According to the Christian Post, Graham said he is “grateful to God for this decision,” viewing the ruling as “a clear victory for freedom of speech and religion in the UK.” Graham further stated the lawsuit was not about receiving a settlement but “about the preservation of religious freedom in the UK.”

On Monday (October 24), a Scottish court ruled in favor of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in a lawsuit against Scottish Event Campus Limited (SEC), which canceled an evangelistic event at the Hydro Arena in Glasgow featuring Franklin Graham in 2020 on the grounds of Graham’s stated beliefs about human sexuality and Islam.
Sheriff John N. McCormick ruled that SEC would be obligated to pay over $111,000 (£97,000) for violating the UK’s Equality Act.
SEC was one of seven UK venues that canceled BGEA events, part of Graham’s “God Loves You” tour, in January 2020 after facing pressure from LGBTQ+ advocates. Multiple groups argued that Graham’s public remarks regarding LGBTQ+ issues and the Muslim faith constituted dangerous hate speech.
Graham, who is the son of legendary evangelist Billy Graham and president of BGEA, has often publicly rebuked LGBTQ+ values and has referred to the Muslim faith as “wicked and evil.”
In his Monday ruling, McCormick wrote, “Briefly put, if it is correct that the event was evangelistic, based on religion or philosophical belief, then it follows that the decision to cancel was a breach of the Equality Act 2010 in that the event was cancelled as a commercial response to the views of objectors.”
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[Hypothetical Universalism] betrays not just a few but several core features of Reformed soteriology, and cannot make good on its own claim upon the efficacy of Christ’s death for the elect. But why should that be surprising given the intricate nature and interdependence of Reformed Christian doctrines?

An entailment of the Reformed doctrine of limited atonement is p:
If Christ died for S, then S will be saved.
Therefore, if p is true, S’ salvation is guaranteed by Christ’s death on behalf of S. Which is to say, it is impossible that Christ’s death for S does not result in S’ salvation given p.
Davenant Hypothetical Universalism (HU) rejects p by affirming that (a) Christ died for all and (b) not all will be saved.
The force of the argument is, He who willed and ordained that Christ the Mediator should sustain the wrath of God due to the sins not of certain persons, but of the whole human race, He willed that this passion of Christ should be a remedy applicable to the human race, that is, to each and every man, and not only to certain individual persons; supreme power being nevertheless left to himself, and full liberty of dispensing and applying this infinite merit according to the secret good pleasure of his will.Death of Christ
Furthermore, HU alleges that it is truly possible that a non-elect adult freely (and savingly) believes:
The death of Christ is applicable to any man living, because the condition of faith and repentance is possible to any living person, the secret decree of predestination or preterition in no wise hindering or confining this power either on the part of God, or on the part of men. They act, therefore, with little consideration who endeavour, by the decrees of secret election and preterition, to overthrow the universality of the death of Christ, which pertains to any persons whatsoever according to the tenor of the evangelical covenant.Davenant, Loc. Cit.
If the only freedom that can account for moral responsibility and do justice to the Reformed doctrine of total depravity is compatibilist freedom, then it is not possible for a non-elect person to believe freely and responsibly unless it is also possible for God to incline a person’s will to Christ after he has determined not to do so. Consequently, unless God can deny himself by acting contrary to his decree, HU consigns itself to incompatibilist freedom, which entails an implicit denial of the need for effectual grace to cause one to believe freely.*
Philosophically speaking, incompatibilism, which is not a Reformed position, does allow for the possibility of a non-elect person to believe by exercising libertarian free will. Consequently, HU implies libertarian freedom given HU’s axiom that “the condition of faith and repentance is possible to any living person.”
An Ironic Twist:
Only incompatibilism makes room for the possibility of saving faith for the non-elect. Or as Davenant would have it, the decree of predestination “is in no wise hindering or confining this power either on the part of God, or on the part of men.”
What must be grasped is that libertarian freedom cuts two ways. If it is truly possible that a non-elect living person freely believes the gospel, then it is equally possible that an elect adult will forever freely reject the gospel. (In which case, saving faith is uncaused and according to resistible grace.) Consequently, HU cannot consistently maintain that Christ’s death is effectual for the elect given the possibility of an elect person not believing according to libertarian freedom. In other words, the libertarian freedom that is required for the possibility of the non-elect to believe and be saved ends up undermining the need for effectual grace upon the free will of anyone who would believe. Therefore, by establishing the possibility of a non-elect person believing, Christ’s death cannot be effectual for the elect when there is nothing left to causally guarantee the requisite faith that’s needed to appropriate the benefits of Christ’s death. Or, more generally stated, (a) the metaphysical assumptions entailed by the possibility of any living person freely believing undermines (b) the causal guarantee that any living person will certainly believe.
If we try to introduce the necessary condition of irresistible grace for any living person to believe, then the possibility of any non-elect living person freely believing is confounded along with HU! That’s because the non-elect, after having been passed over in the eternal decree, cannot possibly be the recipients of irresistible grace, which in Reformed theology is a particular bestowal upon the elect that is, also, necessary for the efficacy of the cross.
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The church is being built at exactly the rate that Jesus wants it to be built. Not one person faster or slower. Hell has not slowed the construction by even a second. Not one person whom Jesus wants included will be excluded.

“I’m frightened.” These were my Pop’s last words. I saw him just after death, and his face and body evinced struggle. He did not profess to be a Christian, and I asked my pastor whether this struggle was perhaps a sign that God was working on his spirit, and that perhaps he could have come to salvation in his last hour?
My pastor, knowing that Pop had not professed faith, answered with a straightforward “No.”
I was a little shocked. How could he speak with such certainty?
Matthew 16:13-19 explains how, a passage that Michael Green rightly calls “the hinge on which the whole Gospel turns.”

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (Matt. 16:13-14; all Scripture passages from NIV version)

Caesarea Philippi, at the foot of snow-veiled Mount Hermon (the source of the Jordan river) is in the picturesque northern extremity of Palestine. In Matthew’s day it was the famously pagan center of pan-worship. Jesus probably retreated there with his disciples for a time of rest and instruction.
The lessons begin with this vital question: “Who do the people say the Son of Man is?”
“Son of Man” is Jesus’ favorite designation for himself. It captures both his humanity and, from Daniel 7:13-14, both his divine nature and divine destiny of universal and eternal rule (see Matt. 26:64).
Jesus knows exactly who he is. And by his authoritative teaching, healings, domination over the demonic realm, and supernatural command and control over nature, he has categorically revealed his identity and mission.
Having seen and heard this, what conclusions have the people drawn? “John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah …” Perhaps these great prophets had been resurrected in the person of Jesus. Without doubt he reprised the spirit of their ministry.
Is there a common thread? Were these three not the more poignant and pessimistic of the prophets? Certainly they were very exalted Jewish figures. Should not Jesus be flattered by the comparison? Not at all. None of them, like Jesus, claimed a divine identity and mission—nor proved it with supernatural acts of power. They were as inferior to Jesus as the ambassador is to the King, as the creature is to the Creator (Matt. 23:37).
What may have been meant as a compliment was in truth a profound denigration, a patronizing and willful denial of Jesus’ manifest identity.
The patronizing has never paused. A person with a passing knowledge of Jesus may perhaps deign to grant his existence, or even his importance as “a great moral teacher.”
Beyond excuse, however, are those New Testament scholars who shut their eyes to the arc-lamp of his glory that blazes from every paragraph of the Gospels, and who demote and disqualify and denigrate Jesus as “a very fine example.” J. Gresham Machen described this:

The modern liberal preacher reverences Jesus; he has the name of Jesus forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God; he enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But Jesus for him is an example of faith, not the object of faith. (Christianity and Liberalism, p. 85)

Any conception of Jesus that falls short of what Jesus revealed himself to be is not only an error or lie—it is perverse idolatry. It is to concoct a false image and to call it “Jesus.”
“But what about you?” Jesus asked.
“Who do you say I am?” The NIV captures the urgent personal emphasis and the life and death probing of the original. What do you yourself think? Your answer to this question fixes your eternal destiny!
Notice also how important it is to say what we think about Jesus. Heart and mouth must work together, for a merely inward faith is no faith at all (Rom. 10:8-11).

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matt. 16:16)

The Christ is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Divine and Saving Prophet, Priest, and King promised on every page of the Old Testament (Luke 24:27). And Jesus is the eternal “Son of the Living God” in a way that no one else is or ever can be (John 1:1-3).
Like King Josiah before him, Peter smashes down the idols to leave nothing but the One True Jesus Christ.

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” (Matt. 16:17)

The makarios, the blessed, is the one who should count themselves truly happy. This is the person the world should congratulate (see Matt. 5:3-10).
Why is Peter so blessed? Because, literally, no “flesh and blood” had brought him to this truth, least of all himself. He was blessed because the truth he had owned and expressed had been revealed (apokalyptō) by “my Father.” He had only believed and said what the Father had, first of all, placed there.
“You are one of the happy ones, Simon, whose father is Jonah, because my Father in Heaven has come and opened your eyes and mouth to say what you have just said.”
Just as Jesus prayed in Matthew 11:25-26,

I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

And now Jesus, just as he did with Jacob after wrestling with him at Peniel (Gen. 32), confirms a new name upon Peter (John 1:42).

And I tell you that you are Peter (petros), and on this rock (petra) I will build my church. (Matt. 16:18a)

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