Talk:Franklin Graham

income
i said and it was deleted something; franklin makes 1.4 million from two sources of income alone (just the minimun he HAS to make public because of law. why was this deleted? Peppermintschnapps (talk) 21:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Saw him speak in my hometown once. They showed a picture of him back when he was a rebellious punk with a duckbutt hairdo and a blue sports car. The he came out to threaten the unconverted with damnation and I've never looked back. Cthulhu fhtagn!

Arkhamite 16:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your personal testimony, but this is not the place for it. --Fl e x (talk|contribs) 14:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.


 * Arkhamite 18:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please use English here (WP:TPG). --Fl e x (talk|contribs) 19:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please grovel before our dark lord Cthulhu, human worm!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.60.55.9 (talk) 06:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * If thou wert to prostrate thyself before Great Cthulhu, he would eat thee just the same as if thou stood straight before him.


 * 71.203.107.141 (talk) 00:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The allegations made in the criticism section of this article that Franklin is somehow responsible for the Darfur genocide are speculative at best, libelous at worst, and absurd to anyone wishing Wikipedia to contain facts. Historical causes are an extremely complicated matter, containing the intermingling of many different factors and human wills, and as no sources are cited for the criticism, and as it could simply be original "research" I will remove it if none are given. Jakestonet 22:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)jakestonet

Religious Franchise
This is really a franchise, isn't it?


 * Sheer libel. Just a small family business.


 * Didn't Frankie get arrested for mooning from a car window way back when? Hopefully somebody will put up a photo.

"Became a Christian"
It says in 1974, at the age of 22, in a hotel room, that Franklin Graham "became a Christian." I don't understand. I assume he was born a Christian (a Southern Baptist, in particular), as his father was a top Christian minister to Presidents before Franklin was born. Anyone know what's going on here? Was he adult-baptized in a hotel room? Did he have a born-again experience?--173.161.113.17 (talk) 07:27, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

That strikes me as rather ambiguous too. Presumably, he wasn't a Buddhist or even a secular humanist previously. Probably, all that is meant is that he wasn't born again until that time. But the language here is unclear. JimFarm (talk) 21:59, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

This is indeed confusing and rather misleading - even for those of us within the Christian tradition and certainly for readers of the article outside the Christian tradition. I've altered the wording of this sentence to reflect that. This new formulation is entirely reasonable: Graham was born to and raised by the most prominent Christian evangelist in the world and went on to attend Christian schools. Whatever the nature of the "conversion experience" he claims to have had in 1974 when he was 22 years old, it cannot be accurately described (as was the case in the old version of the article) by saying that at that point he "became a Christian". The self-contradictory nature of these statements is clear to those both familiar and unfamiliar with this (my) religious tradition; my rewording of the sentence makes this explicit.95.113.98.204 (talk) 12:44, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Crusade against IRS and media campaign
It certainly is notable that Graham has touted the IRS scandal of tea party type groups under the Obama regime. Numerous media appearances and references may be cited. I would like this section to be in the article.Wikipietime (talk) 13:36, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Reverend?
Is there any formal basis, like an institutional accreditation, for the "Reverend" title that this article awards to Franklin Graham? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.119.205.88 (talk) 15:44, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * What proof do you have that he is not a "Reverend"? Anything? At all?--ML (talk) 12:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It's a legitimate question, and it is quite confusing. Graham has no theological or ministerial training whatsoever. I can also find no evidence of any ministerial experience. However, peculiar though it is within the broad scope of the Christian tradition, the Southern Baptist Convention (an American ecclesiastical body) allows individual parishes to ordain people without any prerequisites. Shocking, but true. There are claims on-line - I have no idea whether they can be substantiated - that Graham was ordained in 1982 by Grace Community Church in Tempe, Ariz. This sounds odd, however, since this doesn't sound like the name of a Southern Baptist congregation and, moreover, at this point Graham was already working for both the BGEA and Samaritan's Purse. None of the websites that claim he was "ordained" by this church (which includes the BGEA website) provide any indication that Graham was ever actually involved in active ministry at this church. All of the references to him as "Rev." or "Reverend" in this Wikipedia article (in its present form) are now only in direct quotations and in the titles of articles cited. That's probably a safe way to keep it.95.113.98.204 (talk) 13:13, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Think: Honorary doctorate (or in this case, honorary ordination). 2600:1700:71E1:6B0:0:0:0:47 (talk) 17:03, 19 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Misplaced burden of proof, ML. Oh, I see that you have been indefinitely banned for being an awful person (taking after the subject, perhaps). Not surprising, and ... good. -- Jibal (talk) 05:56, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Comments left on my personal talk page instead of here, the Franklin Graham article talk page by 95.113.98.204
My clarification to the article on Franklin Graham is entirely reasonable. He was born to and raised by the most prominent Christian evangelist in the world and went on to attend Christian schools. Whatever the nature of the "conversion experience" he claims to have had in 1974 when he was 22 years old, it cannot be accurately described (as was the case in the article) by saying that at that point he "became a Christian". The self-contradictory nature of these statements should be clear even to those outside our religious tradition; my rewording of the sentence makes this clear.95.113.98.204 (talk) 12:35, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Dear anon editor (95.113.98.204): The standard to judge edits to Wikipedia is not "reasonableness", but whether the edit is notable, supported by a reliable source, and presented in neutral manner.  I reverted your edit, not because I don't think it is reasonable (your personal opinion that you expressed above might be correct and reasonable) but because it is merely your personal opinion and it is presented in POV manner.  You are new editor, I can tell by the small number of edits that you have done, so you need to look at the edit from the perspective of whether the edit you want to do is notable, supported by a reliable source, and presented in NPOV manner.  You need to provide a reliable source and you personally are not a reliable source.  Please review WP:RS to get a better understanding of what a reliable source is.  Also, when you want to discuss an edit to an article you need to make that edit on the talk page of the article, not on the talk page of an editor with whom you disagree.  This discussion needs to be read by the other editors of the article so they can input their perspective and either agree or disagree with you and me.  Also, do not engage in an edit war.--ML (talk) 12:46, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not a new editor, I've been editing Wikipedia for about 5 years: I'm just not signed-on. This is a far more neutral description of whatever Graham's "conversion experience" was when he was 22 years old. Using wording that he "became a Christian" at this point employs a specific, non-neutral point of view as well as "insider language": i.e., that of American fundamentalism. The use of "Christian" as a sectarian term within American fundamentalist circles is extremely confusing to the general public - even many within the Christian community. You may not be familiar with this if you've never engaged in the academic study of religion (and most people haven't - that's not a criticism of you), but the problem has already been raised by two editors in the discussion above on this Talk Page. This has nothing to do with your opinion or my opinion: I have no opinion about conversion to Christianity, but I can accurately describe it based on the teachings of various Christian ecclesiastical bodies and by academic study of the phenomenon. So I've changed the wording to reflect a NPOV, which means eliminating insider, sectarian language and pointing out the confusion already raised by other editors. If you're tempted to reintroduce non-NPOV wording by changing this sentence again, I suggest you first familiarize yourself with the reasons this is not allowed by taking a look at the NPOV tutorial. 95.113.98.204   (talk) 13:02, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Second-Hand Attribution
Quote: "In the August 30, 2010 issue of the Time magazine, "Does America Hate Islam?" Graham reportedly [sic] said that Islam..."

How about an actual citation instead of a second-hand source here? How is anyone supposed to check the accuracy and context of this alleged quotation?

NicholasNotabene (talk) 04:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Changed cite to time.com rather than second-hand reference. No change to text.Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:07, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120224020940/http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/21/10466877-rev-graham-obama-seen-as-son-of-islam to http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/21/10466877-rev-graham-obama-seen-as-son-of-islam
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Recent additions regarding political activism
There have been a lot of edits in the last few days adding material regarding Graham's political activism. I think the result has been an imbalanced article. Since Graham is still most notable as an evangelist, that should cover the bulk of the article. Perhaps the solution is to expand that section. StAnselm (talk) 03:35, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Evangelical Christianity in the era of Donald Trump is indistinguishable from a political movement allied with Donald Trump. 45.47.32.30 (talk) 19:30, 19 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The reason why this article looks at Graham’s political activism is because reliable sources, when describing Graham, mainly look at his activism. For example, here an article from a reliable source discusses Graham’s support of Trump.  That in mind, I am removing the neutrality template from the top of the article.  Samboy (talk) 21:15, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In more detail. As I type this, here is the first page of a DuckDuckGo search for “Franklin Graham” (archive of search, to verify what I claim, here):
 * Three news articles about how Franklin thinks his father would not support Trump’s impeachment:
 * A link to his Samaritan's Purse organization
 * This Wikipedia article
 * Franklin’s Twitter
 * Franklin’s Facebook
 * Two links to his Decision America tour
 * An article in the Washington Post How Franklin Graham Betrayed his Father’s legacy which criticizes Graham’s anti-Gay (and, bluntly, homophobic) anti-Buttigieg tweet.
 * An article in The Atlantic which discusses Graham’s controversial political views in depth.
 * A link to a recent Graham Facebook post.


 * Point being, what Wikipedia considers the most reliable sources are reliable secondary sources. All five secondary sources from a simple Duck Duck Go search’s first page are about or extensively discuss Graham’s controversial political viewpoints.  It does not violate WP:UNDUE to discuss Graham’s politically controversial views in depth, because that is what reliable, secondary sources do when they talk about Graham. Samboy (talk) 00:24, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Support for viewpoints
I’ve found that the majority of content on Graham’s political viewpoints tab only include negative response to his comments. Ought it be better to include positive feedback from some of his quotes? (It must exist, and am willing to search myself). I find that would be a more balanced approach when wanting to describe his comments. Biaskiller45 (talk) 06:02, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

COVID
I put Franklin Graham into a separate section because my source didn't mention controversy. Someone else put it into Franklin Graham. Should it be there? Proxima Centauri (talk) 14:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, i thought you did it by accident, i reverted it FMSky (talk) 14:41, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

My first wource said there was controversy but that source was considered unacceptable. My second source didn't include controversy. Thanks for reverting. Proxima Centauri (talk) 17:06, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Heart condition
I'm not sure what the relevance of his heart condition is in the COVID section. The cited source doesn't try to make any connection between the heat condition and the vaccine and absolutely seems like it's inclusion here is just an anti-vaxxer trying to spread fear. 174.53.136.140 (talk) 19:39, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Moved to personal life. StAnselm (talk) 20:28, 5 March 2022 (UTC)