Billy Graham on Election & predestination

Affirmed, held alongside real human responsibility, treated as non-dividing

THE POSITION

Asked why Christians have not agreed on God's sovereignty and human freedom, the column under his name answers that the Bible teaches both, that God is "absolutely in control of everything" and we are "responsible for our actions," and admits this "sounds like a contradiction" from a human viewpoint. He does not choose between the Calvinist and Arminian accounts of election, and nothing read grounds election either in foreseen faith or in an unconditional decree. The column speaks of sovereignty and responsibility, not of election by name, and nothing read says the question should not divide Christians; the stance is the nearest fit to his refusal to choose, so the state is a lean. The quotation is from the syndicated My Answer column, which by the standard account was drafted with staff and ran under his name, not from a sermon.

1 OTHER HOLD THIS

ABOUT THIS FIGURE

Evangelist of the citywide crusades from 1947 to 2005, ordained a Southern Baptist minister, founder, with L. Nelson Bell, of Christianity Today (1956) and convener of the 1974 Lausanne Congress. He is generally reckoned to have preached in person to more people than anyone before him and was the public face of postwar evangelicalism. This entry rests on sermon texts dated 1951 to 2005 that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association republishes on the Decision magazine website, his recorded Billy Graham Minutes, his daily devotions, interviews he gave to Time, Christianity Today, Newsweek and Robert Schuller, and the My Answer column that ran under his name. By the standard account the column was written with staff, so cells that rest on it say so.