When the National Archives released audiotapes in 2002 that revealed evangelist Billy Graham making anti-Semitic remarks during a conversation with President Nixon, the incident was a rare tarnish on the otherwise rosy history between the prominent evangelical leader and the Jewish community.
As Jewish and other non-Christian religious leaders remember Graham, who died on Wednesday (Feb. 21) at age 99, the Nixon tape is on a very short list of blemishes on the relationship between the evangelist and his non-Christian colleagues.
Jewish leaders describe Graham as someone who set Jewish-evangelical relations on the right course.
“What I believe Billy Graham did was he put a positive face on evangelicalism and on evangelicals,” said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the Chicago- and Jerusalem-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
“He did so without ever compromising his integrity as an evangelical Christian who believed that what all people need is to be saved,” said Eckstein, who corresponded during his 30-year career with Graham but never met him face-to-face. “When it came to the Jewish people, he exhibited incredible sensitivity,” he said.
Through the years, Graham received numerous awards from Jewish organizations for his work on interfaith relations and on behalf of Soviet Jewry and the state of Israel.
In the…
… Read More
Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.