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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn Open Letter to Rev. Franklin Graham from a Small Church Pastor
Dear Frank
Can I call you Frank? This is just pastor to pastor. Feel free to call me Peter. Anyway, I have to say I was flattered when I learned that your Decision America Tour took a detour off the beaten path to call upon us small community churches. We are nothing if not small. We seat 30-40 on a good Sunday. And we are a century old fixture of our small community. Most often we are overlooked and overshadowed by mega-churches and politically influential religious voices like your own. We dont hold a candle to an auditorium filled with the music of a one hundred voice choir led by professional musicians. We probably will never be recognized in any nationally syndicated media. After all, we dont do anything really newsworthy. We just preach the good news of Jesus Christ; love one another the best we can (which sometimes isnt very well); feed the hungry that come to our doors; care for the sick; comfort the dying; and bury the dead. So thanks for thinking of us. Rest assured, we are ready to respond to your calls to prayer and action.
I have to say, though, that I was a little confused by your summons. Of all the things that worry me, loss of religious freedom for Christians in America isnt one of them. I cant say I have ever experienced anything in this country that could reasonably be called a restriction on my religious liberty, much less persecution. When you started talking about attacks on Christianity, I thought you might have been referring to the racially motivated slaying of pastors and lay people at Mother Emmanuel church in Charleston some time back. Or I figured you were referring to the slaughter of Coptic Christians in Egypt this past Palm Sunday. Thats what I call persecution. But having to pay a judgment for refusing to bake a cake for a same sex couple in violation of the law against discrimination? This you call persecution? Theres a letter in the Bible, written by the Apostle Peter (ever heard of him?). Hes an expert on persecution, having been on the receiving end of it more than once. He says you dont get divine kudos from suffering the consequences of breaking the law-even if you are a Christian. Moreover, there is a Christian fellow named Paul (aka Saul) who wrote a letter to a church in Rome nearly two thousand years ago. He said that if your enemy is hungry you should feed him (thats in the Bible too). So wouldnt it have been the Christian way to have baked a cake for the same sex couple in your example, even if you deem them enemies (another assertion I dont quite understand)? Im confused.
:snip:
https://revolsen.com/2017/05/17/an-open-letter-to-rev-franklin-graham-from-a-small-church-pastor/
elleng
(130,740 posts)nearly two thousand years ago. He said that if your enemy is hungry you should feed him (thats in the Bible too). So wouldnt it have been the Christian way to have baked a cake for the same sex couple in your example, even if you deem them enemies (another assertion I dont quite understand)? Im confused.'
Doreen
(11,686 posts)Is he in a denomination that allows marriage? OK, all kidding aside, He is a TRUE Christian. He says the same things my sister in law would say and she is a Lutheran pastor. He speaks only the truth of the Christian God. This by the way is coming from a Buddhist.
left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)Doreen
(11,686 posts)Of course I am just kidding. Well, most Lutherans I have known in my life feel the same way he does. I also went to an Episcopal church ( God mother was an Episcopalian pastor ) and most of them felt the same way.
MyOwnPeace
(16,919 posts)than "Frank" that need to read this!
AMEN!
keithbvadu2
(36,667 posts)Franklin Graham is but one of many who practice CBR (Cash Based Religion).
mgardener
(1,812 posts)By a true Christian pastor.
Ilsa
(61,690 posts)inherited this business. And that's what it is now, a business.
His father had some bigotry in his heart, as he expressed to Nixon.
And Anne Graham Lotz, a sister to Franklin, is a money christian as well. I think she was a prosperity gospel christian and promoted false doctrine about the 9-11 terrorist attack.
Screw them. False prophets.
onecaliberal
(32,780 posts)should be made to read it.
Stonepounder
(4,033 posts)A beautifully written letter that touches the core of ethos Christian and pointing out how the judgemental Evangelicals who seem to have completely forgotten what Jesus taught.
AllaN01Bear
(18,002 posts)trueblue2007
(17,194 posts)i found this awhile ago and posted it on my facebook wall.
PASTOR PETER, I love your letter and I'd love to attend your church. You are a wonderful minister. Franklin Graham has me very confused and frustrated because I don't see his words coming from God.
Hieronymus
(6,039 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)...is NOT a man of God. Period. tRump* is the most non-Christian, un-Christ-like person to ever inhabit 1600 Pennsylvania.
Further, when moral fraud Pat Robertson said he had a vision and saw tRump* sitting at the right hand of God... dementia is a terrible thing.
liberaltrucker
(9,129 posts)"We small church pastors have to rely on the Bible for our intel. I got this stuff from the Gospel of Matthew, 25th Chapter to be precise. As I said, that, too, is in the Bible. (Its a great book, Frank. You should read it sometime.)"