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Influential evangelist Billy Graham has died at 99

By AFP

Added 21st February 2018 05:56 PM

Graham was a pioneer of “televangelism” to convert souls to Christianity as television got off the ground in the 1950s.

The Rev. Billy F. Graham speaks to the crowd on a rainy night at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on October 07, 2004.AFP PHOTO / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Larry W. Smith

Reverend Billy Graham, the influential Southern preacher who became a spiritual advisor to several US presidents and millions of Americans via their television sets, has died, his family said Wednesday. He was 99.

The one-time backwoods minister who eventually became the world’s foremost Christian evangelist, spread a message of spiritual redemption at tent and stadium revival meetings, in a career that spanned decades.

“Billy Graham is the closest thing to a national pope that we shall ever see,” journalist Garry Wills once wrote in The Washington Post.

The Southern Baptist preacher was close to the family of President George W. Bush, who once said that a private meeting with Graham in 1985 helped him quit drinking.

More recently his role as a sometime spiritual adviser to the young Queen Elizabeth II as she confronted the burdens of rule was featured in the Netflix mini-series “The Crown.”

Graham was a pioneer of “televangelism” to convert souls to Christianity as television got off the ground in the 1950s.

Born on November 7, 1918, he was raised as one of four children on a dairy farm in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Graham had a spiritual awakening in 1934 that changed the course of his life. He subsequently attended the Florida Bible Institute, now Trinity College of Florida, and was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1939.

In 1950, he founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in Minneapolis, Minnesota and launched a weekly “Hour of Decision” radio program.

Adviser to US presidents

His ministry led him to preach the gospel around the country — and the world.

Over the course of his career, he was consulted by presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. For a time he was Richard Nixon’s chaplain and golf partner. President George H.W. Bush invited him to pray at the White House in 1991 for guidance through the first long day of the Gulf War.

But of all the US leaders — almost all of whom have claimed to be practicing Christians — Graham found only Jimmy Carter to match him in dedication to his faith.

“Carter alone among the presidents … taught the Bible throughout his life, wrote books of religious meditations, and needed no help with Scripture or its challenges,” wrote authors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy in a Graham biography, “The Preacher and the Presidents” published in August 2007.

Graham also has been credited with helping hasten the end of segregation in his native south by refusing to preach to segregated audiences after 1953.

Graham and his wife Ruth Bell Graham — the daughter of a missionary surgeon who grew up in China — had five children.

These include Anne Graham Lotz, a Christian author and speaker, and two sons, who like their famous father became ministers.

One son, William Franklin Graham III is now the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

His wife Ruth, although married for nearly 64 years to the world’s most famous Baptist preacher, remained a lifelong Presbyterian. She died in June 2007 at the age of 87.

Seen as a comforting presence during times of crisis, Graham led a national prayer service for the September 11, 2001 attacks. He also presided at graveside services for president Lyndon Johnson in 1973 and spoke at Nixon’s funeral in 1994.

His participation in a record number of presidential inaugurations underscored his legendary political connections. He was the author of 31 books, most of which have been translated into several languages.

His most recent include “The Heaven Answer Book” (2012) and “Nearing Home” (2011).

“I belong to Christ”

While he never snagged the top spot, Graham was on Gallup’s list of most admired men more than any other — 55 times since 1955, the polling institute said in December 2011.

Among his many honors, he was presented with an honorary knighthood in 2001 and received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1996.

“My greatest comfort comes from knowing that I belong to Christ, and that no matter what happens, he will never leave me or forsake me. He will be with me as long as I’m on this Earth, and some day I will go to be with him in heaven forever. I look forward to that day,” he once told the Minneapolis Tribune.

Graham had his detractors: noted Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr challenged his preaching as far too simple and not reflecting the complexity of human existence.

And one-time associate Charles Templeton, a former evangelist turned atheist, wrote: “I disagree with him profoundly on his view of Christianity and think that much of what he says in the pulpit is puerile nonsense.”

But he added: “There is no feigning in him: he believes what he believes with an invincible innocence. He is the only mass evangelist I would trust.”

No other religious figure in America has had Graham’s impact. Through a newspaper column, he answered thousands of questions about spirituality.

Unlike other high-profile evangelists, Graham managed to escape sex and money scandals by keeping a meticulous watch over his staff and finances.

“My greatest fear is that I’ll do something that will bring disrepute on the Gospel of Christ before I go,” Graham said in a 1991 interview.

He suffered from a host of ailments late in life, including Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer. In 1995, weakened by illness and old age, he turned over operation of his ministry to his eldest son.

US presidents lead tributes to ‘America’s pastor’ Billy Graham

By AFP

Added 22nd February 2018 07:28 AM

“The GREAT Billy Graham is dead,” Trump tweeted. “There was nobody like him! He will be missed by Christians and all religions. A very special man.”

In this file photo taken on June 21, 2005 Evangelist Billy Graham takes questions at a press conference in New York.  AFP PHOTO / Timothy A. CLARY

US presidents from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump led the chorus of tributes Wednesday to the influential evangelist Billy Graham, a spiritual advisor to a dozen American leaders who has died at age 99. 

“The GREAT Billy Graham is dead,” Trump tweeted. “There was nobody like him! He will be missed by Christians and all religions. A very special man.”

Trump ordered American flags to be flow at half-staff at the White House and other US public buildings and facilities on the day of Graham’s interment.

Tall and handsome, Graham, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, cut a charismatic figure as an evangelical preacher whose huge tent meetings and rallies found audiences on radio and television.

“Billy Graham was America’s pastor,” said former president George H. W. Bush.f

“His faith in Christ and his totally honest evangelical spirit inspired people across the country and around the world. I think Billy touched the hearts of not only Christians, but people of all faiths, because he was such a good man.”

“I was privileged to have him as a personal friend,” Bush added. “He was a mentor to several of my children, including the former president of the United States. We will miss our good friend forever.”

The Southern Baptist preacher was close to the Bush family, and former president George W. Bush once said that a private meeting with Graham in 1985 helped him quit drinking.

While he preached to a long line of US presidents, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, according to his biographers Graham found only Carter to match him in dedication to his faith.

In a tribute, the former Democratic president spoke of Graham’s “enormous influence on my own spiritual life.”

“Tirelessly spreading a message of fellowship and hope, he shaped the spiritual lives of tens of millions of people worldwide,” Carter said.

Flowers are left by mourners at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina to pay respects hours after the announcement that Rev. Graham passed away in his home in Montreat, NC February 21, 2018. AFP PHOTO / Logan Cyrus for AFP / Logan Cyrus
“Broad-minded, forgiving, and humble in his treatment of others, he exemplified the life of Jesus Christ by constantly reaching out for opportunities to serve.”

“I was pleased to count Reverend Graham among my advisers and friends,” Carter said.

Obama said on Twitter that Graham was “a humble servant who prayed for so many — and who, with wisdom and grace, gave hope and guidance to generations of Americans.”

Bill Clinton, the former Arkansas governor who became president in 1993, said “I will never forget the first time I saw him, 60 years ago in Little Rock, during the school integration struggle. He filled a football stadium with a fully integrated audience, reminding them that we all come before God as equals, both in our imperfection and our absolute claim to amazing grace.”

“Later as governor, in the White House, and afterward, I saw him live that faith fully in the constant kindness, encouragement, and counsel he extended to Hillary and me,” Clinton said.

Graham was recently portrayed as a spiritual adviser to the young Queen Elizabeth II in the recent Netflix television series “The Crown.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the world’s Anglicans, said Graham “stood as an exemplar to generation upon generation of modern Christians.”

“When it comes to a living and lasting influence upon the worldwide church he can have few equals: for he introduced person after person to Jesus Christ.

“There are countless numbers who began their journey of faith because of Dr Graham,” Welby said. “The debt owed by the global church to him is immeasurable and inexpressible.”