Who can deny that we live in a complicated age? Besides natural disasters like the blizzard in New York and flooding in California, we have to cope with man-made disasters like the runaway oil well that coated the Santa Barbara beach. It’s hard to do anything without being both praised and condemned. That the religious emphasis at the Nixon inaugural should be criticized causes no particular surprise. What did surprise a number of us was the verdict by some of the news media that Billy Graham was blaming former president Lyndon Johnson for America’s moral slump. To read Dr. Graham’s prayer that way was to read into it what wasn’t there. At least we couldn’t find it.
On second thought, maybe we read into Dr. Graham’s prayer what we have heard him say during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. For more than two decades Graham has consistently spoken of America’s unresolved spiritual problem. Only the most unenlightened could say the problem has not grown progressively worse. Yet surely the blame cannot be attached to any former president, particularly Mr. Johnson. Right now the real problem is not to assess blame but to undo the damage. This will take courage, action, and dedication.
