Interview with Billy Graham

Billy Graham is coming to New York this week. The New York Times had an interview with him(here). About current events, his comment was,

"I'm just going to preach the gospel and am not going to get off on all
these hot-button issues," he said when politics was broached again later. "If I
get on these other subjects, it divides the audience on an issue that is not the
issue I'm promoting. I'm just promoting the gospel. And after they come to
Christ, they hopefully come to a church where they will learn more about their
responsibility in society."

Isn't it amazing how one person's single-minded devotion to winning souls for Christ can impact millions of people? Another thought is, who led Billy Graham to Christ? It was Mordecai Ham. Who would have thought that a simple preacher in the USA would have such an impact. It is amazing how God can use people who are obedient.
Despite this, Billy Graham has some critics:

Leading the charge against Graham was none other than Reinhold Niebuhr, the venerable professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In an article for Life magazine, Niebuhr vigorously denounced Graham for presenting Jesus as the all-sufficient answer for man's ills. "Perhaps because these solutions are rather too simple in any age, but particularly so in a nuclear one with its great moral perplexities, such a message is not very convincing to anyone—Christian or not—who is aware of the continuing possibilities of good and evil in every advance of civilization, every discipline of culture, and every religious convention," Niebuhr wrote. "Graham offers Christian evangelism even less complicated answers than it has ever before provided."

Despite repeated requests by Graham, Niebuhr refused to meet with him. So Graham simply complimented Niebuhr and explained away their differences. "I have read nearly everything Mr. Niebuhr has written and I feel inadequate before his brilliant mind and learning," Graham told reporters. "Occasionally I get a glimmer of what he is talking about. . . . If I tried to preach as he writes, people would be so bewildered they would walk out." (Chrisitianity Today)

I think this is a model way for us to respond to criticism. A final quote from Billy Graham:

"When God gets ready to shake America, he may not take the Ph.D. and the D.D. God may choose a country boy … and I pray that he would!" (Christianity Today)