Tag Archives: billy graham

Unbroken Sequel Will Finish the Story

Angelina Jolie made Louis Zamperini famous with the movie Unbroken, which, while a good movie, left a major portion of Zamperini’s life to roll in the credits: his post-war descent into anger and alcohol, and his salvation at a Billy Graham crusade that became the path forward in his life.

A new movie out this fall aims to finish that story:

The Billy Graham Evangelical Association previously filled in those blanks with a documentary.  The USAFA Class of 2018 chose Zamperini as Read more

Chris Rodda Has Dramatic Grammar Fail in Attack on President Trump

Chris Rodda, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s research assistant at the MRFF, fancies herself a distinguished, if somewhat self-styled, author. On Friday, though, her failures in basic grammar and research made her boss look like an idiot.

Late on Friday Chris Rodda published a blog entitled “Trump Cites “Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day” Law to Order Flags Flown at Half-Staff for Billy Graham.”

It doesn’t sound particularly egregious, but it does sound stupid. Presidents don’t even write those things, so some staff weenie really messed up and made President Trump look bad, didn’t they?

Except they didn’t.

President Trump’s message was actually published more than a week prior, and it made no reference to any law. Rodda hand-waved the apparent contradiction of her argument with a mysterious [emphasis added]

Trump also issued an extra special version of this order to the military.

As is standard Chris Rodda practice, she Read more

The Fall of Modern Morality: Virtue Becomes Vice

Vice President Mike Pence made waves a few months ago when word got around that, as a rule, he would not spend time alone with a woman who was not his wife. It was almost immediately coined “The Mike Pence Rule,” though it was actually “the Billy Graham rule” for the preceding few decades, and it has been a fairly common “rule” in the Christian community just as long.

As was pointed out several months ago, many in media and society strained to portray the “Pence rule” as a bad thing. Katelyn Beatynov wrote an OpEd at the NYTimes on “A Christian Case Against the Pence Rule,” essentially saying the rule was an admission that men were uncontrollable “beasts”:

The Pence rule arises from a broken view of the sexes: Men are lustful beasts that must be contained, while women are objects of desire that must be hidden away. Offering the Pence rule as a solution to male predation is like saying, “I can’t meet with you one on one, otherwise I might eventually assault you.”

Awkwardly, Beatynov is unable to square her takedown with her own comments in that same article saying “there’s wisdom” in the rule. David French did a more than adequate rebuttal of Beatynov’s Read more

Hate, Love, Sin and Repentance: The Culture’s Struggle to Redefine Christianity

A web article recently cited “Christian pastor” Liam Hooper — whom it identified as transgender — as proposing an alternate philosophy on how transgenders should be viewed in the Christian faith:

He [sic] had this message for trans people of all religious faiths who are serving in the military.

“You are — each of you — individual, beautiful and beloved images of God…beings God imagined and anticipated in the creation of human beings. You, in all of your personhood, speak to a God who affirms that there are as many images of God as there are now, ever have been, or ever will be human beings,” Hooper said. “You are beautiful. As you are. And you are loved.”

It is true that all men and women are created by God in the image of God. That is Read more

Military Color Guard to Lead DC Gay Pride Parade

This Saturday, a parade through Washington, DC celebrating homosexuality will be led off by a US military color guard. The “tradition” started in 2014, and even then homosexual advocates recognized the significance of having the military ‘sanction’ their event by participating in it.

Notably, at about that same time churches had local military color guards suddenly banned from their traditional patriotic celebrations — even though those military units weren’t participating in the church’s event, but merely posting the colors and then leaving. As recently as last December a military band was restricted from participating in a Christmas radio show, yet it seems parading down the streets of gay pride is kosher.  There were hopes expressed even then that the new Commander in Chief might bring about a change to that conflict.

The tragedy, of course, is Read more

Harassed by Mikey Weinstein, Part 7: You’re Being Watched

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein has demonstrated an obsession with ChristianFighterPilot.com — at least, insomuch as he wants to lodge complaints about this site mere minutes after content is published.

Presumably, the time he spends monitoring this site is part of the reason Mikey Weinstein has paid himself nearly $1.95 million to date from the donations his charity receives. It turns out, though, that he’s not the only one he drags into rapid-response.

It seems Mikey Weinstein has had his lawyer, Randy Mathis, on speed-dial. On 30 August 2011, an article was posted here entitled “Military Atheists Miss the Mark with Chaplain “Humor”“. The article discussed the “first act” of then-US Army Sergeant Justin Griffith, who had just become “military director” for American Atheists.

For his opening volley, Griffith had chosen to denigrate US military chaplains and their service — and sacrifice — to their country. The article rebutted his claims — noting, for example, that multiple chaplains had received the Medal of Honor.

Mikey didn’t like it.

The Air Force soon received a letter from Randy Mathis. Not Read more

USAFA Cadets Choose Bombardier, Christian as Exemplar

In a relatively recent tradition, each class of US Air Force Academy cadets since 2000 has chosen an “exemplar” representing the character and fortitude to which they would like to aspire. Exemplars have included airpower giants like Mitchell and Doolittle, famous fighter pilots like Olds, and Major David Brodeur, USAFA Class of 1999, who was killed in Afghanistan.

The USAFA Class of 2018 recently chose as its exemplar Capt Louis Zamperini, Army Air Corps bombardier, POW, and outspoken Christian:

Cadet 3rd Class J. Benson Anderson, Jr., an Exemplar Committee official, said Zamperini was selected because he demonstrated the character and conviction the Class of 2018 strives to maintain.

“His loyalty in Read more

Unbroken Movie Documents Fighting, Faith, Freedom

Update: Franklin Graham describes the faith of Louis Zamperini here.  Notably:

He found a Bible that had been issued by the air corps and began reading.

Seems some documented good came from the US military issuing Bibles during World War II.

Unbroken, the Laura Hillenbrand biography on Louis Zamperini (which made the 2012 CSAF Reading List), has been made into an Angelina Jolie-directed movie to be released on Christmas day.

A small controversy is brewing over the movie’s admitted generalization of “faith,” despite the importance of the Christian faith to Zamperini’s life story. Ultimately, this should be little surprise, given that the book Unbroken (reviewed here) similarly spent very little time on the topic — while Zamperini himself devoted a substantial portion of his autobiography, Devil at My Heels (reviewed here), to his conversion and faith experience.

Christianity Today columnist Alissa Wilkinson noted Unbroken seems to lack the “redemption” from its “Survival. Resilience. Redemption.” tagline (the same conclusion reached here about the book). Without knowing the actual story, one might think Zamperini’s inspiring story was one of self:  Read more

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