Christianity,  Culture

Woody Allen Interviews Billy Graham

In 1969, Woody Allen interviewed Billy Graham on national television. Allen was agnostic and irreverent. Yet somehow Graham managed the encounter with humor and grace. It looks like the two actually established a genuine rapport, even though they couldn’t be any more different from each other.

Allen would later point to this encounter as an inspiration for one of his movies. Here’s how one report describes it:

Allen’s talk with Graham resonates with him today, informing in part the themes of his latest film, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.” The movie stars Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins and Gemma Jones in a story about the quest for comfort and certainty, and how faith — even an irrational one — can help us find solace.

In New York this week to discuss “Stranger,” Allen reflected on his meeting with Graham.

“Years ago I was on television with Billy Graham and I was taking this position, this bleak outlook position and Billy Graham was saying to me that even if I was right and he was wrong, and there was no meaning to life and it was a bleak experience and there was no god and no afterlife or no hope or anything, he would still have a better life than me, because he believed differently and even if he was 100 percent wrong, our lives would both be completed and I would have had a miserable life wallowing in a bleak outlook and he would have had a wonderful life, confident that there was more.”

(HT: Huffington Post)

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Matthew 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

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