BILLY GRAHAM

Billy Graham is a man of integrity, and during his life-time probably spoke face-to-face with more people than anyone in human history. His faith and ideas may be simplistic in some ways, but his essential message - that we need God's love and salvation and 'cleansing from our sins' - is the essence of what Christianity is all about...

Here some of his friends, especially Bono, pay their tribute to this great man:



Now my theology is a bit more 'progressive' than Billy Graham's, so what should I do with that?

Colin Morris, a modern prophet (and, incidentally, past President of the United Church of Zambia), in his challenging book Include Me Out: Confessions of an Ecclesiastical Coward says it well: 'Let it be so much as whispered that Billy Graham is en route for Britain to conduct evangelistic meetings and some of the best brains in the Church mobilize themselves to do a demolition job on him... A Church which can afford to pour that much energy down the sewer has too much time on its hands. And in the polluted atmosphere of clever malice that hangs over the Church at such a time, our claim to offer a Gospel of Reconciliation rings as hollow as the sales-pitch of a bald-headed man selling hair-restorer.'

Billy Graham made mistakes, and was willing to admit them. He had a too-conservative view of social justice issues early in his ministry, and started to agree with Jesus (! - see Matthew 23:23, Luke 11:42) later on. He had an appalling and very unChristain conversation with Nixon, for which he apologised when the tapes were released. And he once claimed AIDS was some judgement from God, which he also recanted.

Here's an interesting interview in two parts Woodly Allen did with Billy Graham:





More to come... including a tribute to Ruth Bell Graham elsewhere on this Blog