Billy Graham Out Draws Mets-Yankees Games

It was hotter than hell in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York over the week-end, but that didn’t seem to bother those who came to see America’s pastor. The Reverend Billy Graham turned up in one of the city’s lesser known green spaces to do what he always does, preach the Gospel. At 86, he is certain this is his last American performance, and most likely his last ever. Flawed though his is, the American evangelical movement will suffer a huge loss now that he is going.

Reverend Graham isn’t a saint, at least to hear him tell it. He has apologized without reservation for anti-Semitic remarks made in the past. Some with long memories recall his failure to call the Johnson and Nixon administrations on the carpet for Vietnam. And he himself maintains that he failed God and himself when he didn’t go to Selma, Alabama when Dr. King needed him. Yet, part of his message is that Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven, himself included – which makes him different from the Elmer Gantry type of Pharisee that has overrun America and who has more in common with the money changers and the Sanhedrin than with the Man from Nazareth.

The Reverend Graham is a showman, like all good public speakers, and as he has aged, the delivery has become more grandfatherly. He has always been less fire-and-brimstone than others in the Jesus business, and for that, he’s been more effective. “God loves you” is a message far more likely to make one stop and think than “God is disappointed with you and is going to send you to hell for all eternity.”

Unlike most evangelicals, he has kept on message. While it is certain that he has political opinions, he knows that his message is above politics, and that the separation of church and state exists not to keep God out of the nation’s councils but rather to keep Big Brother out of the church. He has assiduously avoided the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell approach to Christianity – what one might call the Bible and Ballot view. To Reverend Graham, the Bible is enough.

New York City remains the sin capital of the world for many, although Las Vegas surpassed it some time ago (and has far better weather). Yet in 1957, one of his Crusades (a word here which doesn’t mean an attack on Islam) was scheduled to last a couple of weeks ran 4 months at Madison Square Garden. This time, he has but three days because fluid on the brain, prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease prevent more. But as a measure of the man’s ability to bring people to God, the Mets-Yankees three game series at Yankees Stadium drew about 100,000 fewer people. Ever the good sport, the Reverend Graham asked all present Friday night to pray for both teams.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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