Even In His Golden Years, Graham Draws A Crowd
BY MICHAEL MARTINEZ - Chicago Tribune
SOURCE: The Chicago Tribune / The Biloxi Sun Herald, MS
WWWeb: http://tinyurl.com/4jpca

Posted on Thu, Nov. 18, 2004

PASADENA, Calif. - (KRT) - The great American preacher came full
circle Thursday. Now white-haired and ailing, the Rev. Billy Graham
took to the pulpit again near the City of Angels, where his crusades
first gave him a national stage 55 years ago when the much younger
pastor pitched a tent in downtown Los Angeles.

With the once peripatetic evangelist now using a walker and battling
Parkinson's disease, a four-day gathering of the faithful began
Thursday evening in the Rose Bowl, an event with doubly emotional
significance: It surely is one of Graham's final crusades, and it
comes on the heels of a presidential election influenced by voters'
"moral values."

Not unlike the 84-year-old Pope John Paul II, the 86-year-old Graham
is a man of God widely believed to be in the final steps of his
earthly travels. A 1943 graduate of Wheaton College, Graham had to
postpone this week's visit from the summer because he broke his hip
and pelvis in two separate falls.

Just the chance to hear the fading voice of the famous preacher,
whose sermons are shorter now, was enough to draw thousands of
devotees to the 93,000-seat Rose Bowl. In the past 60 years, Graham
has held 416 crusades in which he extends "the Invitation" to his
audience to declare themselves for Christ.

While local television ads have urged followers to see him "one last
time," Graham told a local reporter this week that "if the Lord gives
me the strength here, it will be an indication" that he may be able
to preside over one more mammoth revival, in New York City next year.

In a local radio interview earlier in the day, Graham reiterated that
his message is an old one, "for people to get right with God," but
added he supported the latest movement urging more religion in public
life as an antidote to moral decay.

"Yes, I think it's a mistake when we take the Bible out of our
schools and God out of our pledge of allegiance," Graham said. A
supporter of the Vietnam War, he said of the Iraq War, "I stand back
of our troops."

In the open-air bowl stadium, the assembly carried an unmistakable
murmur about how the importance of moral values seems to be rising in
the country. Values were cited by 22 percent of voters in this
month's presidential election as the all-important issue.

Many worshipers at this event were delighted to see matters of faith
more openly embraced, but curiously, a good measure of the crowd was
skeptical, stating that voters' claims of being more religious can be
at odds with actions in their personal lives.

"Christians have been weak in this area in (exercising) their right
to vote, but in this election, people saw their right and privilege
to vote," said Rev. Phillip Lam, 69, pastor of Chinese Evangelical
Free Church in Monterrey Park, Calif.

Tommie Raney, 66, a retired railroad crane operator from Dougherty,
Calif., said a religious revival was clearly sweeping the land.

"And it's going to be more so even around the world," said Raney, who
was joined by his wife, Ruth, in praying in several sections of the
stadium prior to the Thursday night event on behalf of the attendees
to come.

But many attendees dismissed any political context for measuring a
country's religiosity.

"We don't need to say that because (President) Bush won, we now have
a 51 percent Christian nation. God runs on his own time, not on the
political calendar," said Rev. Sam Gamboa Jr., 45, pastor of Good
Shepherd Family Bible Church in Whittier, Calif.

Florine Oliver, 64, of Pasadena, said she wondered if many voters
citing moral values were serious enough to live in accordance with
their values. She said many of those voters probably cast their
ballots based on personalities of the candidates, using religion as a
pretext.

Merely citing religious values "doesn't have the impact of believing
and serving a living God," Oliver said. "You can tell if people show
their love and they will go the extra mile and won't turn you off
after three miles."

While Graham entered political frays early in his career, supporting
Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon to run for president, he says he
eschews national politics today. In an interview this week with the
Los Angeles Times, he said he is a friend of President Bush and
called to congratulate him on his re-election victory, "but I never
told anybody who I voted for."

Added spokesman A. Larry Ross: "Mr. Graham has said everywhere he
goes he finds an unprecedented search for meaning, some of it post-
9/11. Mr. Graham remains non-partisan. His gospel hasn't changed. He
often speaks to how the Bible speaks to personal and societal
problems."

In all, Graham, whose birthday was Nov. 7, has preached to more than
210 million people in more than 185 countries and territories, the
most devotees for whom anyone like him has preached the Gospel before
live audiences, his staff says. Since last year, he has held his
signature assemblies in San Diego, Oklahoma City and Kansas City,
where last month 155,000 people flocked to Arrowhead Stadium over
several days and 8,600 came forward to take Graham's invitation to
commit to Christ.

Graham began much of his ministry in Chicago in the mid-1940s, when,
after graduating from Wheaton College, he founded Christianity Today
magazine in the DuPage County seat and later served as pastor of
Western Springs Baptist Church. He held large revivals in Chicago in
1962 and 1971, but the L.A. area remains his most favored destination
- this weekend's events will mark his ninth crusade here.

In Pasadena, 20,000 volunteers and 1,400 churches representing 100
denominations have helped organized the $5.4 million crusade, whose
sermons will be translated into 26 languages, from Amharic to
Vietnamese, on 17,000 headsets, receivers and low-power radios in the
arena.

One follower, RedCloud Foster, 27, a prayer leader with Harvest Rock
Church in Pasadena who is part Apache Indian, said he and several
church members from across Los Angeles assembled at 6 a.m. every
weekday for the past nine months - "a full term, like giving birth to
a baby," he added - to pray in anticipation of Graham's arrival.

"He's in his twilight. A lot of people aren't coming for a sense of
Christianity but because of a sense of history," said Foster, who
likened Graham to the biblical Jacob on his deathbed. "That's what
could happen here: Rev. Billy Graham could pass a patriarchal
blessing upon the church and pass on the baton to the next
generation."

---

Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at
http://www.chicagotribune.com

SOURCE: The Chicago Tribune / The Biloxi Sun Herald, MS
WWWeb: http://tinyurl.com/4jpca

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