CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ABP) — Three former presidents and a crowd of 1,500 gathered May 31 to dedicate the $27 million library and history complex created to honor Billy Graham, the most famous evangelist in the world.
Former President George H.W. Bush gave an emotional keynote address in which he commended Graham for starting a moral awakening in the United States and in the former U.S.S.R. Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter also attended the event, which became so heartfelt that Graham likened it to “attending my own funeral.”
“This building behind me is just a building,” Graham, 88, said. “It's an instrument, a tool for the gospel. The primary thing is the gospel of Christ.”
Graham was the first evangelist to preach behind the Iron Curtain, starting in Hungary in 1977. He eventually preached a total of four times in the Soviet Union and has preached in person to more than 210 million people around the world.
Graham has met every U.S. president since Harry Truman, and he certainly made an impression on the presidents who spoke at the library dedication.
Carter said Graham's message had “permeated the entire world,” and Clinton said he chose to attend the event “because of the public Billy Graham and because of the private Billy Graham.”
“When he prays with you in the Oval Office or upstairs at the White House, you feel he is praying for you, not for the president,” Clinton said. He said he attended crusades in 1959, 1971, 1989 and 2005.
“Billy has known me since 1985,” he said. “But I have known him for nearly 50 years.”
Graham has been ill in recent years. He has a condition known as fluid on the brain, as well as prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease. He and his wife, 86-year-old Ruth, who has osteoarthritis, are mostly confined to their home in Montreat, N.C.
The library campus, which opens to the public June 5, will include a dairy barn-styled library, reminiscent of his family's dairy farm, with a 40-foot glass cross as the entrance. Exhibits, multimedia displays and films trace Graham's life from his youth on the farm to his place in history as “America's pastor.” Admission will be free.
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