altar call

Billy Graham looks straight into the camera with the US Capitol building behind him.

PBS / American Experience: Billy Graham

THE TWO-HOUR PBS documentary Billy Graham ran as part of the “American Experience” series, but it could have been subtitled “An American Tragedy.”

The story Billy Graham tells is mostly one of triumph. A boy grows up on a North Carolina dairy farm, becomes the top Fuller Brush salesman in a two-state territory, then answers a call to preach. His crusades attract more than 200 million people and change hundreds of thousands of lives. However, like all the tragic heroes before him, Billy Graham had a flaw. It was neither lust nor greed, the nemeses of so many evangelists. Instead, as one of the commentators in the documentary tells us, Graham was drawn to power “like a moth to a flame.”

In the 1940s Graham led a movement that dragged evangelical Christianity out of the cultural backwoods and into the mainstream of postwar American life. Graham’s early years provide a road map of that movement as he went from ultra-sectarian Bob Jones University to Florida Bible Institute to Wheaton College. He worked as a staff preacher with Youth for Christ, then began a series of independent evangelistic crusades that started in a tent off Hollywood Boulevard in 1949 and culminated, in 1957, with a 16-week run at Madison Square Garden.

Rose Marie Berger 9-04-2014
Marchers at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Dec. 2009. Image cou

Marchers at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Dec. 2009. Image courtesy Ricardo Esplana Babor/shutterstock.com

Reuters reported today that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is starting his drum beat to gets heads of state to his emergency climate conference in New York at the end of the month.

“Ban wants heads of state at a Sept. 23 gathering in New York to outline how their countries will contribute to a mutual goal to contain rising temperatures," said Selwin Hart, the Barbadian diplomat helping to spearhead the conference. The final deal is due to be signed in Paris in 2015, according to Reuters.

This one-day, “leaders-only” Climate Summit is somewhat unprecedented. U.N. climate negotiation meetings are usually called by the executive secretary of the UN’s climate caucus (UNFCCC) and attended by directors of environmental agencies. Ki-moon is switching things up because, as we’ve learned, effective policy to reverse global warming is about economics, not science or technology.  

“You don’t control economic policy at national level if you’re an environment minister,” said Michael Jacobs, a former climate change advisor to the U.K. government.  

Jim Wallis 11-07-2011
A demonstrator at Sunday's anti-Keystone XL pipeline rally in Washington, D.C. P

A demonstrator at Sunday's anti-Keystone XL pipeline rally in Washington, D.C. Photo for Sojourners by Joan Bisset.

I always notice something when speaking to a mostly secular audience. Many people have been so hurt or rejected by the bad religion in which they were raised or have encountered elsewhere over the course of their lives, and, quite understandably, they are skeptical and wary of the faith community. But when someone looks like a faith leader (this is where the ecclesial robe helps ) and says things that are different from what they expect or are used to, their response is one of gratitude and the moment becomes an opportunity for healing.

After I spoke Sunday and joined the circle around the White House, person after person came up to me to express their thanks or simply to talk.

My favorite comment of the day came from a woman who quietly whispered in my ear, "You make me almost want to be a Christian."

Catherine Cuellar 11-12-2009

Residents of the Lone Star state are known as proud folk, but there are a few startling facts that should make everyone -- not just residents of the third-largest metropolitan area in the U.S.

Catherine Cuellar 11-11-2009

For those who came to the Justice Revival's free opening night program (featuring former United Methodist District Superintendent and Texas State House Rep. Dr.

Aaron Taylor 11-03-2009
Every three years, young evangelists from around the world gather in Portland Oregon to attend a conference put on by the Next Generation Alliance, an organization dedicated to mentoring the next g
Jim Wallis 11-02-2009
Last week, my wife Joy and I were front and center when Bill and Melinda Gates launched their new Living Proof campaign in Washington, D.C.
Jim Wallis 1-08-2009
Yesterday, the Presidential Inauguration Committee announced that the annual celebration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be an official part of the inauguration activities.
Jim Wallis 10-29-2008
I have had a simple prayer on my heart of late -- "God, break my heart for the things that break yours." This past Saturday and Sunday I spent the weekend with Pastor Mike Slaughter at Ginghamsbur