Don't be intimidated by cancel culture, says Billy Graham's daughter
US evangelist Anne Graham Lotz has stated the priority of Gospel preaching for the Church over social and political activism at a conference held by Jewish Christians in New York on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
The daughter of the late evangelist Billy Graham was speaking on Friday evening by video to the 9/11 and New Middle East Conference at Trinity Baptist Church, organised by Chosen People Ministries and the Alliance for the Peace of Jerusalem.
Lotz based her remarks at the opening session on the first chapter of the Apostle Paul's letter to the Church in 1st Century Rome.
She said God commands Christian people to follow Paul's commitment to the Gospel message as "the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile".
"Our message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ," she said.
In frank comments, she added, "It's not politics, it's not prosperity, it's not equity and equality, because you can feed the hungry, you can clothe the naked, you can house the homeless, you can eliminate abortion on demand, you can reverse global warming, you can eliminate nuclear weapons, you can redistribute wealth so that the wealthy aren't so wealthy and the poor aren't so poor and everyone will still go to hell."
The Gospel message is summed up in John 3:16, she said: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life."
She added that "in this cancel culture, in all this woke stuff, I think we have to be very guarded so that we do not allow our culture to intimidate us and to silence us".
Lotz is the sister of Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, who recently took legal action against some local authorities in the UK after they cancelled evangelistic events at their venues in 2020 because of his counter-cultural views on sexual morality. BGEA recently won a pay-out from Blackpool council over a cancelled event.
She also told the conference that politicians and secular peace activists are not capable of producing a lasting peace in Jerusalem, Israel and the wider Middle East.
"As I pray for the peace of Jerusalem, can I be honest?
"I don't believe there will be a permanent peace in Jerusalem until the Prince of Peace comes back and establishes it, when Jesus reigns and rules from that city and establishes justice and peace and righteousness," she said.
Lotz stated her conviction that "in the near future" the State of Israel will become "a messianic nation". She quoted Paul's statement in Romans 11:26 that "all Israel will be saved".
"I don't know if that means every person in Israel will be saved – I doubt it – but enough people will come to faith in Yeshua [the Hebrew name for Jesus] as their Messiah that it will be a messianic nation," she said.
The first session included testimonies from New York pastors who had ministered to emergency workers and the grieving relatives of victims in prayer and practical support in the days after the 9/11 Islamist terror attack on New York's World Trade Center.
The opening session also featured a video recording from a Chosen People Ministries' worker based in Israel. She said 9/11 "was a day when America experienced what Israelis experience almost every day.
"For decades terrorist groups have targeted Israel. Their goal is to create fear, weaken the nation's resolve, and ultimately to wipe out this country's very existence," she said.
The conference featured quotations from Billy Graham's message at the Washington National Cathedral on September 14 2001 when he said, "The lesson of this event is not only about the mystery of iniquity and evil but second, it's a lesson about our need for each other.
"This event reminds us of the brevity and uncertainty of life. We never know when we too will be called into eternity.
"That's why we each must face our own spiritual need and commit ourselves to God and His will."
