WASHINGTON
Reverend
Billy Graham, the influential Southern preacher who became a spiritual
adviser to several US presidents and millions of Americans via their
television sets, died Wednesday.
He was 99.
CAREER
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.
"The
GREAT Billy Graham is dead," President Donald Trump tweeted in tribute.
"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.
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 he was portrayed in the Netflix drama series "The Crown" as giving counsel to the young Queen Elizabeth II as she confronted the burdens of rule.
'NATIONAL POPE'
"Billy Graham is the closest thing to a national pope that we shall ever see," journalist Garry Wills once wrote in The Washington Post.
His death was confirmed by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the religious organisation headed by his son.
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.
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.
JIMMY CARTER
But
of all the US leaders — almost all of whom have described themselves as
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, now headquartered in Charlotte, North
Carolina.
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.
TOP SPOT
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).
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 honours, 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.
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