LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dabroots)

Evangelist Billy Graham, over the past fifteen or so years, has increasingly cloaked himself in the mantel of being the grand old man of American Protestantism. He has stopped waving his arms about. His voice has grown quiet. But I think his claim from 20-plus years ago that I overhead while passing my mother's TV (while my mom was enjoying her usual Saturday night routine of watching three hours of televangelists, getting primed for Sunday morning.) has never really wavered: "It is impossible to lead a moral life without Jesus Christ." Really. That's the message that he has helped purvey to the world for decades, and is really at the heart of the exclusionary, basically hateful view of anyone who dares to disagree with the Christian fundamentalist message: If you disagree, you are damned to Hell and you deserve to burn there for all eternity. And if you do not deem yourself to be a Christian, you have no moral compass and are therefore a sinner. billygraham.org is a powerful machine, a juggernaut plowing into the 21st century, broadcasting his message on cable stations 24/7.