Franklin Graham is getting kudos for his take-down response to the magazine GQ. The liberal men’s lifestyle and fitness publication last week included the Bible on a list of “21 Books You Don’t Have to Read.”
“Not all the Great Books have aged well,” wrote GQ, “Some are racist and some are sexist, but most are just really, really boring,” wrote the editors, but they seemed to reserve their harshest criticism for the Bible, which came in at No. 12 on the list:
According to GQ, “The Holy Bible is rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it. Those who have read it know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced. It is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned.”
The magazine, light on serious journalism, regularly publishes such winning titles as, “How to watch porn ethically.” It has some alternate reading selections for readers encouraging people pick up “The Notebook” by Agota Kristoff instead of the Bible, because apparently, a single work of fiction is a fitting replacement for the manuscript that has helped shape much of Western religion, philosophy, and society.
The public, including Christians and even some GQ readers, were rightfully angered by the Bible’s inclusion on this list. But no one responded to GQ better than Rev. Franklin Graham, who wrote on Facebook that “there’s nothing more needed by mankind than the Word of God.”
“I guess [GQ] can’t explain why the Bible is the best-selling and most widely distributed book in the world. Recent estimates put the number that have been distributed since 1815 at more than 5 BILLION copies—and over 100 million are printed every year!” Graham writes. “The Holy Bible is God-breathed, it is living and active, and it is sharper than a double-edged sword. There’s nothing more powerful, and there’s nothing more needed by mankind than the Word of God. Maybe the GQ editors need to read it, again. The subject of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is Jesus Christ. And one day soon, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.”
Other books included on the list include Catcher in the Rye, The Alchemist, Blood Meridian, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, The Lord of the Rings, and Catch-22.
GQ, while popular with liberal men, still gets chuckles for its sometimes outrageous Photoshop fails. The magazine is famous for slimming down and making women “bustier” while giving its male cover models muscles that seem super-human. A quick Google search brings up the most egregious, and often hilarious examples.
With such a detachment from reality, the magazine may want to reconsider what it deems worth reading.