As Billy Graham is celebrated in TV’s ‘The Crown,’ some in England want to ban his son, Franklin
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In the 1950s, when Charlotte-born evangelist Billy Graham preached in England, he would sometimes have an audience with Queen Elizabeth II. She invited him to give sermons at Windsor Castle and went on to become his lifelong friend.
Now, Graham’s son Franklin, who is scheduled to speak in Britain later this year, is facing calls for him to be banned from the country because of his past condemnations of Islam and LGBTQ persons.
A petition calling for the government to deny the younger Graham a visa has been signed by more than 7,500 people. Also weighing in, according to the Guardian newspaper, are some members of Parliament.
“I think frankly the evidence is piling up that his visit to the UK … would not be a good thing and not probably in my view a very Christian thing,” said Gordon Marsden, a member of Parliament from Blackpool, the seaside resort town where Graham is planning to stage a festival, or crusade, Sept. 21-23. Marsden charged on BBC Radio Lan-
cashire that Graham’s statements against Muslims and against gays, lesbians and transgender persons were “incompatible with what Jesus said in the Bible,” the Guardian reported.
A spokesman for the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which Franklin Graham now heads, said in a statement that the group is working “in partnership with local churches” and that the event “will be positive and encouraging.”
There’s also a counter-petition to support Graham’s plan to headline what is being advertised as the Lancashire Festival of Hope.
Contrast this controversy with the uplifting way Billy Graham is being portrayed in “The Crown,” a popular Netflix series dramatizing Queen Elizabeth’s reign, starting in the early 1950s.
Graham and the queen, the titular head of the Church of England, developed a spiritual connection, which plays out in “The Crown” during a private meeting between them after he preaches at the royal family’s chapel at Windsor.
“I enjoyed that very much,” the queen tells Graham (played by actor Paul Sparks) in episode six of season two. “You do speak with such wonderful clarity and certainty. … In an increasingly complex world, we need certainty. And you provide it.”
Elizabeth (played by actress Claire Foy) tells Graham that “the great joy I felt today (in hearing Graham preach) was that of being a simple congregant, being taught, being led.”
Watching Graham’s London crusade on blackand-white TV with her daughter, the Queen Mother is distressed that so many of her countrymen have turned out to hear the then-young American evangelist, who’d dabbled in sales before going into the ministry.
“I think moral authority and spiritual guidance should come from someone with a little more life experience,” she says. “Not from someone who learned their trade selling brushes doorto-door in North Carolina.”
But the queen is clearly taken with Graham’s preaching, his style, even his movie-star looks.
Meanwhile, the uproar over Franklin Graham’s upcoming visit to England is showing no signs of letting up.
The Blackpool Gazette reported that the local town council will honor the booking of a local venue for Graham’s festival. But the council also made clear that its opposition to discrimination is “robust and clear.” The newspaper reported that the council is forwarding concerns about Graham’s history of comments to the country’s Home Office to decide whether the evangelist’s words have violated England’s law against inciting hatred.
The petition seeking to ban Graham cited his 2001 comments calling Islam “a very evil and wicked religion.” It also quoted Graham as approving of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown of LGBTQ people in that country.
Graham’s condemnation of Islam caused the Pentagon to disinvite him from speaking there in 2010. But, last year, Graham was invited by President Donald Trump to give one of the prayers and Scripture readings at his inauguration.
Graham’s spokesman said in the statement that, at the festival in England, Graham will offer a message “about the hope that can be found through a relationship with Jesus Christ. It will be free and everyone is invited to attend.”