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The late Billy Graham

Montreat — The Reverend Billy Graham, dubbed “America’s Pastor” and the “Protestant Pope”, died on Wednesday at his North Carolina home at age 99 after achieving a level of influence and reach no other evangelist is likely ever to match.

As a young man, he practised his sermons by preaching to the alligators and birds in the swamp. At his height years later, he was bringing the word of God into living rooms around the globe via TV and dispensing spiritual counsel — and political advice — to US presidents. More than anyone else, the magnetic, Hollywood-handsome Graham built evangelicalism into a force that rivalled liberal Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in the US.

The North Carolina-born Graham transformed the tent revival into an event that filled football arenas, and reached the masses by making pioneering use of television in prosperous post-war America. By his final crusade in 2005, he had preached in person to more than 210 million people worldwide. All told, he was the most widely heard Christian evangelist in modern history.

“Graham is a major historical figure, not merely to American evangelicals, but to American Christianity in general,” said Bill Leonard, a professor at Wake Forest University Divinity School in North Carolina. Graham was “the closest thing to a national Protestant chaplain that the US has ever had”.

A tall figure with swept-back hair, blue eyes and a strong jaw, Graham was a commanding presence in the pulpit with a powerful baritone voice. His catchphrase: “The Bible says …”

Despite his international renown, he would be the first to say his message was not complex or unique. But he won over audiences with his friendliness, humility and unyielding religious conviction.

He had an especially strong influence on the religion and spirituality of American presidents, starting with Dwight Eisenhower. George W Bush credited Graham with helping him transform himself from carousing, hard-drinking oilman to born-again Christian family man.

His influence reached beyond the White House.

He delivered poignant remarks about the nation’s wounds in the aftermath of September 11 during a message from Washington National Cathedral three days after the attacks.

He met with boxer Muhammad Ali in 1979 to talk about religion. He showed up in hurricane-ravaged South Carolina in the 1980s and delivered impromptu sermons from the back of a pickup truck to weary storm victims. In the political arena, his organisation took out full-page ads in support of a ballot measure that would ban gay marriage. Critics blasted Graham on social media on Wednesday for his stance on gay rights.

Graham wasn’t always a polished presence in the pulpit.

After World War II, as an evangelist in the US and Europe with Youth for Christ, he was dubbed “the Preaching Windmill” for his arm-swinging and rapid-fire speech.

His first meeting with a US president, Harry Truman, was a disaster. Wearing a pastel suit and loud tie that he would later say made him look like a vaudeville performer, the preacher, unfamiliar with protocol, told reporters what he had discussed with Truman, then posed for photos. But those were early stumbles on his path to fame and influence. His first White House visit with Lyndon Johnson, scheduled to last only minutes, stretched to several hours.

He urged Gerald Ford to pardon Richard Nixon and supported Jimmy Carter on the SALT disarmament treaty. He stayed at the White House with George HW Bush on the eve of the first Persian Gulf War.His presidential ties proved problematic when his close friend Nixon resigned in the Watergate scandal in 1974, leaving Graham devastated, embarrassed and baffled. Later, tapes released in 2002 caught the preacher telling Nixon that Jews “don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country”.

Graham apologised, saying he didn’t recall ever having such feelings. He asked the Jewish community to consider his actions instead of his words. At the height of his career, he would be on the road for months at a time. The strain of so much preaching caused the already trim Graham to lose as much as 13kg by the time one of his crusades ended.

His wife, Ruth, mostly stayed behind at their mountainside home in Montreat to raise their five children: Franklin, Virginia (“Gigi”), Anne, Ruth and Nelson (“Ned”).

Ruth sometimes grew so lonely when Billy was travelling that she slept with his tweed jacket for comfort. But she said: “I’d rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man.” — AFP