Amen
In the past sixty years Billy Graham has been a spiritual adviser to seven presidents and has preached in front of more than 200 million people worldwide. And though health problems have recently slowed him down, he made one thing clear when he stepped up to the microphone last October in Dallas: He is still the most powerful evangelist since Jesus.
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The 2002 Metroplex Mission involved 25,000 volunteers from more than a thousand area churches and proceeded along meticulously detailed guidelines, extending to the precise scheduling of the mission services themselves. Scripture suggests that the Holy Spirit "listeth" where it will (John 3:8), but in Bible days, the Spirit wasn't on television. After Barrows' opening-night words, the premier musical performer, "contemporary soul gospel" artist CeCe Winans, finished exactly when the schedule handed to journalists said she would, giving way at 7:37 to Michael Dean, the pastor of Fort Worth's Travis Avenue Baptist Church, who had until 7:42 to explain the financial arrangements for a Billy Graham mission and give the signal to send hundreds of white buckets that could hold a family meal of fried chicken drifting down the rows to receive the cash, checks, and credit-card contributions needed to meet the $3.1 million budget.
Soon thereafter it was former president George Bush's turn to address the crowd. Billy Graham's well-known role as unofficial pastor and spiritual counselor to most of the presidents since Eisenhower has had its downside. During the Vietnam War, the evangelist was chastised for not raising his voice against what critics of American policy saw as tragic folly. His close ties to Richard Nixon still threaten to leave an asterisk on his legacy, after the release of Oval Office tapes on which he and Nixon and chief of staff H. R. Haldeman spoke disparagingly of liberal Jews in the media, charging them with a lack of patriotism and major responsibility for an increasingly corrosive popular culture. Graham issued several statements of abject apology and met with prominent Jewish leaders to repudiate his statements and humbly beg their forgiveness. Most of them seem to agree with Fort Worth rabbi Ralph Mecklenburger, who told the Star-Telegram, "Those comments were ancient history. I take him at his word that he is not a bigot."
Despite such low points, Graham's access to the highest levels of power provided him with an enormous boost in stature and influence and, equally important, accorded invaluable symbolic legitimacy to evangelical Christianity, of which he has been the unquestioned prime minister for half a century. Both of these benefits were evident when Bush strode to the podium. After an extended, thundering ovation, he used his allotted seven minutes (7:49-7:56) to speak of his long friendship with Graham. He called Graham "a genuine American hero and a man that the entire Bush family is proud to call a very dear friend" who has been "a personal pastor to America's first family since as long as I can remember." He recounted having asked Graham to join Barbara and him in the White House on the night he launched the Gulf War, to pray that American soldiers and innocent Iraqis would be spared. (I have been told, though not by Graham himself, that he was not particularly pleased to be put in a position of apparently giving his blessing to the war.) Bush added that no president wants a war and assured us that "our president wants to try and find a peaceful solution to this latest conflict with Iraq if he can." He did not specifically mention the oft-noted role Graham played in bringing his son back from alcohol to the altar, but he did say, in a voice brimming with emotion, "Billy's ministry means an awful lot to this nation's forty-third president, believe me."
Next, George Beverly Shea, who started singing with Graham in 1943 and introduced "How Great Thou Art" to America, came to the microphone and sang "He Died for Me," accompanied by the five-thousand-voice choir that filled the sections behind the southwest end zone. At 93, Bev Shea's rich bass-baritone still rolls out over the audience like a warm blanket, but he volunteered, "I think I sang better when I was ninety-two."
When Shea finished, Billy Graham walked slowly to the pulpit, his son Franklin at his side in case he needed help, and the crowd on its feet, roaring its appreciation for the venerable patriarch. At first, his voice sounded phlegmy, and I suspect that had he not been standing in front of 37,000 people, his face clearly visible on five JumboTron screens, he could have dealt with the problem quite easily. In any case, before long he was sounding clear and strong, showing that the Parkinson's had not yet attacked his vocal cords. After thanking the president for his gracious words, Graham expressed pleasure at the number of denominations involved in the mission, with special mention of Roman Catholics, and told one of his small stock of old jokes. Then, these ritual elements out of the way, he turned to "the most familiar passage in all the Bible, John 3:16. 'For God so loved the world . . .'" As he has throughout his ministry, Graham cited evidence of a world in turmoil—Israel and Palestine, Iraq, the bombing in Bali, the Washington-area sniper, terrorism, greed, immorality, racism, prejudice, poverty—and proclaimed that the only cure for the sin-sickness giving rise to such troubles is a faithful response to the love God showed by sending his son to die for our sins. He said that one day we would all stand before the Great White Throne of Judgment, and everything we had ever done, said, or even thought would be projected on a giant screen similar to those positioned around Texas Stadium. He admitted that this was a frightening thought but reminded us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." That first night, 2,359 people (6.4 percent of an estimated 37,000) answered his call as the choir sang "Just as I Am."
The following evening's event was a washout for me—literally. Rain had fallen all day Friday, and when I tried to get to the stadium by a back road I had used the night before, I found it closed by flooding. I knew that trying to approach the stadium via the main routes at rush hour would mean at least an hour of inching along, followed by a wet trek from the parking lot and a long evening in driving rain. So, like the man in the Bible who found the cost of following Jesus too demanding, I "turned away sorrowful." But 34,000 hardier souls did show up, as did TV broadcaster Pat Summerall, who told of his recent return to religion. To a man who had once kicked a 49-yard field goal in a swirling snowstorm and won a long battle with the bottle, I guess a little rain was no real challenge.
THE ALL-TIME TEXAS STADIUM ATTENDANCE record set at the Saturday night youth extravaganza was short-lived. The Sunday crowd was conservatively estimated at 83,500, including 15,500 watching outside but not counting the thousands who had to be turned away. Doubtless, many shared a realistic conviction that this might be their last opportunity to see the world's most famous preacher in person. I considered that possibility myself as I visited with Graham at his hotel before the service. When my biography of Graham first appeared, he felt some understandable ambivalence about it, since I had tried to deal honestly with his shortcomings and occasional missteps as well as his virtues and numberless triumphs, rather than depict him as having descended from heaven on the back of a dove. A few of his associates still regard me with suspicion for this, but enough people have told him, as they have told me, that seeing him as a real person rather than a plaster saint has made them appreciate his accomplishments all the more. Now, on our occasional visits, he always thanks me for positive comments I have given the press, and he said that evening, with a smile, "I hope the Lord will forgive you for being too good to me." I thanked him once again for the opportunity he had given me, professionally and personally, then we talked a bit about our wives and progeny.
One question that had troubled Graham at the time my book appeared, that of who would succeed him as head of the ministry, has been settled. His son Franklin, now fifty, was named CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 2000 and has left no doubt that he is in charge. His most dramatic act has been the decision to move the association's headquarters from Minneapolis to Charlotte, where it will be housed in brand-new quarters along the Billy Graham Parkway, much closer to Samaritan's Purse, Franklin's own impressive social-service and disaster-relief ministry based in Boone, North Carolina. His impolitic statements about Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11—he described Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion"—have drawn fire from critics, as did his Trinitarian prayer at George W. Bush's inauguration (even though his father had prayed in a similar manner at previous inaugurations). Franklin not only refused to retract his words but has written a new book, The Name, in which he defends them at length. He seems untroubled by the criticism and his staunch advocacy of an exclusive Christianity has won the warm approbation of many evangelicals. Billy has declined to comment on Franklin's statements, but he professed to be delighted with the direction his son is taking the association, calling the transition "marvelous, wonderful."
Toward the end of our meeting, Graham invited me to come visit him in North Carolina, but I think we both knew that might not happen. Parkinson's, a shunt in his brain, and bouts with pneumonia have put him in the hospital for months at a time in the past three years. He can't drive, he can't write by hand with any ease, and recently he's developed a peculiar general numbness that doctors don't understand. He was worried that it might affect his preaching that night. Obviously, his weakening condition troubles him. A few months ago his daughter Ruth McIntyre told me of a recent visit in which her father had been watching an old video of himself preaching on Trinity Broadcasting, a Christian television network: "Daddy said, 'I watched myself. I wonder what it felt like to have that power. I don't have that power and strength now.'" She added, however, "I think he underestimates himself. There is a power in gentleness that is not in fire and brimstone."
Despite his doubts, Graham was indeed able to preach that evening, and it was a memorable night. His brother Melvin, a plainspoken, funny, and unpretentious farmer who wears a cap to cover a deep indentation left from brain surgery years ago, charmed the throng with pearls of rustic wisdom, stories of his famous brother, and his assertion that "I just want to be a nobody that's willing to tell everybody that there is Somebody who wants to save anybody." After a final song from Bev Shea, Graham came to the podium and thanked the local media and all those who had helped make the mission a success. Then, or so it seemed to me, he spent longer than usual praising Shea, Cliff Barrows, and others who had contributed so much to his ministry. It was not quite a farewell address, but if he had no other chances, it might do. "People ask me," he said, "'Is this your last crusade?' And I say to them, 'I don't know. That's in God's hands.'"
Later, as "inquirers" once again poured onto the field to stand in front of the craggy-faced, white-haired old preacher now sitting, head bowed, on a tall chair, I took what might be one last look at the man who had, for whatever reason, opened his life to me so generously sixteen years ago. I myself am frequently asked a question: "Who will be the next Billy Graham?" The answer, I think, is no one.
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