God's Billy Pulpit

After a lifetime of reshaping Protestantism, Billy Graham contemplates his final years and a legacy that has no sure successor

What is it in this man, in his urgent voice and eager eyes, in the message and the messenger, that overwhelms even those who are predisposed to distrust him? Long ago, Billy Graham gave up the shiny suits and technicolor ties of the brash young evangelist; the silver mane is thinner now, the step may falter a bit, he no longer prowls the stage like a lynx. In his preaching as well, the temperatures of hellfire have been reduced, the volume turned down. Graham knows he needs to save his strength: he is fighting Parkinson's disease, a progressive nervous disorder that...

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