There’s a good deal of yammering going on these days about the “failures” of liberalism, all of it too trivial for comment, to the point that it’s almost too convenient to learn, via the Washington Post’s William Martin, on the occasion of the death of 99-year-old über evangelist/never home dad Billy Graham, that three of Billy’s five children are divorced. How’s that Christianity thing workin’ out for you, folks?
Afterwords
Want to hear more bad things about Billy? Bad boy George F. Will, who racked up a divorce in his time1, doesn’t make fun of Billy for being an absent husband and dad but otherwise lowers the boom on poor charming Billy. As a classic Enlightenment dude, I have no patience with revivalists, but beating up on them à la H. L. Mencken seems to me to so, well, so H. L. Mencken. I always liked what George Whitefield, co-founder, more or less, of Methodism, had to say when friends of the aging evangelist tried to dissuade him from going on yet another arduous campaign: “I had rather wear out than rust out.” Of course, like Billy, he may have only felt comfortable on the road, but still. A trooper is a trooper.
- I earlier snickered at George’s ability to snicker at the foibles of others while concealing his own: During the Clinton years, George enjoyed many a chuckle over the “glandular Mr. Clinton.” But what about the glandular Mr. Will? George’s first wife ended their marriage by dumping a heap of his clothes in their front yard, bearing the note “Dear George: Since you don’t sleep here any more you shouldn’t keep your clothes here either.” George’s early columns used to be filled with homely accounts of his two sons, “the little Wills’s,” but such references disappeared after Mr. & Mrs. George went splitsville, to be replaced by endless tongue-clucking over irresponsible black men, who never stayed around to raise their kids. But what was forbidden to poor black men was permitted to rich white ones—at least those who wore bow ties and horn-rimmed glasses. ↩︎
