Word: grahamism
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...this day, the spotlight on Graham is so bright that spiritual gestures are taken as political statements. "I was distraught and offended when he spent the night in the White House before Bush launched Desert Storm," says Alan Neely, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. "I saw that as Graham giving his sanction for what was about to take place. I don't think that's the role of the Christian minister...
...recent years, there has come a curious reversal. Fundamentalist leaders who once shunned the political realm began to move forcefully into it, bearing a moral agenda for family values and school prayer, against abortion and gay rights. And Graham, in a sense, returned to the pure power of the pulpit, preaching as forcefully as ever of the need for moral renewal but without allying himself with the political activism of the religious right. "I can identify with them on theology, probably, in many areas," he says, "but in the political emphases they have, I don't, because...
Critics on the left are just as likely as those on the right to demand that he take a public stand. "I don't think you can save souls without working for justice," says Professor James Cone of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. "I hear Billy Graham as interested in saving souls of the poor but not interested in changing the conditions that create the poverty...
...social commentary has never been the core of Graham's mission. His ministry rests on the notion that if individuals are brought to God and their lives transformed, they in turn will go out and transform society. That priority, and even more his zeal for social orderliness, often kept Graham on the sidelines, particularly during the civil rights movement. Though he insisted on racially integrated seating at his revival meetings, Graham says Martin Luther King Jr. himself advised in a lengthy talk that "if you go to the streets, your people will desert you, and you won't have...
...Graham is intent on saving time for his family, time he rarely had for them when he was traveling at least half the year. Each day becomes precious. "It doesn't make me feel any different, turning 75, than when I turned 45," he muses. "But when I see pictures of my 19 grandchildren and four great- grandchildren, I know some time has passed. I let days like that slip by and try to forget it. I'm not looking backward. I'm looking to the future...