As with most Saturday mornings, today i've sat down and read the paper. In particular the Independent (though zoe's mum also has a copy of today's telegraph (tory-graph) which i expect to cast my eye over this afternoon).
There are two great articles in today's independent, one on Billy Graham and the Last Crusade and one about the ministry of Jim Wallis, entitled 'The Moral Minority' (which unfortunately isn't on the web yet).
Both articles are good, but what is interesting is the comparison between the two. In the article about Graham, the event (evangelistic rally) and the personality (Billy Graham) become incredibly intertwined; in one paragraph the author is talking about Graham's health, the next he is talking about 200 million people that have heard him preach. And although the author doesn't make this parallel, the immanent death of Graham (his words not mine) therefore somehow seems to signify the end of this model of ministry (distant, authoritarian, white-middle-class, preacher man) and the crusade in New York represents one last push to crack what Graham considers the toughest nut.
In contrast the article about Wallis has a different feel, it seems altogether more hopeful. Whereas Graham seems to be dying down, Wallis just seems to be warming up... "When it comes to faith and values and politics, the monologue of the religious right is over and a new dialogue has just begun". He's not getting much attention from the White House but others are taking notice (he met Blair during his last trip to the states and is meeting everybody's favourite Gordon Brown this week) and his rising popularity in the States means that sooner or later this 'Moral Minority' is going to be too big to ignore.
Graham insists that he must preach the Gospel alone and never mixes religion and politics- he rejected an invitation to join Martin Luther King Jr on his historic rally in Washington DC, for example- but Wallis thinks the two are inseparable- "Martin Luther King did it best with the Bible in one hand, and the Constitution in the other". Interesting therefore that one article is so reminiscent and one is so hopeful...
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