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Franklin Graham Uses Celebrity Deaths to Threaten Sinners With Hell

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Leave it to Fundamentalist Franklin Graham to use several of the recent celebrity deaths as evangelistic props for warning sinners of the certainty of death and eternal torture in hell by God if they fail to make a decision for Christ. You might be the nicest person in the world, but without Jesus you are headed for hell when you die. But, you can be a pussy-grabbing, misogynistic billionaire and still make it to heaven IF you pray the sinner’s prayer and really, really, really mean it. (Graham will be one of five clergymen at Donald Trump’s coronation.)

franklin graham celebrity deaths

Since Graham does not mention whether any of these celebrities knew Jesus in the saving sort of way, I suspect he has doubts about their eternal destiny. George Michael was gay, so it is certain — according to Graham’s theology — that he went to hell when he died. Carrie Fisher described herself as an agnostic, so she’s in hell too. Richard Adams? His books have allusions to animal deities and false Gods, so it is doubtful he escaped the flames of hell. Graham loves to profit from the salvation of others. If he thought that Michael, Fisher, or Adams were believers, he most certainly would have used their faith to further his agenda. That he didn’t suggests that Graham thinks they are in hell.

Imagine if everyone goes to heaven after they die. Without hell, Graham’s coffers run dry. Threatening and scaring “sinners” with hell — putting the fear of God into people — is the fuel that fires the Evangelical machine. Without fear the Evangelical church would cease to exist. Franklin Graham and his fellow fearmongers are parasites that suck the love, decency, and kindness out of people, turning them into judges of their fellow humans.

Graham’s Facebook post has been shared almost 80,000 times. Scores of  Evangelicals commenters have voiced their approval of Graham’s post, taking the opportunity to let Franklin know that these celebrities might be roasting in hell, but they are on their way to heaven thanks to wonderful grace of the Evangelical God.

18 Comments

  1. Avatar
    Brian

    Point out the reality, inevitability of death and that life is but a flash until the end comes and the judgement. Are you scared yet? Are you shitting your seven-year-old pants and begging for help to avoid the endless torture of fire? Do you want to go the eternal toyland instead?
    Fuck off Franklin. You and your minions frightened me half to death as a child: You stole what innocence and joy you could from me and I had no recourse. Now I do. Fuck you, scum-hearted prick. You are a child abuser, you and everyone who spreads such fearmongering shite within earshot of children, within the hearing of adults who need the human love you refuse to offer, the boundless reach of human love you demean and call vapor.

    • Avatar
      Ian

      Ugh. I shouldn’t have watched the Steven Anderson video. So much I disagree with.

      First, quoting Father Figure. That song isn’t about a pedophile, but about forbidden love- like Romeo and Juliet or Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl. Shes rich, he’s poor. It’s these people looking for a demon under every rock who think everything is about perverted sex. Anderson seems to know so much about pedophilia, why is that?

      Second, the days of calling all homosexuals pedophiles is long past. Most of the ones I have dealt with, professionally, would be considered straight. Pedophilia isn’t about homosexual sex, it has more to do with power or insecurities than anything else. Anderson needs to read some more recent books.

    • Avatar
      Angie

      Anderson is so full of hate, I wonder how he is able to keep fueling it. This has to come from somewhere deep in his past, probably childhood. He needs to have a target to spew all these vile feelings upon. In spite of which, the video made me laugh a few times because it was so outrageous and inaccurate.

  2. Avatar
    Geoff

    If I believed this stuff I’d be arguing that being a ‘nice’ person is way more important than giving fealty to Jesus. I’d argue that someone like Steven Anderson, by preaching hate, was actually detaching himself from Jesus, whilst someone like George Michael, who brought joy to many people throughout the world, and helped nurture our understanding of various sexual tendencies, was acting the way Jesus would wish.

    But, hey, this is evangelicalism, since when did commonsense logic come into it?

  3. Avatar
    Trenton

    This week just sucks period, Debbie Reynolds has also passed away?. Fuck franklin graham. He would have been better off doing the standard evangelical response of sending thoughts and prayers and actually doing nothing, but he had to take being a jackass for jesus to a whole new lower lever in the toxic shitpile. Sorry for the rant this kind of stuff annoys me to no end.

  4. Avatar
    Matilda

    If heaven means spending eternity with the likes of Anderson, Graham and all the other hatemongers exposed on this blog, I think I’ll give it a pass. Apparently the lake of fire is my destination anyway on account of my vegetarianism according to Ungurean – oh no, she’ll be there too, that’s definitely a no-no to me then!

      • Avatar
        Zoe

        Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham’s grandson for those who don’t know) is doing a pretty good job tarnishing the crown as it is. Has he fallen away though? Depends on who’s speculating. On a spiritual abuse blog I read, some Christians think he was never saved. Other’s think he’s a wolf in sheeps clothing. What a mess.

          • Avatar
            Zoe

            Until all of them deny him any sort of ministerial activity, stop publishing his books and he stops believing he has any spiritual authority, he’s still in the ministry in my opinion. 🙁

  5. Avatar
    Monty

    George Michael did a ton of good for people that many are not aware of. But Evangelicals will turn a blind eye to this because of his sexual orientation.
    No wonder many are leaving the church in droves.

  6. Avatar
    Melody

    The gloating over celebrity deaths is not the nicest PR for Christianity for one thing….

    It often puzzled me that these leaders were so happy about celebrities ending up in hell. I understood they were the enemy because they could tempt you into leading a sinful life, but to gloat about people dying and now being in hell, for all fucking eternity!! I had a hard time accepting that.

    I truly believed in hell and have occassionally prayed to God to not send people there, or to get them out, because the whole idea of hell was so huge and so extremely cruel and unchangable.

  7. Avatar
    Brian

    One thing that has always irked me is the bullying done by believers at funerals. One attends a funeral for personal reasons and yet thug preachers take the opportunity to get a choke hold on the attendee, reminding them of their one last chance to be saved from eternal torture. It is worse that insulting: Call it abusive. Call it ignorant bullying. Call it thug-work.
    It always humbles me too, remembering that as a believer, my job was turn every moment into a sermon opportunity, into witnessing, into brain-dead woo.
    It is so so easy to see now… but back then, from within the woo, I was truly saved and winning souls…

  8. Pingback:Christian Beliefs That Lie About Love | Amusing Nonsense

  9. Avatar
    Chris

    I don’t like Franklin Graham. Franklin better never try to preach a sermon about banning vilont video games in America and most Christian in America destroy Mature rated, Teen rated games. I am a video game collector and I believe God approves Mature rated and Teen rated games. I will be so mad at God it Franklin Graham preaches against Harry Potter and Pokemon games and most Americans destroy these games because of what Deuteronomy 18 says in the Bible.

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