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The condemnations have also been picked up by Reuters, USA Today, The Denver Post, and other media outlets.

But Graham and his organization say the story isn't much of a story. He told Beliefnet that he first went to Baghdad 30 years ago, and that Samaritan's Purse has been working closely with Christians in Iraq since the last Gulf War. "I know exactly what the situation is, and I've briefed my people very well on it," he said.

And he's well aware of potential problems of combining evangelism with relief work. After all, this isn't Samaritan's Purse's first relief effort—it isn't it's first war relief effort, either. "I would not take advantage of these people in their hour of tragedy to force them or coerce them to make them Christian converts," Graham told USA Today. "I don't do that at any time."

"We are an evangelical organization, nobody denies that," Isaacs told The Washington Post. "At the same time, I think it's important to recognize we're a very experienced relief organization. Compassion and service is a vital expression of Christianity. We don't have an evangelism strategy. We don't have a strategy to share our faith. … We don't have Bibles waiting in the wings, or Christian literature waiting in the wings."

Besides, says Isaacs, Samaritan's Purse is already working in several Muslim countries. "Muslims in positions of authority know what Franklin has said, and they have confronted us with it. And I just say, 'You know what? Our work will speak for itself.'"

Roy Oksnevad, director of the Ministries to Muslims Department at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, says meeting spiritual needs while meeting physical ones isn't "despicable" at all. "Oftentimes, in times of crisis, it's important for us as Christians to walk with people and pray with them and help them find peace," he told The Denver Post. "And ultimately peace is found in Christ."

Still, says Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, it's about both spiritual and physical relief—and relief organizations must remember both. "We must do this with a genuine desire to serve human needs. If this is viewed as a pretense for evangelism, it will only hurt the Christian cause—and perhaps further endanger the lives of the 600,000 Christians in Iraq," he says in a Beliefnet piece. "I rejoice in the stated purposes of the Southern Baptists and Franklin Graham's ministry. And I will pray that these evangelicals will be given both the wisdom and courage to witness silently but compellingly to the spirit of Jesus as they perform this crucial humanitarian work."

Christians for and against Iraq war:

• The archbishop and the general | Time to clear up at least one apocryphal story floating around cyberspace about our secretary of state and the current archbishop of Canterbury (Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  
  
• Onward, Christian pacifists | The debates of the 1930s repeat themselves (Joseph Loconte, The Weekly Standard)
  
  
• Maimonides on war | A religious tradition that President Bush might appreciate (David Klinghoffer, National Review Online)
  
  
• Christian council condemns war | "We condemn this unjustified war, which has no international legitimacy … those engaged will bear a tremendous responsibility in front of God, the people, and history," says Jordan's Council of Church Leaders (Jordan Times)
  
  
• Clergy has common sentiment: fighting should end soon | Still debate over whether Iraq war is justified (Enterprise-Record, Chico, Calif.)
  
  
• Priests, monks nabbed in latest war protest | Police arrested monks, priests, rabbis and other clergy in San Francisco on Friday (Reuters)
  
  

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March (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47