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Finally, though, unity became outdated. The evangelical population, although slower than the rest of the country to adopt the post-Vietnam adversarial spirit, caught up and produced a generation for whom, Noll says, "ideological combat has become de rigueur." The movement's energy, once generated by the fervor of Christian witness, appears now to flow more from the red-hot political engagement of such Christian Right warriors as broadcast executive Pat Robertson; Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, his protege; and the less renowned but perhaps more influential James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family. Weakening the Graham clout further is what many experts see as a decline in the popularity of arena evangelism as other mediums usurp its religious and social functions. Competition from television and megachurches, says biographer Martin, raises the question "as to whether people will still come to that kind of thing, absent an opportunity to see Billy Graham."
Musing further on these converging trends, Martin suggests diplomatically that "the movement has become sufficiently mature and multifaceted that no single person can dominate it in the way Franklin's father did. And it's not clear yet if Franklin has any desire for that kind of influence." In fact, Franklin has been relatively quiet about what he hopes to do with the ministry, bowing in part to Billy and in part to other board members. He will admit to wanting to reach out more to the inner city ("We're losing in this country to Islam") and to make the crusades' musical component less churchy and more accessible. (The Quick and the Dead, a Christian punk band, has played at one of his crusades, singing: "I'll dress like a woman. Bare my butt. But sometimes I wish I was me.") But his general approach, he says, is "You don't tinker with it if it ain't broke." He is actually a somewhat limited man, lacking Billy's curiosity about and respect for the intellectual and theological worlds, and for all his personal magnetism, he is uninterested in playing politics, even within the confines of evangelical gatherings. He offers little to contradict Martin's picture of a fairly conservative caretaker of his father's apparatus, unwilling and perhaps unable to push it back into the center of the zeitgeist. And yet no one else has his father's blessing. Says Billy: "Franklin is a leader. When he walks into a room, people sense his presence." Or, as the prodigal's father might have put it, "Bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us celebrate with a feast."
It is raining in Sydney, Australia, and Franklin Graham is nervous. Once he might have slugged back a Scotch; now a diet Coke will have to do. It is always tough being a stand-in, and worse still if you're substituting for a legend. In fact, when illness forced his father out of this series of revival meetings, the organizing committee in Sydney simply dissolved itself. Ultimately another group decided to take a chance on Franklin but moved the revival from a downtown venue that could have held 50,000 people to an open, grass amphitheater--no seats, just turf--with a capacity of just 15,000. Not that overcrowding will be a problem: only about 7,000 will show up in the rain. Nonetheless, the saving of even one soul is a triumph for Jesus. Graham says a quick prayer. Then he is onstage. Witnessing.