The answer to the "Who Said This?" and the full quote.

My recent "Who said this?" post was raised to see what type of guesses I would get. I was kind of curious if the automatic assumption by the "Young Fundamentalist" crowd would be that this kind of thing had to have been said by some "mean, old, ‘Type A' Fundamentalist".

However, judging by the response, I would guess the following things to be true:

1. I think I may have lost most of my "Young Fundamentalists" readers. I guess that is what I get for not posting regularly.

2. If I do still have some of them, they were not taking the bait.

3. This type of statement regarding Billy Graham apparently could have been uttered by many. For instance, I found this quote by Dr. Bob Jones, Jr. after Pastor Wagner mentioned him as a possible source for the quote of the "Who Said This?" post.

"For a long time I believed that Billy was doing more harm than any other living man. What a tragedy to see him building the church of Antichrist, masking the wickedness of popery, and providing a sheep's cloak of Christian recognition for the wolves of apostasy."

However, the answer to the question is probably a little difficult because of the relative obscurity of the person who said it - at least relative obscurity until his son chose to write a book about him and bring him to the attention of a lot of people who otherwise would not have heard of him.

The person who made the quote is Pastor Tom Carson, a long-time missionary/pastor in French Quebec. The particular context of the quote reveals the particular damage done by the compromising ministry of BG in relation to his promotion of and failure to separate from the errors of the Roman Catholic Church.

"I heard a priest being interviewed on a French [radio] station at the time of the Billy Graham crusade, and he was asked point-blank why the R. C. authorities did not come out and denounce it as presenting much that could be construed as against Roman Catholic teaching, though not verbally stated. He hemmed and hawed, but said in effect it was better to leave the crusade alone. I could have told them why: because this upright man that is Billy Graham, his personal life beyond reproach, is the Roman Catholic church's best ally, since he welcomed them as evangelicals at his services. Graham is Jehoshophat with Ahab." (Quoted from Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflection of Tom Carson by D.A. Carson, p. 142)

I recently finished reading the book, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflection of Tom Carson by D. A. Carson (his son) and found this quote to be interesting. Pastor Don Johnson in Canada (among others) alerted me to the book with his review of the book, here.

I plan on writing a review of the book shortly, but I would like to make a couple of quick comments regarding the quote.

1. I appreciate the insight that Pastor Carson displays. While it is not unusual to hear such denouncements from Fundamentalists, it is refreshing to hear it from someone who was most likely not a Fundamentalist (although I am not really sure, since D. A. Carson does not really explore that issue in the book.)

2. It seems as though a statement like this would be attacked by the "YF" crowd if it were by a self-identifying Fundamentalist. It makes me curious that while I have read a few reviews of Carson's book (including some reviews from non-Fundametnalists), no one has seen fit to bring this out and attack Tom Carson for the comment. I cannot imagine a favorable biography of Dr. Bob, Jr. that included the quote above not garnering criticism in the blogosphere, but maybe I am just cynical. (Witness the multiple pages of posts at SI when the FBF dared to issue a very mildly written warning about Piper.)

3. While I recognize that the day of Billy Graham is essentially past, why do men like Mohler not recognize the issue that is so obvious to those like Pastor Carson, who have served on the front lines and seen the devastating effect of the compromise?

Just my thoughts,

Frank