“We have allowed the Enemy to come into our churches. I was talking to some Christians and they were talking about how they invited these gay children to come into their home and to come into the church and that they were wanting to influence them. And I thought to myself, they’re not going to influence those kids; those kids are going to influence those parent’s children.  What happens is we think we can fight by smiling and being real nice and loving. We have to understand who the Enemy is and what he wants to do. He wants to devour our homes. He wants to devour this nation and we have to be so careful who we let our kids hang out with. We have to be so careful who we let into the churches. You have immoral people who get into the churches and it begins to effect the others in the church and it is dangerous.” ~ Franklin Graham

As I ponder this outrageously immoral statement, I find myself sincerely wondering whether Franklin Graham has ever read the New Testament at all, because in a sour twist of irony, his was the very same attitude of the religious leaders of Jesus’s time (the only group of people whose sins Jesus publicly rebuked).  Like Graham, those leaders couldn’t fathom why Jesus preferred the company he kept; why he included the excluded; why he pushed back so hard when they questioned his doing so … Though I have my (admittedly unflattering) theories as to why Franklin Graham feels our homosexual children are the enemy and need to be excluded from our lives, I cannot be sure of the same.  All I DO know is that his is a destructive belief that produces horrible fruit, and that it is NOT rooted in the tradition of Jesus of Nazareth.

(inspired by Benjamin L. Corey)

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my brothers, you did it to me.” ~ Jesus (Matthew 25:40)

Filed under: My Favorite Verses by Scaughdt