U.S. evangelist Billy Graham dies at 99
BEFRIENDED PRESIDENTS, INFLUENCED MILLIONS
• The Rev. Billy Graham, who transformed American religious life through his preaching and activism, becoming a counsellor to presidents and the most widely heard Christian evangelist in history, died Wednesday. He was 99.
Graham, who long suffered from cancer, pneumonia and other ailments, died at his home in North Carolina, said spokesman Mark DeMoss.
More than anyone else, Graham built evangelicalism into a force that rivalled liberal Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in the United States. His leadership summits and crusades in more than 185 countries and territories forged powerful global links among conservative Christians, and threw a lifeline to believers in the communist-controlled Eastern bloc. Dubbed “America’s pastor,” he was a confidant to U.S. presidents from Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush.
“When he prays with you in the Oval Office or upstairs in the White House, you feel he’s praying for you, not the president,” Bill Clinton said at the opening of the Billy Graham Museum and Library in 2007.
He reached untold millions through his pioneering use of prime-time telecasts, network radio, daily newspaper columns, evangelistic feature films and globe-girdling satellite TV hookups. Graham’s message was not complex or unique, yet he preached with a conviction that won over audiences worldwide.
“The Bible says,” was his catch phrase. His unquestioning belief in Scripture turned the Gospel into a “ra- pier” in his hands, he said.
A tall, striking man with thick hair, stark blue eyes and a firm jaw, Graham was a commanding presence at his crusades. He would make the altar call in his powerful baritone, asking the multitudes to stand, come down the aisles and publicly make “decisions for Christ.”
By his final crusade in 2005 in New York City, he had preached in person to more than 210 million people worldwide. No evangelist is expected to have his level of influence again.
“William Franklin Graham Jr. can safely be regarded as the best who ever lived at what he did,” said William Martin, author of the Graham biography “A Prophet With Honor.”
Born Nov. 7, 1918, on his family’s dairy farm near Charlotte, N.C., Graham came from a fundamentalist background that expected true Bible-believers to stay clear of Christians with even the most minor differences over Scripture. But as his crusades drew support from a widening array of Christian churches, he came to reject that view.
He joined in a then-emerging movement called New Evangelicalism, that abandoned the narrowness of fundamentalism to engage broader society. Fundamentalists at the time excoriated the preacher for his new direction, and broke with him when he agreed to work with more liberal Christians in the 1950s.
Graham stood fast. He would not reject people who were sincere and shared at least some of his beliefs, Martin said. He wanted the widest hearing possible for his salvation message.
“The ecumenical movement has broadened my viewpoint and I recognize now that God has his people in all churches,” he said in the early 1950s.
His approach helped evangelicals gain the influence they have today. Graham’s path to becoming an evangelist began taking shape at age 16, when the Presbyterian-reared farmboy committed himself to Christ at a local tent revival.
“I did not feel any special emotion,” he wrote in his 1997 autobiography, “Just As I Am.” “I simply felt at peace,” and thereafter, “the world looked different.”
Graham, who became a Southern Baptist, studied at Wheaton College, a prominent Christian liberal arts school in Illinois, where he met fellow student Ruth Bell. They married in 1943 and had five children.
A 1949 Los Angeles revival turned Graham into evangelism’s rising star. Held in a tent dubbed the “Canvas Cathedral,” Graham had been drawing adequate, but not spectacular crowds until one night when reporters and photographers descended. When Graham asked them why, a reporter said that legendary publisher William Randolph Hearst had ordered his papers to hype Graham. Graham said he never found out why.
As America’s most famous religious leader, he golfed with statesmen and entertainers and dined with royalty. Graham’s relationships with U.S. presidents also boosted his ministry and became a source of pride for conservative Christians who were so often caricatured as backward. But those ties proved problematic when his close friend Richard Nixon resigned in the Watergate scandal, leaving Graham devastated and baffled. He resolved to take a lower profile in the political world.
Health problems gradually slowed Graham, but he did not cease preaching. His son, the Rev. Franklin Graham, runs the ministry.
Graham will be buried at the Billy Graham Museum and Library by his wife, Ruth, who died in 2007 at the age of 87.
“I have been asked, ‘What is the secret?”’ Graham had said of his preaching. “Is it showmanship, organization or what? The secret of my work is God. I would be nothing without him.”