Billy Graham and the demon Clintons

And then the Rev. Billy Graham—the man who’s led evangelical crusades across the nation and around the world—ripped off his shirt to show the pentagram tattooed on his chest. Indeed, the reverend finally revealed the truth: He’s a life-long … Satanist?

By the reaction of the religious right, you’d have thought Graham had done something dastardly during his recent New York City crusade. Something darker than confessing to be a Democrat and inviting Bill and Hillary Clinton onstage.

Graham’s crusade, likely the 86-year-old’s last, drew 230,000 attendees over three days. More than 8,000 “made commitments to Christ,” aides told reporters. One evening, Graham invited the Clintons. And, lo, Bill C. spoke, saying he’d never forget the time that Graham refused to speak to a segregated audience during the struggles of the civil-rights era.

“I was just a little boy, and I’ll never forget it,” the former prez said. “I’ve loved him ever since.”

Graham recalled shamelessly the time that he advised Clinton to become an evangelist—"because he has all the gifts"—and let Hillary run the country.

Goodness me. Could it be? Did Graham endorse Hillary’s probable run for president in 2008?

Lightning whizzed from heaven. The earth rumbled. Letters, mean e-mails and public condemnations came pouring in. How quickly Christians who are certain that God’s a Republican turned on their evangelical role model.

Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, had traveled from Washington, D.C., to hear Graham preach. Walking into the crusade, Schenck described “boyish excitement” and being “choked up,” in a press statement.

When the Clintons took the stage, Schenck’s excitement turned to “nausea,” and he walked out.

“I couldn’t believe that I had just witnessed the Clintons manipulate their way to a quasi-endorsement by the leading evangelical of the last half-century,” he said. “It was shameless exploitation of a sacred platform by the most powerful, cunning and recklessly ambitious political duo in American history.”

Also freaking out was Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, head of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.

“It was disturbing to watch Billy Graham, a man whom I’ve admired for years, being used by evil to mislead countless Christians,” Peterson said. “How can a man of God endorse a godless woman to run a godly country?”

In an “Open Letter to Billy Graham” at WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah took on the heart-breaking task of confronting Graham.

“A more appropriate response to the Clintons would have been to humble them—not lift their already inflated egos higher still,” Farad wrote, suggesting that Graham would have been more Christ-like if he’d fashioned some whips and chased them no-good liberals out of the temple. “Darkness has no place with the light.”

Conservatives were relieved when Graham’s son, Franklin, who runs the evangelism org, said that dad hadn’t meant to give the official nod to Hillary.

“For a long time, my father has refrained from endorsing political candidates,” the younger Graham said.

Graham’s been a political centrist since forever. He’s prayed with and advised presidents since around the time Honest Abe freed the slaves. Graham is credited with turning George W. Bush’s life around. The two went for a walk after George’s 40th birthday, the story goes, and soon after, Bush stopped drinking and damaging his muddled brain with cocaine.

Now it looks like the era of Graham’s loving nonpartisan God has come to a screeching finish.

In a Sunday Times column, Andrew Sullivan wrote a paean to the evangelist.

“Graham’s simplicity reminds me of what we have also lost—a spiritual wealth that is uncontaminated by ideology, devoid of a partisanship that has poisoned American discourse as much as it has toxified religion.”

Can I get an amen?