Remember that time when Billy Graham branded himself a heretic and said that one need not know Christ to be saved and get into Heaven? Good times, good times. Well, that video is documented here for anyone who doubts the veracity of this claim. Billy Graham preached a false gospel and embraced a heretical view of salvation. That heresy is known as Universalism.
Billy Graham was undoubtedly an ecumenicalist as he praised the pope as his “brother” and treated Roman Catholicism as a valid expression of the Christian faith. Speaking of Pope John Paul II after his death, Graham stated,
I think he’s with the Lord, because he believed. He believed in the Cross. That was his focus throughout his ministry, the Cross, no matter if you were talking to him from personal issue or an ethical problem, he felt that there was the answer to all of our problems, the cross and the resurrection. And he was a strong believer.
Of course, the pope of the Great Harlot is no more a strong believer than Satan or the demons, of whom even believe and shudder (James 2:19). Graham’s affirmation of Roman Catholics did nothing except extend a false hope to millions who are caught up in the idolatrous religiosity of the Roman harlot. Graham was even known to partner with Catholic churches during his crusades and send “converts” of his altar calls to Roman Catholic churches. In 1957, according to San Francisco News, Billy Graham stated, “Anyone who makes a decision at our meetings is seen later and referred to a local clergyman, Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish,” and according to the Florida Catholic, Sept. 1983, 600 people were turned over to the Catholic religion as a result of the Orlando crusade. Graham received an honorary doctorate from Belmont Abbey, an Jesuit Catholic school, in 1967.
Graham’s insistence on “decisional” regeneration and conversion has led to a massive influx of Charles Finney-like emotional evangelistic tactics that now invade the professing church. The idea is that anyone who might be “seeking” peace with God can simply “decide” to follow Jesus, pray a prayer asking Jesus into their hearts, and no longer be under the curse of Hell. This false gospel is now pervasive in many evangelical churches today and masquerades as a “traditional” form of Arminianism, yet this gospel of synergistic decisionalism doesn’t, in most cases, address the need for pure grace among the lost that comes only through the saving knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ found alone in Scripture apart from any works of righteousness.
To make matters worse, Billy Graham not only affirmed Roman Catholics as valid Christian brothers and sisters but, during an interview with the Universalist, Robert Schuller, Graham denies the exclusivity of Christ and even states that those who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ can be saved as long as they are turning to “only light that they have.” In other words, you can worship a false god and still be saved, according to Graham.
