The two main interviews of “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” were with Franklin Graham and Tim Keller. I found both interviews very illuminating on a number of levels.

The Franklin Graham caught my attention almost immediately. Amanpour began the interview it seemed to me by throwing Graham a softball. “What’s the word that you most dearly associate with Easter? Is it sacrifice, is it love? What is it?”

To me the most obvious word to associate with Easter would be…resurrection?!

Graham doesn’t go here. Here is his answer:

“When I look at Easter, I look at my sins and realize that Jesus Christ paid my debt in full when he died on that cross, he died for me, he died for you, Christiane” Transcript Link

Even though I’ve been working over Rob Bell pretty good because of his book “Love Wins” Franklin Graham illustrates the reason Rob Bell has an audience.

Good Friday and Easter are obviously connected, but the persistent reduction of the gospel to personal debt forgiveness is typical of American evangelicalism and its inability to point to what debt forgiveness is in service of.

The second most illuminating element of this interview in terms of Franklin Graham’s understanding of the gospel comes with his evaluation of President Obama’s Christianity. First he goes to “birther” territory and then turns to whether Obama is a Muslim. All the time I am wondering whether he is trying to speak to the donation base of his organization or if he simply doesn’t have a decent publicist. He then gets into the “definition of a Christian”

“As it relates to Muslim, there are many people that do wonder where he really stands on that. Now, he has told me that he is a Christian. But the debate comes, what is a Christian?

For him, going to church means he’s a Christian. For me, the definition of a Christian is whether we have given our life to Christ and are following him in faith, and we have trusted him as our Lord and Savior.

That’s the definition of a Christian, it’s not as to what church you’re a member of. A membership doesn’t make you a Christian.

AMANPOUR: Do you believe him when he tells you he’s a Christian?

GRAHAM: Well, when he says that, of course. I can’t — I’m not going to say, “Well, no, you’re not.” God is the only one who knows his heart.” Transcript Link:

In other words Christianity is a private heart matter between an individual and God and public identification with a church is inconsequential.

A rush of ideas flood my mind. It seems clear that this “reverend” doesn’t really pastor a church because when I talk to pastors of churches they pull their hair out over this idea. Americans are individual consumers of religious services who hardly value any meaningful commitment to a local congregation as an important aspect of basic Christian discipleship.

I also wonder where Graham lives because the days of nominal Christian participation in a church in order to maintain some sort of Christendom appearance are over, at least in the places I live. This for me was brought home by Tim Keller in the next interview.

AMANPOUR: And how, also, do you account for the fact that there is so much more secularism and yet there is also so much more religion in our lives, in our politics?

KELLER: What’s happening is secularism and devout religion is growing together. And what’s going away is the kind of mushy middle, where people are just part of the — the synagogue, the mosque or the church because it’s expected. So what’s actually happening is polarization. Transcript Link

Tim Keller and Franklin Graham speak from two different places in American culture and to two different audiences.