The Story

Franklin Graham – who rode the coat tails of his famous preacher daddy Billy Graham into Christian fame as the head of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association ever since the elder fell ill, recently announced that the ministry and churches associated with BGM would be pulling all accounts from Wells Fargo (and boycotting Tiffany & Co.) .  Why?

This ad:

(Warning, grab a tissue)

If you don’t have a second to watch the ad, it depicts a lesbian couple learning sign language in order to welcome a deaf child into their home as new adoptive parents. Ending with a tag line from Wells Fargo about being their for expanding the family. It’s a legitimate tear jerker with a beautiful sentiment in more ways than one.

What’s even better is that after moving the giant accounts to a new bank, it turns out that the new bank regularly sponsors PRIDE events….

This feeling of joy as these ironies unfold must be what Christmas felt like for normal kids growing up.

Franklin Graham and Jesus

I often talk about Christians, the Church, and Jesus. I still feel more qualified than most to talk about those three things – and even if my opinion is often relegated by those that don’t want to admit that I was a legitimate and sincere believer in the Christian faith I’m consistently compelled by events like this to grab the pulpit again and preach.

So, I’m gonna preach.

Franklin Graham and I, although we’ve studied the same Bible and with much the same voracity and devotion, understand Jesus in much removed and much different ways.

The Jesus I see described in the Bible never had to tell his followers where to bank. He told his followers to sell all that they had and follow him.  He didn’t tell them to keep multi-million dollar accounts, estates worth nearly a billion dollars, or to fret over the advertisements of a bank.  A bank?  Jesus…debating over where to bank?   Seriously?  Where would Jesus Bank?

The same Jesus that turned over the money-changers table because they turned the holy place into a den of profiteering (does that sound familiar Mr. Graham?) does not give two shits where you bank because he wouldn’t have you doing so.  The same Jesus that said it’d be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man (Mr. Graham, are you hearing me?) to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and that declared the meek the inheritors of the Kingdom…that’s who Mr. Graham is trying to exemplify here.

I think Mr. Graham has read an awful lot about Jesus. I think that Jesus, if he were to exist, could walk up to Mr. Graham – kiss him on the mouth, raise hell at one of his services by turning over his offering plates, and sweat blood in disappointment and grief and Mr. Graham wouldn’t know him. In fact, I’m certain the security staff would be called in.

When one of the most well respected representatives of the Christian faith has to boycott a bank because he thinks that’s what Jesus would do to stop gay marriage, the secularists have won. We can pack up our bags friends. They’ve tripped and fallen down the rabbit hole of absurdity and left their savior so far behind we needn’t even address them any longer.

And for the record, I don’t think Jesus would own anything from  Tiffany & Co. either.