The Unofficial Billy Graham Blog
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on February 24, 2009
“Few people of our day are more committed to using their celebrity for the cause of the poor around the world than my friend Bono.”
-Billy Graham
(endorsement for the book On the Move, which features Bono’s speech at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast)
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on February 10, 2009
In 2002 Bono, the frontman for the rock band U2, visited the Grahams in their Montreat, N.C., home. Decision magazine published a photo of Bono reading poetry to an ailing Ruth Bell Graham. He presented her with that book of poetry, a volume by poet laureate Seamus Heaney, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
It seems that Bono wrote a poem of his own inside that book. The book is now on display at the Billy Graham Library and thanks to a visitor’s review we can see the first line of that poem:
“The journey from Father to friend is all paternal loves end. It was sung in my teenage ears in the voice of a preacher loudly soft on my tears.”
Bono has joined a cast of other celebrities in expressing thanks to Billy Graham. As an added Billy Graham-Bono connection, there are pictures of Billy Graham, Bono and Franklin Graham taken that day during Bono’s 2002 visit. To my knowledge, those photos have never been made publicly available.
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on February 5, 2009
On Monday longtime Billy Graham soloist George Beverly Shea celebrated his 100th birthday. More than 250 people came to The Cove retreat center in Ashville, N.C., for the private party.
“I couldn’t have had a ministry without him,” Billy Graham said, too frail to hold the microphone himself. “Thank you and God be with you. I love you.”
Shea was presented with a Rodgers organ as a gift, which he tried out for the crowd, though the organ is more of a loaner. Franklin Graham noted that Shea can keep it as long as he lives. After his death it will be donated to the Angola State Penitentiary.
Billy Graham’s public appearance might give some measure of credibility to speculation that he’ll travel to Minneapolis later this year to attend a dedication at Northwestern College, where he served as president in the 1940s.
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 26, 2009
George Beverly Shea has been singing solos at Billy Graham crusades for nearly 60 years and on February 1, 2009 he’ll celebrate his 100th birthday. There’s a private party planned for Shea at the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove and a concert scheduled for March 28 that will likely be televised sometime in May.
Billy Graham first recruited Shea in 1944 to appear on his new radio show “Songs in the Night.”
“Bev was the very first person I asked to join me in evangelism,” Graham said. “He was well known in the Midwest, but at the same time he was humble … It was God who brought us together. [Shea's] rich, bass baritone voice has touched the hearts of millions in our Crusades … I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him utter an unkind or critical word about anyone.”
Christian publisher Ambassador International is also collecting birthday wishes for Shea as a part of promotions for their upcoming biography, George Beverly Shea: Tell Me the Story.
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 16, 2009
There are plenty of stories about Billy Graham interacting with presidents. He’s had personal encounters with every president going back to Harry Truman, detailed in the book The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House. But two of my favorite details involve Graham going for a swim. The first, and best, has to be the minor mention that Billy Graham went skinny-dipping with President Lyndon Johnson:
“After a visit in the Oval Office, Johnson proposed a swim in the White House pool. That no one had brought a bathing suit was no deterrent; in years to come the president would often interrupt meetings to suggest and swim and needle anyone who was reluctant to strip naked and dive in a baptism in intimacy.”
A TIME magazine article described it as “an encounter that included both prayer and skinny-dipping in the White House pool.”
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