Priestcraft
Just finished reading Ed O’Keefe’s Washington Post story on the ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda honoring Billy Graham. The only statement in the report to be understood with simplicity, as a young child would think —that Graham died on February 21 at his home in Montreat North Carolina. The rest is surface for layers of subtext, or so it seems to me.
I have heard it said that we ought not to speak ill of the dead. Better, we ought to strive to speak the truth for the sake of the living. The truth is all that we have. And the truth is hard to come by, given the differences in our subjectivity, how easily words are warped by suffering, and by dark purposes of our own, and those of others. Pontius Pilate queried of Jesus, “What is truth?” Both knew there was no simple answer, and both knew what was to happen to Jesus.
The body of Graham lay in the Rotunda, and tribute was paid by the power brokers of Washington, from the President on down. That is not unlike having Caesar Augustus show up for the funeral of Jesus. Unimaginable. That’s right, Jesus did not get a funeral. Anyway Congress chaplains offered prayers, lawmakers filed by the casket, and the President said that his father was a “big fan.” Who would have thought that the young preacher/celebrity of the 1950s would become god’s consigliere to a succession of Presidents? Not unlike Caesar’s Pontifex Maximus pondering the omens in the entrails of a sacrificed animal. What President wouldn’t desire a holy man on occasion to imply divine sanction for whatever is about to go down? Indeed the radio and TV preacher brought into the White House the rapt attention of thousands of Americans who were entertained and inspired by his weekly Hour of Decision broadcasts and the week-long revival crusades. I and my family were counted along with our neighbors of that time.
Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican said that Graham shared the gospel face-to-face with more people than anyone else in history. Clearly Graham was a “winner.” To be the greatest, the best ever counts for a great deal in this time of exaggeration. Dare I ask, “what is the gospel?” It sounds a lot like pie. Here have a piece. There’s always more. It is very tasty.
Paul Ryan made a point of Graham’s humility, or by my lights, his servility. To be servile is often masked by a faux humility. More pandering by Ryan.
Anyway Graham will be buried today at a private family service in Charlotte. The President is scheduled to attend. Nothing that the President attends is private.
2 thoughts on “Priestcraft”
I enjoyed this post, I laugh out loud reading this clever and humorous statement. “Dare I ask, what is the gospel?” “It sounds a lot like pie. Here have a piece. There’s always more. It is very tasty.”
It is a shame how politicians are using Graham’s passing as a stage to push their own sorted agendas.
Republican politicians especially have no sense of propriety.