NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–An Oval Office conversation between then-President Richard Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham in 1972 revealed decidedly anti-Semitic comments by both men.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said he was stunned when he heard news accounts of the conversation in an interview with ABC News March 5.
Land said Graham’s comments were “jarringly dissimilar from the man we know as Billy Graham, even from remarks made 30 years ago.”
The Nixon-Graham conversation, on a just-released segment of the Nixon White House tapes, occurred Feb. 1, 1972, after a presidential prayer breakfast.
Interspersed with the president’s derogatory statements about the perceived Jewish influence on the United States, Graham acknowledged what he saw as the Jewish community’s grip on the nation’s media, saying, “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.”
Graham told Nixon that while he has a lot of Jewish friends, “They don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country.” He went on to tell Nixon that if he was elected to a second term, “We might be able to do something” about their influence.
In a statement released March 1, Graham expressed deep regret for the comments, saying he did not recall the conversation. The 83-year-old preacher went on to say the comments “do not reflect my views and I sincerely apologize for any offense caused by the remarks.”
Land noted, “While Billy Graham is a great man, he is not perfect, as he would be the first to tell you. Clearly, this was at best a lapse in judgment.
“I am disturbed that a conversation such as the one recorded between Billy Graham and Richard Nixon could take place in the Oval Office, between the president of the United States and the most popular preacher in the United States,” Land said. “Yet Dr. Graham would be the first to tell you that he is not calling people to admire him, he is calling people to accept Jesus.
“You would have to say this was not one of Dr. Graham’s better days,” Land continued, adding, “Perhaps you could say he succumbed to the aura of the Oval Office and the presidency. He wouldn’t have been the first to have done that. We know from other tapes and conversations Richard Nixon had with other people that President Nixon had a pretty strong anti-Semitic bent in his personality.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called Graham’s comments “chilling and frightening even today, 30 years after the statements were made.”
Accepting Graham’s apology as sincere and heartfelt, Land noted Graham has worked hard throughout his ministry to build bridges between Christians and Jews. “It is very difficult for me to comprehend that Billy Graham is anti-Semitic. He has had such a tremendously positive attitude toward Israel and the Jewish people,” Land explained.
Land admitted this incident has given him a deeper appreciation of why the Jewish people are “so sensitive to any hint or whisper of anti-Semitism.”
“As I have grappled with this and tried to understand it in light of the Billy Graham I know, love and respect, I have come to conclude that evangelicals must reiterate more strongly than ever the love and the respect and the admiration they have for the Jewish community,” he said.
“Anti-Semitism is the most irrational of prejudices for a Christian,” Land said, “because the man we follow as Savior and Lord is Jewish.”
Evangelical support for the Jewish community is strong and longstanding, he emphasized, explaining the basis of the support is theological and doctrinal. “We are first commanded to love everyone. We also are told in the Bible that the Jews are God’s chosen people and that God blesses those who bless the Jews and curses those who curse the Jews. We are following the dictates of our authority, God’s Word as revealed in the Bible, when we seek to be pro-Jewish.”
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A column by Land on this subject is posted on Beliefnet, at http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/102/story_10211_1.html&boardID=35926.
