Billy Graham last night endorsed Mitt Romney for president, and shortly thereafter, his website was scrubbed of a statement Graham or his organization made calling Mormonism a “cult.”
“It was an honor to meet and host Governor Romney in my home today, especially since I knew his late father former Michigan Governor George Romney, whom I considered a friend,” the 93-year old Christian Evangelist Southern Baptist minister said via a statement.
“I have followed Mitt Romney’s career in business, the Olympic Games, as governor of Massachusetts and, of course, as a candidate for president of the United States.”
“What impresses me even more than Governor Romney’s successful career are his values and strong moral convictions. I appreciate his faithful commitment to his impressive family, particularly his wife Ann of 43 years and his five married sons.”
“It was a privilege to pray with Governor Romney for his family and our country. I will turn 94 the day after the upcoming election, and I believe America is at a crossroads. I hope millions of Americans will join me in praying for our nation and to vote for candidates who will support the biblical definition of marriage, protect the sanctity of life and defend our religious freedoms.”
As of June 5, 2010, if not much earlier, Billy Graham’s website stated:
A cult is any group which teaches doctrines or beliefs that deviate from the biblical message of the Christian faith. It is very important that we recognize cults and avoid any involvement with them. Cults often teach some Christian truth mixed with error, which may be difficult to detect.
There are some features common to most cults:
• They do not adhere solely to the sixty-six books of the Bible as the inspired Word of God. They add their “special revelations” to the Bible and view them as equally authoritative.
• They do not accept that our relationship to Jesus Christ is a reality “by grace through faith” alone, but promote instead a salvation by works.
• They do not give Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, full recognition as the second Person of the Trinity, composed of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Some of these groups are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, the Unification Church, Unitarians, Spiritists, Scientologists, and others.
[Bolding ours]
Today, the Sacramento Bee and other media outlets, including Graham’s own website, posted Graham’s statement endorsing Mitt Romney for president, and two commenters posted a link to the 2010 Graham statement classifying the Mormon religion as a cult. Hours later, that page no longer exists:
A Google webcache of that page confirms its prior existence, and an Archive.org webcache first crawled that page on June 5, 2010. Here’s a screenshot of the Google web cache:
Additionally, a search for the word “Mormon” on Billy Graham’s website identifies six pages, yet none of those pages have the word “Mormon” on them as of this writing, yet most of them still have the word “cult” on them.
Billy Graham is 93 years old and in frail health. He’s been in and out of hospitals as recently as August.
It is unlikely that Billy Graham actually wrote the statement his organization released in his name.
Franklin Graham was present yesterday during the Romney visit, as the image, right, shows.
Billy Graham has been a spiritual adviser to numerous presidents since Truman. Unsurprisingly, Graham, a televangelist pioneer, is devoutly anti-gay, and in May, just prior to the North Carolina vote to ban same-sex marriage in their constitution passed, released full-page anti-gay marriage ads in 14 newspapers supporting North Carolina’s Amendment One banning marriage equality in that state permanently.