we conclude this special interview with Dr. Billy Graham. Okay, so now that you have seen the whole thing,

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I think it's safe to say that no, Billy was not taken out of context. So what do we make of this?

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This interview on Robert Shuler's TV program, The Hour of Power, was perhaps the most controversial moment of Billy Graham's ministry.

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When asked about the future of Christianity, Billy Graham seems to say that people can be saved without ever hearing about Jesus.

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Robert Shuler picks up on his statements and seeks clarification, where Billy, again, seems to say the same thing.

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At which point, Robert Shuler says how it's fantastic, and he's so thrilled to hear

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Billy say that, that there is a wideness to God's mercy. And then for a third time,

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Billy affirms this, that there is a wideness, Billy says, there definitely is.

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So in what way is there a wideness to God's mercy? What do they mean by that?

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From what we just heard, the wideness, according to them, apparently is that they think people can be saved without hearing about Jesus.

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A few verses, of course, come to mind. Jesus said in John 14, verse 6,

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I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.

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And then in Acts chapter 4, verse 12, the apostle Peter said, Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

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Now, in the church tradition that I was brought up in, such a claim that people are saved and going to heaven without expressing faith in Jesus or the gospel, such a teaching would bring a charge of heresy.

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And many people have made that charge against Billy Graham over these statements. So what's the other side?

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What's the defense? How can someone defend this? I honestly can't think of a way it could be defended.

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Let's say, hypothetically, Billy was in poor health, or was older, was on medication, got confused and misspoke, as some people will claim.

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Well, the man lived another 20 years or so after this interview, and to my knowledge, correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge, he never recanted.

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And he got plenty of pushback from it, so because he never revised those statements or took it back,

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I have to believe that he meant what he said. And here's the thing. Over the years,

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I've looked into this, and the one thing everyone is aware of is that Billy Graham had ecumenical fellowship with the

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Pope and with theological liberals. So this viewpoint that faith in Jesus is not necessary for salvation, that is what theological liberals believe, and it's what the

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Catholic Church has taught ever since the Second Vatican Council. In one interview on CNN, Billy Graham told

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Larry King that he and the Pope agreed on almost everything. Watch.

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The day that he was inaugurated as Pope, I was preaching at his cathedral in Krakow.

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I was his guest. You were preaching in his church. The day he was made

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Pope. That is correct. In Krakow. You like this

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Pope? I like him very much. He's very conservative. He's not unsocial.

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He's liberal socially. We are wealthy nations. We share the wealth. That's right.

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He and I agree on almost everything. So this leads me to believe that, again, the view that Billy expressed, that people can be saved without putting their faith in Jesus, that there are other paths, other religions, other paths to God.

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This is what the Catholic Church teaches. Billy agrees with the Pope on almost everything.

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I think we have to come to terms with Billy said what he believed.

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He told Robert Shuler what he believed. And I don't think it's any surprise to people that Robert Shuler believes this way.

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But what about his crusades? Someone might say, I watched Billy for years. I've watched him for decades on television, people say.

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And he preached the gospel. Yes, Billy preached the gospel at his crusades.

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But two things can be true at the same time. That Billy taught one thing here and another thing over there.

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And this goes back to his fellowship with Pope John Paul II and how Billy said he agrees with him on almost everything.

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This is what Rome teaches. That for Christians, Jesus is the only

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Savior. That's the message he gave at his crusades. But at the same time, for non -Christians, he believed there are other paths to God.

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I realize that for those of us who believe Jesus is the only way to God, period, this doesn't make sense.

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But it's what a lot of people believe and teach. Here's another clip where Billy seems to refuse to judge those who are in other religions who believe false gospels.

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What about those faiths? The Mormons and the others that you mentioned believe in Christ. They believe they will meet

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Christ. What about those like the Jews, the Muslims, who don't believe as you believe?

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That's in God's hands. I can't be their judge. You don't judge them? No. So after careful investigation and going over this prayerfully, what

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I discovered is that when Billy was in front of his crusade audience, which was made up of mostly conservative believers who came out to see a

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Christian celebrity, he sounded conservative. But when Graham got in front of a more liberal audience,

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Robert Shuler or his interviews on CNN with Larry King, Graham sounded very different.

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So in conclusion, I want to leave you with this. The most common rebuttal that I found is that Billy was just getting old.

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He got a little soft in his old age. But here is Pastor John MacArthur addressing that argument because Pastor John MacArthur was one of the few nationally known leaders who raised concerns about this.

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And according to Pastor MacArthur, he looked into this and he contacted the

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Billy Graham Evangelistic Organization. And they confirmed that yes,

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Billy has always believed this. That no, he didn't get soft in his old age.

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Rather, Billy has always held this position. And he actually wrote an article stating this all the way back in 1960.

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Listen. There was an interview that was held between Robert Shuler and Dr. Billy Graham on the

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Hour of Power. I have the transcript of that conversation. The conversation went like this.

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Dr. Shuler said, Tell me, what is the future of Christianity? Dr. Graham said, I think there's the body of Christ which comes from all the

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Christian groups around the world or outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves

24:58

Christ or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the body of Christ.

25:04

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.

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In other words, what he's saying is there are people in the body of Christ who never heard of Christ, so we don't need to expect that they're all going to come to Christ.

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They're going to come another way. Further, he says, God's purpose for this age is to call out a people for his name, and that's what

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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

25:31

Christian world or the non -believing world, they are members of the body of Christ because they've been called by God.

25:37

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 they have, and I think they're saved and they're going to be with us in heaven.

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Dr. Shuler responded, What I hear you saying is that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into a human heart and soul and life, even if they've been born in darkness and have never heard and never had exposure to the

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Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying? Dr. Graham, yes, it is, because I believe that.

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I've met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations. They've never seen a Bible or heard about a

26:10

Bible, have never heard of Jesus, but they believed in their hearts that there is a God, and they've tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they live.

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Dr. Shuler, this is fantastic. I'm so thrilled to hear you say that. There is a wideness in God's mercy.

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Dr. Graham, there is, there certainly is. This has certainly leaped from Aristotle to the

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Catholic Church into evangelical Protestantism. Now we have a kind of Protestant viewpoint that says

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Muslims and Hindus and whoever are going to be in the body of Christ, in the kingdom, in heaven, with salvation, whether they ever get a

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Bible or whether they ever hear the gospel or whether they ever know about Jesus Christ. The Billogram Organization affirmed that this position is the same as the one articulated in an article in Decision magazine, which