CHARLESTEMPLETON

 A Personal Word

From A Farewell to God

CHARLES TEMPLETON

The road to Damascus was not and is not a one-way street. For many years, Charles Templeton (1915–2001) was the second string to the boring racist charlatan Billy Graham: addressing massive crowds in sports stadiums and allegedly bringing thousands of the credulous to Christ, there came a time when he found he could not participate in the racket any longer. His de-conversion is a testament from an honest if simple man, and also contains a close-up of the mediocre demagogue who has served as spiritual counselor to successive American presidents.

Early that summer, I flew to Montreat, North Carolina, to spend a day with Billy and Ruth Graham. Billy and I had become close friends, although our backgrounds were radically different. Billy was a country boy, raised in a deeply religious household on a farm in the American South. He had graduated from Bob Jones College in Tennessee and Wheaton College in Illinois—both Christian fundamentalist schools—and had a B.A. in anthropology.

We talked long and earnestly about my decision. Both of us sensed that, for all our avowed intentions to maintain our friendship, our feet were now set on divergent paths.

Later that summer, just before I enrolled at Princeton, we met again in New York City. On this occasion we spent the better part of two days closeted in a room in the Taft Hotel. All our differences came to a head in a discussion, which better than anything I know explains Billy Graham and his phenomenal success as an evangelist.

In the course of our conversation I said, “But, Billy, it’s simply not possible any longer to believe, for instance, the biblical account of creation. The world wasn’t created over a period of days a few thousand years ago; it has evolved over millions of years. It’s not a matter of speculation; it’s demonstrable fact.”

“I don’t accept that,” Billy said. “And there are reputable scholars who don’t.” 282

“Who are these scholars?” I said. “Men in conservative Christian colleges?”

“Most of them, yes,” he said. “But that’s not the point. I believe the Genesis account of creation because it’s in the Bible. I’ve discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the Word of God, my preaching has power. When I stand on the platform and say, ‘God says,’ or ‘the Bible says,’ the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. Wiser men than you and I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don’t have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of each theological dispute, so I’ve decided, once and for all, to stop questioning and accept the Bible as God’s Word.”

“But, Billy,” I protested, “you can’t do that. You don’t dare stop thinking about the most important question in life. Do it and you begin to die. It’s intellectual suicide.”

“I don’t know about anybody else,” he said, “but I’ve decided that that’s the path for me.”

We talked about my going to Princeton and I pressed him to go with me. “Bill,” I said, “face it. We’ve been successful in large part because of our abilities on the platform. Part of that stems from our energy, our convictions, our youth. But we won’t always be young. We need to grow, to develop some intellectual sinew. Come with me to Princeton.”

“I can’t go to a university here in the States,” he said. “I’m president of a Bible college, for goodness’ sake!” He was—Northwestern Bible College, a fundamentalist school in Minneapolis.

“Resign,” I said. “That’s not what you’re best fitted for; you’re an evangelist. Come with me to Princeton.”

There was an extended silence. Then, suddenly, he got up and came toward me. “Chuck,” he said, “I can’t go to a college here in the States. But I can and will do this: if we can get accepted by a university outside the country, maybe in England—Oxford, for instance—I’ll go with you.”

He stood in front of me, his hand outstretched. I know Billy well enough to know that, had I taken his hand, he would have kept his word. But I couldn’t do it. I had resigned my church. I had been accepted at Princeton. The fall term was only weeks away. It was too late.

Not many months later, Billy travelled to Los Angeles to begin the campaign that would catapult him overnight to international prominence. I have sometimes wondered what would have happened had I taken his hand that day. I am certain of this: he would not be the Billy Graham he has become, and the history of mass-evangelism would be quite different.

As was inevitable, Billy and I drifted apart. We often talked on the telephone and got together on occasion but, with the years, the occasions became fewer. One afternoon in the early 1970s he telephoned to say that he was in Toronto and suggested that he have dinner at my home. He wanted to meet my wife and children and to spend a long evening talking.

The evening ended earlier than planned; we simply ran out of subjects of mutual interest. As I drove him to his hotel in downtown Toronto, the conversation became desultory. On the drive home I felt a profound sense of sorrow. Marshall Frady in his book, Billy Graham, quotes Billy as saying to him:

“I love Chuck to this very day. He’s one of the few men I have ever loved in my life. He and I had been so close. But then, all of a sudden, our paths were parting. He began to be a little cool to me then. I think…” He pauses and then offers with a faint little smile, “I think that Chuck felt sorry for me.”

It will sound unforgivably condescending, but I do. He has given up the life of unrestricted thought. I occasionally watch Billy in his televised campaigns. Forty years after our working together he is saying the same things, using the same phrases, following the same pattern. When he gives the invitation to come forward, the sequence, even the words, are the same. I turn off the set and am sometimes overtaken by sadness.

I think Billy is what he has to be. I disagree with him at almost every point in his views on God and Christianity and think that much of what he says in the pulpit is puerile, archaic nonsense. But there is no feigning in Billy Graham: he believes what he believes with an invincible innocence. He is the only mass-evangelist I would trust.

And I miss him.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Is it not foolish to close one’s eyes to the reality that much of the Christian faith is simply impossible to accept as fact? And is it not a fundamental error to base one’s life on theological concepts formulated centuries ago by relatively primitive men who believed that the world was flat, that Heaven was “up there” somewhere, and that the universe had been created and was controlled by a jingoistic and intemperate deity who would punish you forever if you did not behave exactly as instructed?

Listed below is a repetition of some of the questions raised in the preceding pages [of A Farewell to God]. Put them to yourself.

Is it not likely that had you been born in Cairo you would be a Muslim and, as 840 million people do, would believe that “there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet”?

If you have been born in Calcutta would you not in all probability be a Hindu and, as 650 million people do, accept the Vedas and the Upanishads as sacred scriptures and hope sometime in the future to dwell in Nirvana?

Is it not probable that, had you been born in Jerusalem, you would be a Jew and, as some 13 million people do, believe that Yahweh is God and that the Torah is God’s Word?

Is it not likely that had you been born in Peking, you would be one of the millions who accept the teachings of the Buddha or Confucius or Lao-Tse and strive to follow their teachings and example?

Is it not likely that you, the reader, are a Christian because your parents were before you?

If there is a loving God, why does he permit—much less create—earthquakes, droughts, floods, tornadoes, and other natural disasters which kill thousands of innocent men, women, and children every year?

How can a loving, omnipotent God permit—much less create—encephalitis, cerebral palsy, brain cancer, leprosy, Alzheimer’s, and other incurable illnesses to afflict millions of men, women, and children, most of whom are decent people?

How could a loving Heavenly Father create an endless Hell and, over the centuries, consign millions of people to it because they do not or cannot or will not accept certain religious beliefs? And, having done so, how could he torment them forever?

Why are there literally hundreds of Christian denominations and independent congregations, all of them basing their beliefs on the Bible, and most of them convinced that all the others are, in some ways, wrong?

If all Christians worship the same God, why can they not put aside their theological differences and co-operate actively with one another?

If God is a loving Father, why does he so seldom answer his needy children’s prayers?

How can one believe the biblical account of the creation of the world in six days when every eminent physicist agrees that all living species have evolved over millions of years from primitive beginnings?

Is it possible for an intelligent man or woman to believe that God fashioned the first male human being from a handful of dust and the first woman from one of the man’s ribs?

Is it possible to believe that the Creator of the universe would personally impregnate a Palestinian virgin in order to facilitate getting his Son into the world as a man?

The Bible says that “the Lord thy God is a jealous God.” But if you are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and the creator of all that exists, of whom could you possibly be jealous?

Why, in a world filled with suffering and starvation, do Christians spend millions on cathedrals and sanctuaries and relatively little on aid to the poor and the needy?

Why does the omnipotent God, knowing that there are tens of thousands of men, women, and children starving to death in a parched land, simply let them waste away and die when all that is needed is rain? • Why would the Father of all mankind have a Chosen People and favor them over the other nations on earth?

Why would a God who is “no respecter of persons” prohibit adultery and then bless, honour, and allow to prosper a king who had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines?

Why is the largest Christian church controlled entirely by men, with no woman—no matter how pious or gifted—permitted to become a priest, a monsignor, a bishop, an archbishop, a cardinal, or pope?

Jesus’s last words to his followers were “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. And, lo, I am with you always.” But, despite this and to this date—some two thousand years later—billions of men and women have never so much as heard the Christian Gospel. Why?