Mark's Notebook


	If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of him. - Thomas Carlyle

In Time of Turmoil, Graham Offers Soothing Words

New York Times

Saturday 20 November 2004, 1:40 pm
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

The Rev. Billy Graham spoke on Thursday at the 92,000-seat Rose Bowl, the beginning of a four-day crusade that organizers say is his 416th worldwide and his next-to-last.

It was 55 years ago that a young preacher drew thousands to his tent revival in the streets of Los Angeles.

Dr. Graham returned to Southern California this week an old man, shuffling along on a walker, having suffered a broken hip and a leg in the last year. He spoke for 30 minutes on Thursday evening at the 92,000-seat Rose Bowl, the beginning of a four-day crusade here that organizers say is his 416th worldwide and his next-to-last. Dr. Graham's final evangelical crusade, health permitting, is scheduled for June in New York City.

Dr. Graham's testimony was free of incendiary topics of the day like gay marriage, Islamic fundamentalism or the presidential election. He told The Los Angeles Times this week that though he phoned President Bush to congratulate him on his victory, he has not told anyone who he voted for.

People at the crusade said they were pleased that the idea of moral values had bubbled into the national debate, but they also said it was a mistake to think that Mr. Bush enjoyed their support simply because he is an anti-abortion Christian. Their concerns, they say, are like other Americans' and range from the economy to Iraq to self-sufficiency to sizing up a man who they believe means what he says.

The state of the American culture is alarming, many of the faithful said. The litany included the explosion of pornography and gambling, half-naked starlets on television, the dissolution of the traditional family, drugs, violence.

It is not so much that conservative Christians want to push their moral values on others, they said, as it is that they feel others are pushing their values upon them. The debate, to them, is whose values will be the voice in the public square.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/national/20graham.html?th