God's Billy Pulpit

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Graham is determined to nurture his legacy, not only the people he has touched but the movement he has led. Evangelical Protestantism has triumphed over other, sugarcoated brands, not least because his sincerity and his probity protected his movement from the stain spread by the moral and financial disasters of other high-wattage clerics. New studies show that . Evangelical church bodies are the largest segment in American religion in active membership, and the most committed.

While Graham is confident that Evangelicalism is firmly embedded in the "mainline" churches, he has once again conquered the individuals, not the institutions. So he is counting on individuals to take up where he will one day leave off, sharing the good news. He has a list in his computer of 43,000 evangelists around the world, whom he visits when he travels or invites to training meetings. If he can inspire one preacher, who goes home and converts his family and neighbors, who in turn breathe new life into a gasping church, which shines new light on a lost city . . . who knows how far it may go?

But, Billy is asked, is he not the last of the big-time evangelists? "After D.L. Moody was finished, they said the same thing," the preacher says, "and after Billy Sunday they said the same thing, and after I'm finished they'll say the same thing. But God will raise up different ones who will do it far better than me." If so, that will truly be a miracle.