FARM BOY WHO MADE THE WORLD HIS FLOCK
Godspeed to the Rev. Billy Graham, now heaven-bound at 99
HE was “America’s pastor.”
The Rev. Billy Graham — who counseled a dozen presidents and preached his message of salvation to millions around the globe — died Wednesday at his home in North Carolina at the age of 99.
“My father @BillyGraham was once asked, ‘ Where is Heaven?’ He said, ‘ Heaven is where Jesus is and I am going to Him soon!’” Franklin Graham recalled on Twitter.
“This morning, he departed this world into eternal life in Heaven, prepared by the Lord Jesus Christ — the Savior of the world — whom he proclaimed for 80 years.”
Graham’s health had declined in recent years, as he suffered from prostate cancer, pneumonia and Parkinson’s disease.
During his more than 70 years in the pulpit, the lanky spiritual leader with the folksy Southern drawl became one of the most famous ministers in modern history, shaping the evangelical faith through crusades that reached an estimated 215 million people in 185 countries.
He prayed with 12 presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
“Billy’s unshakable belief in the power of God’s word to transform hearts gave hope to all who listened to his simple message: ‘God loves you,’ ” President Trump said in a statement. “He carried this message around the world through his crusades, bringing entire generations to faith in Jesus Christ.”
In 1957, Graham — whose catchphrase was “The Bible says” — ministered at Madison Square Garden for an unprecedented 16 weeks, drawing nearly 2.4 million people to his meetings.
“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.”
GRAHAM was born on Nov. 7, 1918, on a dairy farm near Charlotte, NC. As a baseball-loving farm boy with dreams of playing in the big leagues, Graham’s ambitions were more sports-minded than spiritual at first.
“But the talent for baseball obviously was not there,” he said.
Graham’s deeply felt Christian beliefs began to take shape at the age of 16, when he was “saved” at a local tent revival after listening to the firebrand sermonizing of Baptist evangelist Mordecai Ham.
“I did not feel any special emotion,” Graham said in his 1997 autobiography, “Just As I Am.” “I simply felt at peace.”
It wasn’t until college that he began to seriously consider devoting his life to spreading the Gospel.
At the Florida Bible Institute, he tried out his sermons on snakes and alligators — even sequestering himself in a toolshed so he could preach to “oil cans and lawn mowers,” Martin said.
He was called to the ministry on a golf course next to the institute.
“Did I want to preach for a lifetime? I asked myself that question for the umpteenth time on one of my nighttime walks around the golf course,” Graham wrote.
“The inner, irresistible urge would not subside. Finally, one night, I got down on my knees at the edge of one of the greens. Then I prostrated myself on the dewy turf. ‘Oh. God,’ I sobbed, ‘if you want me to serve you, I will.’ ”
“In my spirit I knew I had been called to the ministry. And I knew my answer was yes,” he added.
Graham went on to graduate from Wheaton College in Illinois, where he met his future wife, Ruth Bell, whose father had served as a Presbyterian medical missionary in China. The couple would have five children.
The Southern Baptist preacher’s big break came in 1949, when he held a tent revival in Los Angeles dubbed the “Canvas Cathedral.”
Publishing titan William Randolph Hearst threw his support behind the young minister, creating a media frenzy and catapulting him to fame.
“Evangelist Graham seemed to be wielding the revival sickle as no one since Billy Sunday had wielded it,” Time magazine declared.
With his piercing blue eyes and rugged handsomeness, Graham exuded charisma on stage, thrilling crowds who fed off his earnest energy and passion for Christ.
By the mid-1950s, he’d become an evangelical icon — and, thanks to technology like TV and radio, his fame spread far and wide.
GRAHAM not only counseled presidents and everyday folk, he was active in civil-rights issues. Graham ended racially segregated seating at his Southern crusades in 1953, a year before the Supreme Court’s school integration ruling, and long refused to visit South Africa while its white regime insisted
on separating the races at meetings.
Although he was a friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and preached alongside him, Graham lamented not doing more in the battle for civil rights.
In 1957, shortly after King led the Montgomery boycott, Graham said King was “setting an example of Christian love.”
As for himself, “I think I made a mistake when I didn’t go to Selma” to join King, Graham said in a 2005 interview. “I would like to have done more.”
Graham’s close friendship with Richard Nixon would come back to haunt him in 2002, when White House tapes on which Graham is heard making antiSemitic comments with the former president were released.
“A lot of the Jews are great friends of mine,” Graham said in the 1972 recording. “They swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.”
The preacher was quick to apologize, saying that he had “no memory of the occasion” and that the recorded comments “do not reflect my views.”
Graham’s simple teachings attracted attention around the world — even from Queen Elizabeth II, whose relationship with the reverend was recently dramatized in “The Crown.”
“I always found her very interested in the Bible and its message,” he wrote.
“After preaching at Windsor one Sunday, I was sitting next to the Queen at lunch. I told her I had been undecided until the last minute about my choice of sermon and had almost preached on the healing of the crippled man in John 5. Her eyes sparkled and she bubbled over with enthusiasm, as she could do on occasion. ‘I wish you had!’ she exclaimed. ‘That is my favorite story.’ ”
Graham’s reputation was never tarnished by sex or financial scandals, as he took a modest salary from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and refused to be alone with any woman other than his wife.
A frequent talk-show guest, he also maintained a playful sense of humor.
According to “The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham,” he once told a story about the time he asked a little boy for directions to a post office — then invited him to one of his crusades.
“You can hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven,” he told the child.
“I don’t think I’ll be there,” the boy replied. “You don’t even know your way to the post office.”
Billy Graham, who died Wednesday at 99, was neither a renowned theologian nor the head of a worldwide denomination. But he was arguably the 20th century’s most influential religious figure.
Over the course of seven decades, he preached Christianity live to 215 million people in 185 countries and reached an even larger audience via mass media.
He drew 100,000 people to Yankee Stadium and more than 2 million to a fourmonth crusade at Madison Square Garden, exhorting all in his audience to “make a decision for Christ.”
Graham was a spiritual counselor to presidents but eschewed offers of political power and came to regret the few instances in which he became politically involved.
He also avoided the divisive hot-button social issues and angry condemnations that would become grist for many later TV evangelists — with one exception: The North Carolina native early on refused to “preach
IJim Crow” before segregated audiences and invited Martin Luther King to share the stage with him as early as 1957.
Yet despite his strong support of Israel, he was caught on an Oval Office tape sharing anti-Jewish slurs with Richard Nixon. When it became public years later, he begged forgiveness.
William Randolph Hearst turned him into a national and then a global figure by ordering his newspapers to “puff Graham.” He became such a media celebrity he earned a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
What attracted so many to Graham was his plainspokenness and refusal to pass judgment on his listeners. And he was a model of personal probity, with none of the moral or financial scandals that engulfed other evangelists.
At heart, Graham was a simple but passionate preacher with a shrewd gift for spreading his message as widely as possible. He truly was “America’s pastor.” RIP.