Editor’s Note: IRD President Mark Tooley wrote for Religion News Service (RNS) about whether it was appropriate that Billy Graham lies in honor at the U.S. Capitol. The introduction is posted below, and the entire column is available here.
My friend Jacob Lupfer in a recent Religion News Service column argues that evangelist Billy Graham should not lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol. He says Graham was a good and influential man, but honoring him as though he were a statesman conflates church and state.
It’s wrong to speak of Graham’s “long and distinguished service to our nation,” Lupfer says — quoting House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — because Graham served Christianity, not America. I see his point, but the full story is more complex, and Graham is rightly honored not just as an extraordinary Christian but also as a great American. The two are not mutually exclusive.
(Read here for rest of column.)
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