Graham deserves all the honors he was too humble to accept

As a member of America’s United Methodist Church, I believe that religious leaders should be honored only when they deserve it — and rarely, if ever, by the government.

Also, I’ve never looked to the Southern Baptist Convention for pastoral guidance or been receptive to any of the unsolicited pastoral guidance the church’s leaders strew all over the American public square. As I explained to one evangelical I encountered in 2008 at the Georgia State Fair, I can’t be converted to Christianity, because I already am a Christian.

And I highly doubt a Baptist could have persuaded me to accept salvation in the first place, unless they were African-American, because most African-American Baptists are members of the same denomination that ordained Martin Luther King Jr., not the one that gave us Jerry Falwell.

With that said, the Rev. Billy Graham, who died Feb. 21 at the age of 99, was an exception. He was ordained in 1939 by the Peniel Baptist Church in Palatka, Florida; still, he was among the Christian leaders I would be inclined to turn to, if I were in need of pastoral advice.

Millions of Christians, around the world, would say the same. Many of them would never have become Christians, if not for Graham’s evangelism — and his ministry had an outsized influence, of course, here in the United States.

That’s why many Americans objected to the government’s decision to honor Graham with a memorial service on Wednesday morning, held in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where his remains lay in honor the rest of the day.

At first glance, that seems like a flagrant violation of the separation of church and state, in a context where many national politicians are flouting the Establishment Clause any-

way.

Graham himself wanted his fellow Americans to understand that when he accepted such honors, he was doing so as a Christian, on behalf of someone else.

“All that I have been able to do, I owe to Jesus Christ. When you honor me, you are really honoring Him,” he said in 1983, while accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As a Christian, I understand why Graham would see it that way. And the fact that he did see it that way is the reason I think it’s okay for the government to honor him.

I apologize in advance for getting philosophical in the newspaper, but Graham’s religious beliefs were such that nobody could honor him, really. He could only receive honors on behalf of someone else, who he was free to believe in, because he was an American.

And though Graham was ordained as a Southern Baptist, I think that he ultimately contributed to the entire American community by espousing such recognizably Christian beliefs during the course of his decades in public life as “America’s pastor.” Questioning authority

To be clear, that’s my personal opinion. Other Methodists may have a different perspective on the subject. And since we’re Methodists, no one can speak for all of us.

Our denomination has some kind of bureaucracy, which occasionally weighs in on policy debates. But it doesn’t have a single leader, or the functional equivalent of an executive branch.

Also, as Methodists we reserve the right to question authority, whether the authority in question is our pastor, or “America’s pastor” — or the Bible itself, for that matter. We don’t read the Bible literally. It would actually be hard to persuade a Methodist to adopt that approach, because a central premise of Methodist theology is that the Bible shouldn’t be read literally. We’re boxed in, metaphorically speaking, by a literal metaphorical box, called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

Needless to say, this is an approach that works for me. But it does explain why Methodists, as a group, sometimes struggle with certain things.

“We need to help one another open the Bible and use it,” according to the United Methodist Member’s handbook, after cheerfully admitting that our denomination is afflicted with a “vast” biblical illiteracy.

I just read that line to an Episcopalian colleague. He rolled his eyes and reminded me that I recently asked him about a theory I heard, that the three wise men were agents of an ancient state, who were sent to Bethlehem in order to spy on a baby. Can’t speak for all

Methodists are also virtually useless when it comes to contentious political debates, because ultimately, we believe that most of our beliefs are subject to legitimate debate — and that we shouldn’t try to impose our personal beliefs on others, in any case. We’re Methodists. No one can speak for our church. And we can’t speak for all Christians; we can’t even speak for our fellow Methodists.

Conversely, as a Methodist, I can say that no one can speak for all Christians, because the category in question includes Methodists. And as an American, I can add that America is not a Christian country. It’s a country where Christians enjoy the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. And those of us who believe in salvation, as I do, aren’t entitled to any special privileges as a result.

Jerry Falwell might not have seen it that way. His son, Jerry Falwell Jr., seems to be interested in power, too. But Billy Graham was an exception, and when we honor him, we’re elevating him as an example of a Christian who preached what we believe is the truth: that he didn’t deserve salvation, and none of us do.