"Puff Graham..."

With those two simple words--"Puff Graham"--telegraphed to the editors of his vast newspaper holdings, publisher William Randolph Hearst, unwittingly launched the worldwide ministry of Billy Graham. Hearst heard Stuart Hamblen, an entertainer and one of radio's famous "singing cowboys," tell of his conversion on air, and was impressed.Who says God can't speak through the "mainstream media?" Hamblen, by the way, would go on to write a very popular Gospel song, "It Is No Secret, What God Can Do." Billy Graham would go on to become, well, Billy Graham, preaching to kings and princesses, presidents and popes, and even Bolsheviks behind the Iron Curtain.

Today, Wednesday, February 21, it was announced that Billy Graham had died at age 99. An NBC religion reporter described Graham as "an evangelical but not a fundamentalist." I believe that to be an accurate description of the man and his ministry, and this reporter went on to say that Graham's whole life and ministry hinged on a single verse of scripture: For God so loved the world that God sent the only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16) I think that assessment is right as well.

Graham would be the first person to say that he was far from perfect, just a person "saved" by his faith in Jesus Christ. He served as "pastor" to several U.S. presidents, and even got "burned" by getting too close to Richard Nixon as he was spiraling into the Watergate abyss, something Graham would later regret. I'm sure he didn't regret ministering to Nixon, but the few public statements he made in support of Nixon, politically, he did regret for the rest of his life.

Most of us over the age of "39" have friends and acquaintances who owe their Christian faith to hearing a Billy Graham sermon, in person or on TV, or to going to one of the "Billy Graham movies" like Time to Run, produced by his own Worldwide Pictures.  The message was always the same--no matter your situation, status in life, or how "far" you have fallen, "God loves you!" And by confessing faith in Jesus Christ, a person would be forgiven, redeemed, and gain the aid of God's Holy Spirit to put her or his life back together. Friends, that will preach. Graham didn't judge people, and didn't "grade" how strong their faith was. In the last three decades of his life, he refused to say that Christians had an "exclusive" lock on who gets into heaven, declaring that this judgment was beyond his pay grade.

Even with his shortcomings, I never lost respect for the man and his message. I have to confess that I'm greatly aggrieved by the filth, vitriol, and what I see as bad theology being spewed by one of his offspring, Franklin Graham, but on this, the father stayed largely silent. I guess a father always holds out hope for the redemption of his children.

OK, here's my Billy Graham "testimony," something that became popular as a result of his evangelical crusades. I grew up in a wonderful Methodist (became United Methodist in 1968 when I was in the 8th grade) church in a small town. I was active in the youth fellowship and was in church weekly--WEEKLY--with my family. I had made many "commitments" to Christ growing up, as ours was a church where people were urged to do that, and I was OK with it. However, years later, when I was a college freshman, I had a unique and very personal "encounter" with God in my dorm room, late one night. The "encounter," when I felt the presence of God like I never had before, and even deduced a "message" God had for my life (which would later gel into a "call to ministry"), left me curious, and more than a bit shaken the following morning. "Something" told me to go to the college library and look in the religious book section. At this particular non-sectarian school, the religious book section had about 5 volumes, and one was Billy Graham's Peace With God. Having made fun of Graham from time to time when my parents would watch one of his crusades on television, I felt it penitential to read his book now. I turned out to be exactly what I needed at that point in my freshly minted young adult faith experience. To this day, I recommend it to people. I think it's in its 1,000th printing, or something. Peace With God was just like the rest of Graham's message--simple, to the point ("God Loves You!"), and easy to digest. I have felt a special kinship to Billy Graham ever since, and from what I heard of media "testimonies" from religion editors and anchor-persons this morning, on the day of his death, I think millions of others did, too. They said that he preached to over 250 million people, but I bet with radio, TV, his books, and satellite TV globally, it was actually much more than that.

Would Billy Graham have become "Billy Graham" without Hearst's "Puff Graham"? Who knows. But it happened, and the farmer's son who always saw himself as just a "country preacher" would win the world, in more ways than one. The NBC reporter today related that Graham once told him in an interview that Jesus would be his "advocate"--literally lawyer--before God when, someday, he would stand before the Almighty. That reporter then said, "So, Dr. Graham is in court today." His case is already won. Remember, Yinz: God loves you!