BOB ABERNETHY, host: At this weekend’s 53rd annual Grammy awards, the Recording Academy honors the best in the music industry. Among this year’s recipients is legendary gospel singer George Beverly Shea, who is receiving a lifetime achievement award. Beginning in 1947, Shea was the featured soloist at Billy Graham crusades. Last week, he turned 102. Kim Lawton spoke with him.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: At 102, George Beverly Shea still sings as often as he can. He says singing is an important part of his spiritual practice.

GEORGE BEVERLY SHEA: You know, you keep tuned up with the Lord when you love the songs that are written about Him.

LAWTON: Shea and his wife, Karlene, live in Montreat, North Carolina, near their longtime friend, Billy Graham. A Canadian pastor’s son, Shea says music was always part of his life. He was working at a Christian radio station in Chicago in the 1940s when his baritone voice caught Graham’s attention.

SHEA: Mr. Graham phoned me and then wrote me and asked me in 1947 to become a part of his team: “Sing a little quiet song before I speak.”

LAWTON: That began a relationship that has lasted more than 60 years. Shea sang at almost every Graham crusade. Shea says it was a privilege to be on the Graham team. He says his favorite part of the crusades was watching all the people stream forward after Graham gave the altar call.

SHEA: Your head is supposed to be bowed in prayer, but I like to say I peeked a little bit, and I saw those thousands of people all during those 63 years coming forward.

LAWTON: According to Guinness World Records, Shea has sung before more people than anyone else—an estimated combined live audience of 220 million people.

SHEA: They didn’t come to hear me. They came to hear Billy Graham.

LAWTON: During his 80-year career, Shea recorded more than 70 albums and wrote several popular worship songs. He was nominated 10 times for a Grammy and won in 1965. He’ll accept the Lifetime Achievement Award along with several other music greats, including Julie Andrews, Dolly Parton, and the Ramones.

SHEA: Someone said, “Why have you been doing this all these years?” I put my thumb up to the air toward heaven, and I said I’ve been doing it for Him.

LAWTON: Shea says his faith keeps him going, and he sees every day as a gift.

SHEA: I don’t know when heaven will loom up for me, but we have to look forward to it. I hope there will be an organ up there to play. Oh, boy, I love organ music.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

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Click here to view the original April 10, 2009 story and additional Wintley Phipps videos.

Pastor WINTLEY PHIPPS (singing at National Prayer Service, Washington National Cathedral):  “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound . . .”

KIM LAWTON:  Grammy-nominated Gospel singer Wintley Phipps is a familiar voice at big national events. At President Barack Obama’s National Prayer Service following his Inauguration, Phipps’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” brought the entire National Cathedral audience, including the new president and first lady, to their feet. But he says it’s just as meaningful to him when he sings in places like prisons.

Pastor  PHIPPS: There is a sense that you’re giving hope to people who really need it.

LAWTON:  For Phipps, who is also a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, music is a ministry and, he says, one of the deepest expressions of his Christian faith.

Pastor PHIPPS: Music is almost to me an echo of the sounds of the divine world, and when you hear these sounds, it stirs something deeply spiritual within you.  Music also is the most powerful way of impressing the human mind with hope.

LAWTON: Hope has been a hallmark not only of Phipps’s musical career, but in his charitable efforts as well.  In 1998, Phipps founded the Dream Academy, a national nonprofit for at-risk kids. Born in Trinidad, he says hope was crucial in overcoming his own at-risk childhood.

Pastor PHIPPS: I was born to a troubled home, and I used to get away from my parents’ troubles — I had a little red tricycle, and I’d go in the back yard of my house, and I would turn the tricycle on its side and use one of the backside wheels as a steering wheel, and I would sit there for hours, and I would dream that I was flying to faraway places in the world and meeting important people when I was six, seven years old, and then I wanted to be like Tom Jones.  I’d go around the house singing, “It’s not unusual to be loved.”  I just wanted to be Tom. But something was missing to me.

LAWTON: Despite a difficult family life, Phipps says his mother always prayed for him and told him that God had a special plan for his life.  As a teenager, Phipps embraced her faith as his own.

Pastor PHIPPS:  At the age of 16, God walked into my life and said, “I’ve seen your dreams. Give me your dreams, and I’ll let you see what I’ve been dreaming for you.”

Singing at National Prayer Service

LAWTON:  He attended an historically black Seventh-day Adventist college in Alabama, where he met Linda, now his wife of 32 years.  Then, Phipps says, God began providing opportunities for him to sing in national venues such as a 1984 appearance on “Saturday Night Live” with Jesse Jackson.  He came to the attention of Billy Graham’s team and became a frequent performer at the evangelist’s crusades.

Pastor PHIPPS (singing in Washington): “Talk about a child that do love Jesus.”

LAWTON: Phipps also became a favorite in Washington. He’s sung for every president since Ronald Reagan.

Pastor PHIPPS: I’ve never had a manager or never had an agent, and yet some of the most wonderful moments that a singer could ever dream of have happened to me, and I believe it’s providential.

LAWTON: The idea for the Dream Academy came after he got involved with a prison ministry.

Pastor PHIPPS: I did not know that so many young men in prison looked like my sons, and when I saw it I was shaken. One of every three young black men in America between the ages of 18 and 30 are in prison today or supervised by the court system either on probation or parole.

LAWTON: Phipps then learned that 60 percent of the young people who end up in prison are the children of prisoners. He wanted to break the cycle of intergenerational incarceration. The Dream Academy offers after-school mentoring and interactive academic tutoring to children of prisoners and kids falling behind at school.

Pastor PHIPPS: One of the most exciting things that can ever happen in a child’s life is to know that , “You mean God thinks about me?  Or God dreams about me?”  And he’s got a dream for my life?”  And when you catch a little glimpse of what that dream is, wow, it changes everything.

LAWTON:  Phipps has enlisted the support of some of his famous connections for the project.  One of his biggest benefactors is his longtime friend Oprah Winfrey.  The lesson of faith, he says, is that things aren’t always as they seem and that hardship can be overcome.  In these uncertain economic times, he’s released a new music DVD called “No Need to Fear.”

LAWTON:  It’s a theme he finds throughout the old spirituals that he often performs.

Pastor PHIPPS (singing): “Swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home . . .”

The Negro spiritual teaches us that you’re going come up rough sides of mountains, and you’re going to have difficulties.  But faith gives you that ability to weather any storm.

(singing): “I looked over Jordan and what did I see?”

LAWTON:  It’s the core theme as well for the song that has become his signature, “Amazing Grace.”  He finds great spiritual lessons in the history of the song.

Pastor PHIPPS:  A lot of people don’t realize that just about all Negro spirituals are written on the black notes of the piano, and they just keep recurring.  Probably the most famous white spiritual that’s built on this slave scale was written by a man by the name of John Newton who, before he became a Christian, used to be the captain of a slave ship and many believe heard this melody that sounds very much like a West African sorrow chant (hums “Amazing Grace”).  And it has a haunting, haunting, plaintive quality to it that reaches past your arrogance, past your pride, and it speaks to that part of you that’s in bondage, and we feel it. We feel it. It’s just one of the most amazing melodies in all of human history.

(performing “Amazing Grace” on stage): “To sing God’s praise than when we’ve  first begun. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Amen.”

LAWTON: Another lesson, he says, on how hope always triumphs. I’m Kim Lawton in Vero Beach, Florida.

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Pastor WINTLEY PHIPPS (singing at National Prayer Service, Washington National Cathedral):  “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound . . .”

KIM LAWTON:  Grammy-nominated Gospel singer Wintley Phipps is a familiar voice at big national events.  At President Barack Obama’s National Prayer Service following his Inauguration, Phipps’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” brought the entire National Cathedral audience, including the new president and first lady, to their feet. But he says it’s just as meaningful to him when he sings in places like prisons.

Pastor  PHIPPS:  There is a sense that you’re giving hope to people who really need it.

LAWTON:  For Phipps, who is also a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, music is a ministry and, he says, one of the deepest expressions of his Christian faith.

“I would dream that I was flying to faraway places in the world and meeting important people when I was six, seven years old”.

Pastor PHIPPS:  Music is almost to me an echo of the sounds of the divine world.  And when you hear these sounds, it stirs something deeply spiritual within you.  Music also is the most powerful way of impressing the human mind with hope.

LAWTON:  Hope has been a hallmark not only of Phipps’s musical career, but in his charitable efforts as well.  In 1998, Phipps founded the Dream Academy, a national nonprofit for at-risk kids.  Born in Trinidad, he says hope was crucial in overcoming his own at-risk childhood.

Pastor PHIPPS:  I was born to a troubled home, and I used to get away from my parents’ troubles — I had a little red tricycle, and I’d go in the back yard of my house and I would turn the tricycle on its side and use one of the backside wheels as a steering wheel, and I would sit there for hours, and I would dream that I was flying to faraway places in the world and meeting important people when I was six, seven years old.  And then I wanted to be like Tom Jones.  I’d go around the house singing “It’s not unusual to be loved.” I just wanted to be Tom. But something was missing to me.

LAWTON: Despite a difficult family life, Phipps says his mother always prayed for him and told him that God had a special plan for his life. As a teenager, Phipps embraced her faith as his own.

Pastor PHIPPS: At the age of 16, God walked into my life and said “I’ve seen your dreams. Give me your dreams, and I’ll let you see what I’ve been dreaming for you.”

LAWTON:  He attended an historically black Seventh-day Adventist college in Alabama, where he met Linda, now his wife of 32 years. Then, Phipps says, God began providing opportunities for him to sing in national venues such as a 1984 appearance on “Saturday Night Live” with Jesse Jackson. He came to the attention of Billy Graham’s team and became a frequent performer at the evangelist’s crusades.

Pastor PHIPPS (singing in Washington):  Talk about a child that do love Jesus.

One of the most exciting things that can ever happen in a child’s life is to know that “you mean God thinks about me, or God dreams about me?”

LAWTON: Phipps also became a favorite in Washington. He’s sung for every president since Ronald Reagan.

Pastor PHIPPS: I’ve never had a manager or never had an agent, and yet some of the most wonderful moments that a singer could ever dream of have happened to me, and I believe it’s providential.

LAWTON:  The idea for the Dream Academy came after he got involved with a prison ministry.

Pastor PHIPPS:  I did not know that so many young men in prison looked like my sons, and when I saw it I was shaken. One of every three young black men in America between the ages of 18 and 30 are in prison today or supervised by the court system either on probation or parole.

LAWTON:  Phipps then learned that 60 percent of the young people who end up in prison are the children of prisoners. He wanted to break the cycle of intergenerational incarceration.  The Dream Academy offers after-school mentoring and interactive academic tutoring to children of prisoners and kids falling behind at school.

Pastor PHIPPS: One of the most exciting things that can ever happen in a child’s life is to know that “you mean God thinks about me, or God dreams about me and he’s got a dream for my life?” And when you catch a little glimpse of what that dream is, wow, it changes everything.

LAWTON:  Phipps has enlisted the support of some of his famous connections for the project.  One of his biggest benefactors is his longtime friend Oprah Winfrey. The lesson of faith, he says, is that things aren’t always as they seem and that hardship can be overcome.  In these uncertain economic times, he’s released a new music DVD called “No Need to Fear.”  For Phipps, it ties back to the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus.

Pastor PHIPPS:  To know that I can put my faith in someone who walked out of a grave. The Easter message to me is a message of tremendous hope, and if we don’t have to fear death, what else is there that should cause us to fear? Nothing.

(singing at Easter event):  Arise my love.  Arise my love.  The grave no longer has a hold on you.

LAWTON:  It’s a theme he finds throughout the old spirituals that he often performs.

“A lot of people don’t realize that just about all Negro spirituals are written on the black notes of the piano.”

Pastor PHIPPS (singing):  Swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home . . .

The Negro spiritual teaches us that you’re going come up rough sides of mountains, and you’re going to have difficulties.  But faith gives you that ability to weather any storm.

(singing):  I looked over Jordan and what did I see?

LAWTON:  It’s the core theme as well for the song that has become his signature, “Amazing Grace.”  He finds great spiritual lessons in the history of the song.

Pastor PHIPPS:  A lot of people don’t realize that just about all Negro spirituals are written on the black notes of the piano, and they just keep recurring. Probably the most famous white spiritual that’s built on this slave scale was written by a man by the name of John Newton who, before he became a Christian, used to be the captain of a slave ship and many believe heard this melody that sounds very much like a West African sorrow chant (hums “Amazing Grace”). And it has a haunting, haunting plaintive quality to it that reaches past your arrogance, past your pride, and it speaks to that part of you that’s in bondage, and we feel it.  We feel it.  It’s just one of the most amazing melodies in all of human history.

(performing “Amazing Grace” on stage): To sing God’s praise than when we’ve  first begun. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Amen.

LAWTON: Another lesson, he says, on how hope always triumphs. I’m Kim Lawton in Vero Beach, Florida.

LUCKY SEVERSON, guest anchor: On Wednesday (March 8), President Bush toured the Gulf Coast and saw some of the faith-based relief work up close. Two other high-profile guests on the Gulf Coast this week were evangelist Billy Graham and his son Franklin. The two are holding a series of meetings in New Orleans called a “Celebration of Hope.” Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: Evangelists Billy and Franklin Graham said they wanted to bring some spiritual encouragement to the people of New Orleans. They came with an optimistic vision of a city that will emerge from its hardships stronger than ever.

Reverend BILLY GRAHAM (In Speech): New Orleans will become a center that people will look to for spiritual help in the days to come.

LAWTON: Still, Graham admitted he has been overwhelmed by the magnitude of the destruction.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (In Speech): I’m absolutely devastated at what I’ve felt and seen in the couple of days that I’ve been here.

LAWTON: Franklin Graham took his father on a tour of some of the worst-hit areas in the Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish. Nearby, workers were trying to repair one of the damaged levees. The Grahams saw neighborhoods that look much the same as they did six months ago.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (At Press Conference): There’s only one hope that I can see, and that’s through prayer and through Jesus Christ.

LAWTON: Franklin Graham’s ministry, Samaritan’s Purse, has been actively helping Katrina victims. They’ve given more than $38 million in aid.

Reverend FRANKLIN GRAHAM: I think the faith-based community, what they’ve been able to contribute is huge.

LAWTON: He said such efforts stand in sharp contrast to the inefficiency of many government agencies.

Rev. F. GRAHAM: The government still can’t give away trailers. It’s amazing to me that in Arkansas you have a field of mobile homes, and you have thousands of people right here who could use them. The pastors can put somebody in that trailer within weeks.

LAWTON: The Grahams made an effort to support local pastors, and at a special prayer meeting, many said the visit meant a lot.

Reverend JEFF WICKER (East Fort Baptist Church): I have some Catholic friends in the community, and I tell them Billy Graham represents our pope. He is who we look to. He is the leadership in the 20th century of the evangelical faith.

Reverend LOUIS HILLIARD (Community Bible Baptist Church): I believe that Brother Billy Graham still has that powerful influence, you know, because he can relate not only to the spiritual world but also the political world.

LAWTON: The 87-year-old evangelist appeared frail but showed flashes of his trademark sense of humor.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (In Speech): In those days, I would preach at least 50 minutes, maybe an hour and a half. No wonder we had a hard time filling the stadium!

LAWTON: He said he believes there are no answers as to why this tragedy happened.

Rev. B. GRAHAM (In Speech): God has allowed it. I don’t believe he sent it, but he allowed it for a reason and a purpose, and it may be to build a new New Orleans.

LAWTON: Given the ongoing situation in many of the neighborhoods here, local residents say messages of hope will be needed for a long time to come.

I’m Kim Lawton in New Orleans.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: A grand finale this weekend for evangelist Billy Graham, who is leading what he says will be his last U.S. crusade at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in New York City. The three-day meeting is his 417th. In a ministry spanning nearly 60 years, Graham has preached in person to more than 210 million people around the world. He says his age and poor health are now forcing him to bring the crusades to an end. Kim Lawton reports.

KIM LAWTON: In 1957, New York City played a key role in making the young and vigorous evangelist Billy Graham an international phenomenon. He preached at Madison Square Garden six nights a week for 16 weeks from May to September. More than two million people attended.

Today, the 86-year-old evangelist says he chose New York to finish off his nearly six decades of crusades.

Reverend BILLY GRAHAM: This will be the last in America, I’m sure. But we do have an invitation to go to London, and we’re praying about that and thinking about that.

LAWTON: Graham’s physical ailments make it difficult for him to preach. He suffers from Parkinson’s disease, fluid on the brain, a recently-broken pelvis and other problems.

WENDY MURRAY ZOBA (Writer-in-Residence, Gordon College): He’s aging as we all know, and there is some bittersweet aspect to watching this one-time towering giant more enfeebled. His message is still as robust as always, but it’s very obvious that his physical disposition and state is much diminished.

Rev. GRAHAM (preaching): But God is love. And God is grace and mercy.

LAWTON: Author Wendy Murray Zoba has written widely about the evangelical community. She says while Graham’s basic message hasn’t changed over the years, he has toned down much of his rhetoric.

Ms. ZOBA: He did start out with a very flamboyant, zealous, kind of in-your-face approach. But he quickly understood his role in a more circumspect way. He mellowed his approach to his public persona, and he truly became a unifier.

LAWTON: Graham admits there were times in his past when he got too politically involved, particularly during the Nixon era. He says he now avoids politics altogether.

Rev. GRAHAM: If I get up and talk about some political issue, it divides the audience. And what I want is a united audience to hear only the Gospel. There are many times that I went too far in talking about such issues, and I think this time I want to stick only to the Gospel.

LAWTON: This week, Graham told a packed news conference he’s very aware that he’s coming to the end of his ministry and his life.

Rev. GRAHAM: I’ve been asked so many times lately, do I fear death No, I look forward to death with great anticipation. I’m looking forward to seeing God face to face. And that could happen any day.

LAWTON: He says he has confidence in God for the future.

Rev. GRAHAM: The Bible says that Jesus is coming back to this earth. And someday he’s going to reign. And there’ll be no tears, no suffering, no death — a wonderful future. And I hope I’ll meet all of you there. And bring your camera, because I may have one too!

LAWTON: I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

Read Kim Lawton’s interview with Billy Graham biographer William Martin:

How significant is Billy Graham’s contribution to American evangelicalism?

I think it’s quite fair to say that that no one over the past 60 years has been more important to American evangelicalism than Billy Graham was. That he, when he first came on the scene in the early 1940s, it was a movement that was struggling, beleaguered. It had more power than many people thought, but after the Scopes trial, fundamentalism went into retreat, and it rebuilt itself between the two world wars. When it started to come out, there was a feeling that it might be something that was in the past. But Billy Graham, along with some other dynamic leaders, brought a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to evangelical Christianity through organizations, preeminently through Youth for Christ. [They] gave it fire, energy, optimism, vision, and then Billy Graham emerged from the pack as the outstanding representative of the movement. Through his crusades he gained national and international fame, but he did many other things besides that. He started CHRISTIANITY TODAY, which still is the flagship publication of evangelical Christianity, along with a number of other related publications under its umbrella. He organized international conferences that brought evangelical leaders from around the world together and helped them to develop this movement and to cooperate with each other and to enlarge the circle to include, for example, charismatics and Pentecostals, whom evangelicals had previously scorned. He went behind the Iron Curtain and made a more significant contribution, I think, than many people realize in breaking down the barriers to religious freedom in those areas through his own patient, polite way of working with the authorities rather than challenging them.

He has been criticized for that — that he wasn’t strong enough in speaking out against the Soviet Union.

At the time, when people criticized Billy Graham they said, “You are being used,” and he said, “I know we’re being used, but we’re also using them.” His approach in the former Soviet Union and the satellite states was to let people know that religious people are not a threat to the state: “There are more of them than there are communists. You do not want to oppress them. People in the West take religious freedom very seriously. You’re going to always have difficulty dealing with America, particularly if you oppress the religious rights of people.” Then, as his own freedom to preach and to publicize his meetings grew, he would tell the local people, “Now, you go to the ministers of religion here in charge of this and tell the state people in charge of religion, if you let an American Baptist do these things, surely you can let our own people do this.” Even people who criticized Mr. Graham at that time later acknowledged that his patience had played a role in encouraging a greater religious freedom. His role was more important there than many people believed. I truly believe that.

He has preached the same basic message for 50 years, but did his tone and style change?

Sure, his style changed greatly. If you look at some of the films and videos of his preaching, particularly in the late 1940s and on into the 1950s, he spoke at a rate that was gauged at something like 200 words a minute. He would walk a mile during his sermons, back and forth across the stage, with one of his assistants, Cliff Barrows, reeling in the microphone cord. And then the crucial change came in 1957 when he preached all summer in Madison Square Garden, packed the house pretty much every night for more than three months. ABC offered him a Saturday night slot to broadcast his crusade service live to the nation. For television, that style didn’t go over as well, and the medium reduced him down. He had to stay in one spot, and his oratorical style became cooler rather than hotter, as it had been previously. He became more conversational, as did the rhetorical style of politicians and others from that period. It’s a much more conversational sort of style than the revivalist oratory that was common earlier.

Did his theology mellow?

The theology changed somewhat, to be sure. He was much more of a literalist, or he actually went beyond the literal and would talk about what heaven would be like and what hell would be like — things that kept being brought up to him for the next 40 years. And he acknowledged that they embarrassed him somewhat. His theology always presented the basic invitation, the basic Christian message without going into the things that divided people. He was not interested in arguing about modes of baptism or things of that sort — things that divide many Christians. His great contribution, I think, was in bringing people together in a local area to cooperate with this general-purpose service without trimming his own message, but then leaving it up to churches to deepen and interpret that message in different kinds of ways.

That was problematic to many fundamentalist and evangelicals. Many people, many fundamentalists particularly, drew away from his ministry and refused to support it later because they thought he had become too liberal, too inclusive. He also showed, as he went along, as he traveled throughout the world, a greater appreciation for the strengths of other religions, even non-Christian religions.

How did he shape the perception evangelicals had of themselves?

Probably the first major impact that he had in that way was just the fact he was being given attention by TIME magazine, LIFE magazine, the Hearst newspapers, and then by pretty much everyone as a result of that. Here was a prominent young preacher of their own kind who was being paid attention to by the nation’s major media. That in itself provided a kind of legitimation. A second and perhaps ultimately even more important step was his association with the presidents — with Dwight Eisenhower, a little bit with John Kennedy, certainly with Lyndon Johnson, and most famously with Richard Nixon, but also with presidents since that. To think that one of our own, now the spokesman for our movement, the best known evangelical in the world, is also walking in the corridors of power, that he is friends with the most powerful men in the world, and he visits with powerful people of other kinds in other parts of the world — that again provided evangelicals themselves with a legitimation of their movement. In turn, of course, it provided those presidents with quite valuable legitimation, and they understood that — that to be associated with Billy Graham made them and their programs at least have the suspicion of being upright, righteous, perhaps even Christian, and that was a powerful help to them.

Read more of Kim Lawton’s interview about Billy Graham with journalist and author Wendy Murray Zoba, writer-in-residence at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts:

How meaningful is it to see this giant of evangelical Christianity still going strong at age 86, still doing these crusades that he’s been doing for almost 60 years?

Billy Graham is doing a remarkable thing, going back into the pulpit at this stage of his career. He’s aging, as we all know, and there is some bittersweet aspect to watching this one-time towering giant more enfeebled. His message is still as robust as always, but it’s very obvious that his physical disposition and state is much diminished from the young man who used to prance around on stage and wave his finger and wave his Bible.

Evangelicalism is at a very critical juncture right now. Billy Graham is one of the towering figures that forged a new definition of what evangelicalism is. That definition is changing even so. Perhaps his presence can lend a sense of stability not only to those who consider themselves evangelicals but also to those who are outside that community and are questioning and, in some cases, feeling some fear about the presence of evangelicals on the cultural landscape. So this is a very timely crusade. I’m not quite sure how people will respond to seeing an older man who’s struggling on so many levels in a physical way. As I said, it could be very poignant, bittersweet. But we all love Billy Graham. He’s an institution, not just for the evangelical community but for all of us as a nation. We kind of look to him as our nation’s pastor, in a way.

Speaking of changing views and definitions, there was a time when he created fear in some quarters because of his preaching in the early days. How has he himself evolved?

He did start out with a very flamboyant, zealous, kind of in-your-face approach. It didn’t take long to mellow him. For one thing, he’s married to Ruth Bell Graham, and she kind of let him know when he was doing a little too much prancing around up there. Billy Graham is a man with a very clear vision and a very decisive direction in terms of what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. He did start out with the white shoes and the fancy pants and all of that and did kind of evoke some strange reactions from people. But he quickly understood his role in a more circumspect way. He mellowed his approach to his public persona, and he truly became a unifier. He’s very much wanting to break down walls, did break down walls and, at the same time, forged a new definition of what it means to be a believing person who trusts in the authority of the Bible without necessarily having to abdicate character and having to abdicate intellectualism and abdicate a sound and gracious spirit. Billy Graham has encapsulated all of that, and he has evolved as a preacher, but his message has stayed the same. He’s learned some hard lessons in terms of the way he might relate to those, for example, in the political sphere. He has been friends with many presidents through many terms and has adapted accordingly. He made a little bit of a mistake in the coziness he reached with Richard Nixon, but he learned from that, and he’s very malleable in that way and that evokes, I think, a sense of confidence in people. They trust him.

Was it his style that changed and mellowed, or his beliefs, or just how he was portraying and speaking about those beliefs?

His style mellowed over the years. He was quite animated at the beginning. It’s the zealousness of youth, I believe. He recognized his gift as a young man and immediately started to exercise it. It started to be off-putting in some ways, the way that he would wave his Bible around. And his wife enabled him to understand that he would serve the ministry and serve himself to slow down and to be more measured and more mellow in the way that he gave his presentation.

His message hasn’t changed. That’s the wonderful thing about Billy Graham. It’s as clear as poetry, and it is a kind of poetry. And his spirit has only expanded and become more gracious, and he’s willing to invite anyone to have a discussion or conversation with him. No one feels threatened doing so with him because his spirit has always been very gracious and unifying. So whereas his presentation has mellowed and matured, which is really the natural course for any ministry leader, his message has remained largely the same. It’s very clear, it’s very simple, and it’s very to the point, and he delivers it in a way that people can receive. Not everyone believes it but, in any case, people can receive it in large part because they trust the integrity of the man behind the message.

Where does Billy Graham fit into the changing definitions of evangelicalism?

Billy Graham took the movement to where it is today. Billy Graham is one of the shapers of the evangelical movement as we know it today, although evangelicalism as it is currently being perceived and understood is a different kind of evangelicalism than Billy Graham himself was shaping. He came of age during the time when there was a lot of uncertainty on the cultural and religious landscape about the place of the Bible and the role of Bible-believing Christians. Billy Graham, along with other strong and visionary leaders of his generation, felt it was very important that Christians who believed in the authority of the Bible continue to engage culture, continue to be part of the landscape and the cultural conversation. This is where he and several other leaders of that era — I’m thinking of the 1940s and the 1950s — seized upon the opportunity to take the message forward in a new and dynamic way.

Evangelicalism as we know it today was, at its insemination in the mid-twentieth century, very much a forward-looking and culturally engaged and intellectually hungry kind of expression of belief in Scripture and belief in the gospel narrative. Billy Graham gave that definition. He gave that — a person people could look to as, for lack of a better way of putting it, “The Answer Man” for the questions people might have about this kind of thing. While on the one hand his message was very clear and very simple, on the other hand Billy Graham was very sophisticated and, in some ways, very savvy in his approach to ministry and public presentation of a very profound theological narrative. He brought people together. He was very much a part of the shaping of institutions that today remain leading institutions in evangelicalism, and he always wanted the movement to be culturally engaged.

That has brought us today to a place that probably at that time Billy Graham wasn’t anticipating. Evangelicalism has become so culturally engaged that many outside the movement and outside the believing community are beginning to feel threatened by the presence of this subgroup and their political action and some of the positions they’re taking on cultural matters, and it’s becoming divisive. That’s something Billy Graham never would want, and I know that if he had the strength and the ability, he would also be trying to redress that and continue his unifying ministry. But we’re going to have to look for new leadership for that.

Will the era of the big crusade and that message that he so popularized also go with him?

He seized upon the same model of Charles Finney in the Second Great Awakening, the crusade model, where the opportunity for people to make a confession of faith was staged, was orchestrated. Music prepared the spirit; the “waiting benches,” as they were called, were filled with people who had been prompted ahead of time to start the flow. It’s a very staged event, but that in no way diminishes the authenticity of those who make confessions of faith and whose lives are changed at these crusades. I can’t anticipate whether the crusade model is going to continue to be viable. Obviously, people come together in these large, massive crowds and respond very emotively. That’s evident in secular rock concerts and that kind of thing. Whether that’s the venue where people will have an experience with an authentic faith moment in their lives is yet to be determined. We’re dealing with a different landscape of belief; we’re dealing with a different generation; we’re dealing with a different place in our world’s history, and the believing community has to be flexible enough to perceive that and not try to put new wine into old wineskins. The age in which we live is demanding adaptation, and the evangelical community has to be elastic, has to be flexible, has to be willing to make some adaptations and some changes and find new ways of being relevant. In many ways, if we cleave to those old models, the movement will become irrelevant and will not touch the hearts of a seeking public [that], I think, really does hunger for some solid answers relating to who God is and if there is a God.

Billy Graham certainly adapted his crusade model, bringing in rock groups, media, all sorts of other experiences.

He did. He was very dynamic in that way, and it served its purpose. But I know for a fact that bringing in CCM — Contemporary Christian Music — and ramping up the noise level or the sound level of a crusade isn’t necessarily going to penetrate the depths of the hungering souls that are looking for answers. It might. But the trappings of the crusade aren’t going to be sufficient to carry this next generation into a place of belief. There have to be solid, authentic, interactive questions and answers about who God is and the kind of world we’re living in and where God fits in and what does it mean. Who is Jesus? What does it mean to follow Jesus? Formulas and platitudes and pat answers do not work for this day and age, and that’s very much part and parcel of the package of the crusade event. So there has to be some flexibility within the community as we face this new century, this new millennium, and the age in which we live.

What has he meant to you and others?

Billy Graham is the man of the moment, the man of twentieth-century evangelicalism. I can’t number the people who, in the course of my career as a journalist, have said to me, “Oh, I heard Billy Graham on the radio,” or “I saw Billy Graham at a crusade.” Billy Graham’s name comes up all the time. Billy Graham was very seminal in my own spiritual evolution. He was the man of our century in terms of defining what it means to be a Bible-believing Christian in a way that’s respectable and honorable, and we all owe him a great debt of gratitude.

You mentioned he has been the nation’s pastor. What has he meant to the nation as a whole?

Billy Graham was present at our nation’s critical moments. He was present when 9/11 happened. When presidents die, when presidents take office, Billy Graham is there. He became an institution, and a comforting kind of institution. It’s the integrity of the man behind the message that people resonated with, even people outside the camp that would be called evangelicals. He won people’s hearts because he was a unifier. He was authentic. He was a man we could trust. Especially today, people are so jaded about evangelicalism, and with some reason. Many leaders who have asserted themselves into public positions have proven themselves to be duplicitous. Therefore, to find someone who is solid as a rock the way Billy Graham has been — by no means perfect, by no means perfect, but he has been solid, and he has been true, and he has been unafraid. And that has won the confidence of the mainstream culture. People who believe in his message and people who might be dubious about his message nevertheless trust Billy Graham and take no offense that he is present at the critical moments of our nation’s various passages.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: On this edition of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, we want to explore the religious questions raised by last Tuesday’s attacks. For instance, how could anyone think his religion permitted taking thousands of innocent lives? And what would be a just response?

First, a look at the extensive, often under-reported role of religion in America’s first reactions to the tragedy.

President Bush declared Friday a Day of Prayer and Remembrance. He attended a special service at Washington’s National Cathedral that was led by several national religious leaders, including the Reverend Billy Graham. That was one of thousands of services of prayer and other religious events all over the country.

Kim Lawton has our special report on religious responses to the attacks.

KIM LAWTON: For many religious believers, Tuesday’s tragedy evoked a sense of almost apocalyptic horror. As the hours unfolded, people of faith across the country reached out in whatever way they could. In New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, many clergy rushed to the scenes of disaster, volunteering as chaplains and grief counselors.

Reverend Lloyd Prator, Rector at St. John’s in the Village Episcopal Church, offered his services in front of St. Vincent’s Hospital, where many of the World Trade Center victims were taken. He was on Seventh Avenue when he first saw the smoke.

REV. LLOYD PRATOR (St. John’s in the Village Church): And I went from there downtown to the hospital and stood on the street for seven and a half or eight hours, working with patients as they came in, giving them blessings and in one or two cases, giving them Last Rites as they died. I went over to their gurneys and they were covered with bloody sheets, and I said the commendation: “Depart oh Christian soul from this world.”

LAWTON: Along with horror and devastation, Prator says he also saw God.

REV. PRATOR: God was on those gurneys. God was in solidarity with those who were suffering. God was in the hands of those who administered intravenous fluids. God was in the hands of those who lay down and allowed their blood to be taken so that life could be preserved.

LAWTON: Religious groups also offered immediate practical assistance. Many opened their congregations as places of shelter. The Salvation Army and numerous other aid agencies set up stations in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, distributing emergency supplies to victims and refreshment to rescue workers.

For many Americans, the most compelling response was prayer. Just hours after the attacks, Roman Catholics in Washington spontaneously gathered at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Usually, only about 150 people come to the daily noon service. On Tuesday, more than 2,500 people were there, many students from nearby universities.

The Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington. He later learned that his nephew, a firefighter in New York, was missing. Six other cardinals and dozens of bishops from around the country were also at the service. They had been in Washington for a meeting.

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONY (Archdiocese of Los Angeles): There’s silence in our hearts because there’s inexpressible grief and lack of information. And so the only thing that we do is stream naturally toward a church, a place of spiritual strength.

LAWTON: Churches, mosques, and synagogues across the country opened their facilities for prayer and meditation. People came through the days and into the nights, praying for the victims and for the nation. There were scores of prayer services, both small and large. Many Jewish congregations sponsored special memorial services.

RABBI JEFFREY WOHLBERG (Adas Israel Congregation): I think religion helps us to face that which we don’t understand, that which overwhelms us, that which makes life hard. It helps us to gain an anchor. It gives us a kind of rudder to direct us, often when life seems rudderless.

LAWTON: Alongside the prayers, there were angry calls for vengeance.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Whoever did this, you will pay dearly to America.

LAWTON: Such sentiments concern American Muslims, particularly. They fear being demonized by other Americans looking for scapegoats. On Wednesday, leaders of several national Muslim organizations held a joint news conference to categorically condemn the attacks.

MR. KHALID TURAANI (American Muslims for Jerusalem): It is time for all Americans to come together, and those who are crazed, deranged, who would commit these acts, they commit these acts against all of us. And it is that time, particularly, that we need to stand together, not to allow those terrorists to divide us rather than unite us.

LAWTON: They also denied any connection between Islam and the violence.

MR. SALAM AL-MARAYATI (Muslim Public Affairs Council): This is a conflict involving terrorism. And terrorism has no place in any religion, be it Islam, Christianity, [or] Judaism. So we shouldn’t give any religious validity to this kind of maniacal behavior.

LAWTON: After the news conference, the Muslim leaders walked to a Red Cross Blood Bank to donate blood.

Since Tuesday, there have been reports of anti-Muslim harassment and vandalism, including an incident in Irving, Texas, where shots were fired into a mosque.

In a Virginia suburb of Washington, the Dar al-Hijrah mosque was among those receiving anonymous threats. Esam Omeish is vice-president of the mosque.

ESAM OMEISH (Dar al-Hijrah Mosque): We met actually urgently, immediately after the events, and one of the issues that we had to grapple with and make a decision about was, well, should we close the mosque or not? We were fearful of any backlash or rush to judgment that is accompanied by irresponsible acts. So we decided to suspend all activities, and we essentially said, “until further notice.”

LAWTON: The mosque is passing out T-shirts reading, “Islam teaches us tolerance and to be good to our neighbor.”

In the Jewish community, many say the images of terror and violence against the innocent have given American Jews a new feeling of empathy with Israel. Sundown Monday marks the beginning of the Jewish high holy days, the most sacred time of the year for Jews.

Rabbi Jeffrey Wohlberg says the events of this week have changed the sermon he was planning.

RABBI WOHLBERG: It was going to be about one theme, Israel, and the American Jewish relationship to the state of Israel. Now it’s not about Israel, Israel is a secondary element, but it’s about justice and righteousness and right. It’s about community, it’s going to be about what we believe in, and hopefully, those values will sustain us in the coming year.

LAWTON: Some leaders are deeply concerned about the impact of the tragedy on relations between religious communities.

REV. JIM WALLIS (Call to Renewal): We must not allow this terror to drive us away from being the people God has called us to be.

LAWTON: Many are organizing interfaith worship services, such as this large gathering in Washington on Thursday. Leaders of eight religious traditions prayed together and pledged their solidarity to one another and the nation. Many are counseling their congregations not to let anger and vengeance take hold.

CARDINAL BERNARD LAW (Archdiocese of Boston): It’s very, very important that we ourselves not become tragically victimized by this in a way that would turn us into any kind of a vengeful mob.

CARDINAL WILLIAM KEELER (Archdiocese of Baltimore): If they live by the principles of their religious faiths, that will help to contribute toward peace and reconciliation today. That’s what we have to remind our own people and our neighbors.

LAWTON: As the magnitude of the disaster continues to sink in, religious leaders plan more services, more sermons, more counseling sessions, and continuing prayer.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.