The American Spectator

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Evangelist and Enabler

By Rev. Michael P. Orsi on 12.27.07 @ 12:06AM

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High-profile friendships between pastors and politicians can be enormously beneficial to office seekers and office holders. But they can be woefully compromising to those who minister, and often do great harm to the cause of religion in general. The current political season has already given us an example of that problem in Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, a candidate whose social-policy positions are inimical to Robertson's agenda.

The role of a religious leader should be to enunciate moral standards that will enable people in positions of power to form proper consciences. Politicians should privately consult their own pastors for spiritual guidance and rely on a variety of religious leaders for advice on complex ethical issues.

Gibbs and Duffy do a fine job showing Billy Graham's historical significance in American politics. The book reveals how even the best of religious figures, fallible human beings that they are, can be drawn to, and exploited by, worldly power. Pastors are as susceptible as anyone to egoism and the lure of political glamour, and politicians have learned how to use that weakness to their benefit.

Here, the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke are so relevant: "For the children of the world are wiser in their generation than the children of light."

Billy Graham's talent and charm and clean living brought him deserved fame, and that fame brought him influence. But for all that, this book shows the limits of his effectiveness in bringing the Gospel to the White House.

Letter to the Editor

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Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Religion, Abortion, Books, Nuclear Weapons