Two well known men died in the past few weeks. Their deaths serve to show the large chasm that exists between Christian and secular thinking. Billy Graham was a stalwart Christian evangelist who went around the world preaching a simple message of forgiveness through repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ. I did not know Billy Graham, and I would not claim he was perfect, but by all accounts he was a good man. He believed in the message of salvation through Christ and wanted as many people as possible to hear this good news. What is truly odd is that even by worldly consideration, Graham was a decent fellow. He was true to his wife; was by all accounts a good, if imperfect father; was never entangled in any kind of financial scandal (not even a whiff); and was generally thoughtful and reasonable in his remarks about others. Of course, he had bad moments, but by worldly standards he measures out pretty well on the scales of goodness versus badness.
Another man died recently: Stephen Hawking. He was a theoretical physicist - sometimes called a cosmologist. He wrote numerous articles, was at Cambridge University in England for many years, and, among other things, wrote a book called A Brief History of Time, which is written for lay people to understand some pretty intense physics. His writing certainly conveyed a sense of humor and an ability to make complicated physics reasonably understandable. I did not know Stephen Hawking and, again, would not claim he was perfect, but, by all accounts he seemed to be a reasonably decent fellow and by worldly standards he measures out pretty well on the scales of goodness versus badness.
Here's the rub though: many in the secular media (and some in "Christian" media) had only harsh
words about Billy Graham and some even took a sort of good riddance to bad rubbish attitude. George Will, the iconic conservative columnist, for instance, was rather abrasive in his commentary on Graham.
Yet, thus far, the commentary about Hawking has gushed with praise. Except for the inevitable complaints by those who don't want his very obvious physical condition to be mentioned, the overall tenor of discussion about Hawking has been kind and generous.
That is how it should be.
I have nothing against Hawking and feel badly that such a brilliant mind will, barring a deathbed conversion we have not heard about, spend eternity apart from the God who created him.
I do, however, find the media coverage bizarre. People felt no compunction about roundly criticizing Graham for any foible they could gin up (whether they actually knew him or not - cue George Will). Yet, Graham himself would have been the first to admit his failings and his frailties. You will not see anyone in the Christian media tar and feathering Stephen Hawking (nor should they). I seriously doubt anyone in the secular media will criticize Hawking for any reason. The irony is inescapable. It cannot be the case that Hawking was perfect and never committed the kinds of sins common to all people, yet you will not hear anything about his personal shortcomings, whatever they were.
Interestingly enough, though, this is precisely what Jesus predicted for his followers: in Matthew 24:9 Jesus said about his disciples "you will be hated by all nations because of me."
So Billy Graham is treated as despicable because he dared to have clear rules about how he interacted with women; how he handled the finances of his organization; how he handled his dealings with presidents and other leaders; whether he did sometimes sin (yes, per his own admission). Hawking is treated as some sort of icon because he . . . theorized about black holes and did extremely high level mathematical equations to make predictions about how the universe operates.
I lament Hawking's loss because he could have been an amazing evangelist
for Christ. It's ironic that he spent so much time looking for his
theory of everything when it was right in front of him - God. The very
uniformity found in the cosmos, that allowed Hawking's life work to make
sense, is one evidence of design that demands a designer.
Hawking had a great mind, and was a good man by worldly standards. Our eternity, however, isn't judged by worldly standards - it's judged by our repentance of sin and belief that Jesus died on a cross for our sins and was resurrected after three days. Billy Graham understood that simple truth and is now receiving his reward and gets to be with the answer to the theory of everything every moment for eternity - he is with God.
