The Shocking Tweets About Billy Graham’s Death That Prove Our Culture Is Totally Off the Rails

Image source: Getty
Image source: Getty
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Editor

***WARNING: Offensive Language

There’s a pronounced ugliness that perpetually haunts and infests social media, as the platforms that theoretically give us the most open and uninhibited access to communication have somehow come to foster the most hateful, spiteful and inhumane dialogue imaginable.

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It’s no secret that social media routinely perpetuates, sparks and incubates the most unrestrained and divisive proclamations and reactions. The more emotional the issue, the most bombastic the response, with the quest for viral fame, “likes” and clicks infusing the evil that divides us.

This is tragically the very dynamic we witnessed once again this week as the world mourned the loss of the Rev. Billy Graham.

Among the massive reaction, two tweets penned by Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca seemed to summarize all that is wrong with our collective dialogue, and with the soul-crushing quest for online fame (WARNING: LANGUAGE).

“The big news today is that Billy Graham was still alive this whole time,” Duca tweeted. “Anyway, have fun in hell, bitch.”

She followed that message up with another unapologetic proclamation about the beloved evangelist: “‘Respecting the dead’ only applies to people who weren’t evil pieces of s**t while they were living, thanks.”

Both messages were incredibly foul and horrific, but, unfortunately, not surprising.

I was hesitant to even address Duca’s tweets, because it’s clear from the ferocity and carelessness with which they were sent that they are part of an effort to attract the very attention they are now receiving.

While I absolutely hate contributing to that dynamic, I’m hopeful that the majority of our readers will assess this story, pause, rethink their own rhetoric and take an important lesson away from this horror show: Social media says a lot about who we are and what we stand for.

And as decent human beings, that’s something we all need to think about more deeply. Before I continue, though, I’d like to note that Duca did explain in a separate message on Thursday her reasoning for the anti-Graham tweets and the reaction they received:

In a tweet referencing Fox News’ coverage of her comments on Graham, she wrote:

“The Fox article and segment on my stupid tweet are really miraculous in their bad-faith consternation. Billy Graham called being gay ‘a sinister form of perversion,’ and floated the idea that ‘AIDS is a punishment from God.’ If hell is real, that’s exactly where he’s headed.”

Duca isn’t alone in her critiques of Graham following his death. While the vast majority of Christians and many world leaders are rightly commemorating the evangelist for speaking to more than 200 million people during his career and transforming hearts and minds, some are focusing in on his biblical theology to point out places where they believe he was wrong.

An NBC News feature titled, “Billy Graham Leaves Painful Legacy for LGBTQ People,” tackles some of these elements, claiming that Graham was influential in rallying evangelicals into a cohesive political force. But, as has been long discussed, Graham was also infamously opposed to getting too political and didn’t spend anywhere near as much time on LBGTQ issues as Duca’s comments seem to allege.

NBC News has more:

Graham himself had few specific words on LGBTQ people, at least when compared to the rest of his expansive canon, but his disapproval of homosexuality was unequivocal.

“Let me say this loud and clear!” Graham responded to a young woman who wrote to him in 1974 confessing her love for another woman. “We traffic in homosexuality at the peril of our spiritual welfare.” This was after Graham had claimed homosexuality to be a “sinister form of perversion” that was contributing to the decay of civilization, according to the book “Martin Luther King Jr., Homosexuality, and the Early Gay Rights Movement” by Michael G. Long.

Graham also spoke out on the subject of the AIDS crisis, telling a record-breaking crowd of 44,300 in Cooper Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, in 1993, “Is AIDS a judgment of God? I could not be sure, but I think so.”

But here’s the part that is truly fascinating: Graham almost immediately apologized for these comments.

As NBC noted, he said in an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he regretted making them: “To say God has judged people with AIDS would be very wrong and very cruel. I would like to say that I am very sorry for what I said.”

And in 2011, Graham — who, again, generally went out of his way to avoid controversial issues — said that, if he could go back, he “would have steered clear of politics” during certain moments in his ministry (there’s also his infamous comments about Jews made in a conversation with former president Richard Nixon, which were caught on tape — comments Graham also apologized for decades later).

“I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to,” he said in 2011. “But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.”

Graham wasn’t perfect. As a human who fully embraced the gospel and, in his view, was prone to sin, there’s no world in which he would have claimed such perfection. It’s also important to note that progressive Christians and others who didn’t share Billy Graham’s biblical view on marriage didn’t quite take Duca’s stand on the transformative evangelist:

https://twitter.com/BrandanJR/status/966328855727239169

Duca’s tweets offer remarkably pointed evidence that we’re living in an era in which it is easier to lambaste someone, condemn them to hell and call them evil rather than engage in discussion. We’re embroiled in the painful era of “if you disagree with me, you’re evil” — a dynamic that is terrible for all of us and that sets us up for rampant cultural failure.

The self-imposed barriers that most rational people have traditionally erected and kept in mind as they have interacted with friends and foes alike continue to come crashing down, as social media rewards poor restraint.

Yet, sadly, there is strength in respect and self-control, especially when it comes to addressing those with whom we disagree. Unfortunately, social media bestows likes, re-tweets and shares upon those who seem to say the darnedest things. This is sad, and it’s further evidence of the moral confusion and decay that has befallen us all.

Tweets like Duca’s also have another effect: They empower critics to wage threats, hateful comments and a slew of other unpalatable content. This, too, is unacceptable and fosters the horrible cycle we’re all subjecting ourselves to.

“Conservatives are emailing me death threats over my tweet regarding deceased homophobic pastor Billy Graham,” Duca tweeted on Thursday. “The ethics on this don’t quite line up, but I’m sure their commitment to respecting the dead means they’ll only speak of me lovingly once I have been brutally murdered.”

This is tragic. We must rediscover how to disagree while exercising grace, how to extrapolate facts and how to respect one another in life…and in death.

As for Graham, despite being flawed like every one of us, he brought the gospel to millions and, as a result, saved souls and lives in the process. For that alone, he should be commended.

Let’s be better.