[Magdalen] Church as Personality Billy Graham

[FCBasle at aol.com]

Jay
 
All I can say about Billy Graham is he has an  anointing. In the 1980's he 
came to Paris to speak and I went to a tent meeting  in Mulhouse (just 
outside Basle but on the French side). 
 
The tent must have taken 500 to 700 and his talk  was broadcast by 
satellite from Paris to Mulhouse and other cities in  France.
 
Well the sermon really wasn't anything to write  home about but when he 
gave an altar call, I thought I was in a cattle stampede.  Most of those in the 
tent flocked forward as a response to his  message.
 
Can I tell you another experience I heard of  concerning Billy and Ruth 
Graham. I hope you won't mind me lifting it from a  parish letter I wrote in 
2010
 
 
<Jesus  summed up the Laws of God very simply by telling us that we are to 
love the Lord  our God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. But - if you 
will pardon the  expression – “the devil is in the detail”. 
Reflecting  on this brought to mind an interview I witnessed at a 
conference called “Spring  Harvest at Work” in Sheffield in 1998. The  conference 
organisers sprang surprise speaker - an outcast in the Evangelical  community, 
Jim Baaker. Indeed he was such an outcast that they didn’t even dare  
advertise who the interviewee was until the day itself.  
Let  me just give you a little of the background to Baaker’s story: From 
1987 to  1990, the ministry of television evangelists (popularly referred to 
in the press  as “televangelists) was brought into disrepute by the 
revelation of a string of  frauds, mismanagement of funds and infidelities.  
The  first scandal to break and probably the most infamous - was that of 
Jim and  Tammy Baaker's PTL ministry. Jim Baaker had an affair with the church 
secretary  Jessica Hahn in 1980 and resigned in 1987, when it came to light 
that he had  paid her about $265,000 in blackmail money over the affair.   
Jerry  Falwell then took over PTL and it was soon found that the Baakers 
had pocketed  about $4.8 million from PLT funds for their own use 
fraudulently.   
Jim  Baaker was found guilty and received a long prison sentence (45 years 
but  reduced to 10 on appeal) and fined $500,000. When the scandal broke, 
Baaker's  Christian friends quickly deserted him and he became an outcast in 
the Christian  world.  And when he was sentenced,  his wife Tammy Faye left 
him and then divorced him.

That evening at  “Spring Harvest at Work”, Baaker told us a little known 
story of his time in  prison. 
Six  months into his sentence, he was surprised one afternoon when the 
prison  governor called him into his office. Baaker had a visitor: Billy Graham. 
When  Graham came in, Baaker asked him why he had come to visit because he 
knew that  any association with Baaker would tarnish Graham's reputation. 
Graham replied  that Baaker was his friend in good and in bad times and now 
when things were  bad, he would stand by his side. And Billy Graham was true 
to his  word.

When Baaker came out of prison on parole, he had nowhere to stay,  the 
Grahams took their friend in.  
On  the Sunday following Baaker's release, Ruth Graham took him to church 
with her.  Ignoring what people would think,  she stood up in church and 
introduced Jim Baaker to the congregation as  her friend, Jim Baaker.

Come to think of it isn’t that what the Gospel is  all about– that “while 
we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Rom  5:8)> 
You  can probably guess I have a great admiration for Billy Graham. 
Blessings 
Martin
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In a message dated 04/04/2015 18:26:52 GMT Daylight Time,  
jay.weigel at gmail.com writes:

I could  be wrong, but ISTM that it is more likely to happen in
non-eucharistic  churches where the focus is so much on preaching rather
than on liturgy.  Think about it....Schuller and Billy Graham both came from
these  traditions, and look where their offspring have got to.  Especially
Graham's. Franklin Graham gives me the  creeps.