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(回答先: ビリー・グラハムと最後の聖戦[Independent] 投稿者 ネオファイト 日時 2005 年 6 月 27 日 14:03:57)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/nyregion/27graham.html?hp&ex=1119844800&en=a6ae17749411cb87&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Graham Ends Crusade in City Urging Repentance and Hope
By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: June 27, 2005
The Rev. Billy Graham, global ambassador for Christ and the most prominent American evangelist of the past century, concluded what might be his final American crusade yesterday with a sermon both apocalyptic and hopeful before a joyously polyglot throng in a New York City park.
On a hazy, sun-scorched afternoon, Mr. Graham, 86 years old and long in failing health, rallied his strength to mesmerize what his organization said were 90,000 people at the former World's Fair site at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. He used his own frailty to underscore the urgency of repentance, warning that the end - of a person's life, and of the world - may very well be imminent.
After thanking his 96-year-old musical associate, George Beverly Shea, Mr. Graham said: "I know that it won't be long before both of us are going to be in heaven. You know, Jesus said, 'Be ready, for in such an hour that you know not, the son of man comes.' In Amos, the fourth chapter, it says, 'Prepare to meet your God.' Are you prepared? Have you opened your heart to Jesus? Have you repented of your sins?"
But even as he dwelt on death, Mr. Graham, who seemed to gain strength over the three days of the campaign, held out the possibility of a crusade in London, where he has been invited, and of perhaps even returning to New York, where a marathon crusade at Madison Square Garden helped bring him to prominence 48 years ago.
"We hope to come back again someday," he said. "I was asked in an interview if this was our last crusade. I said, 'It probably is - in New York.' But I also said, 'I never say never.'
"Never is a bad word," he added, "because we never know."
More than 230,000 people attended the crusade over the three days, Graham officials said, adding to the 83 million who have seen him preach in person in his 417 crusades over the years. Yesterday, the rapt audience spread across 93 acres, filling a vast lawn ringed by London plane and linden trees and overflowing into three more sites where Mr. Graham's visage, rugged and worn but still startlingly handsome, spoke to them from enormous video screens.
The people came from around the city and therefore around the world, and in one section of the great lawn marked with signs on stakes, Mr. Graham's words were simultaneously translated into 13 languages - Polish and Cantonese, Vietnamese and Urdu, Portuguese and Arabic. The faithful clutched bottles of water against the heat and Bibles against more dire threats, which Mr. Graham reminded them of again and again as he retold the story of Noah.
"Almost everyone today understands that we're approaching a climactic moment in history," he said midway through his 25-minute sermon. "There's going to come an end to the world. Not the earth, but the world system in which we live, which the Bible calls 'of Satan.' "
He continued: "Jesus Christ said, as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the son of man be. When the situation in the world gets the way it was in Noah's day, you can look up and know that Jesus is close to coming."
The harsh words - delivered though they were in Mr. Graham's formal yet folksy North Carolina baritone, smooth as old whiskey - were a departure from Mr. Graham's sermons at the park on Friday and Saturday, which centered on Jesus' abiding love.
Mr. Graham freely admits he has been preaching the same two or three sermons for more than 60 years, changing only the topical references to keep them current. When he preached at Madison Square Garden in 1957, he spoke of the scourge of Communism. When he preached to a crowd of 250,000 in Central Park in 1991, he offered succor to a city ravaged by crack and crime.
Though several of the introductory speakers at yesterday's service made mention of the continuing wounds of 9/11, Mr. Graham did not mention the calamity. He simply cited a few national headlines - the disappearance of an 18-year-old Alabama girl in Aruba, the three children in New Jersey found dead in a car trunk last week - as evidence that end times are near.
"I believe today God is warning us," he said.
As he has for decades, Mr. Graham kept the focus on the Gospel and stayed entirely away from politics and the divisive issues of the day. He spoke not a word on stem cell research, or abortion, or gay marriage, or even homosexuality, though in the hours before he spoke, thousands of people were marching in the gay pride parade in Manhattan.
In recent years, as evangelism has grown as a political force in the United States, Mr. Graham has come to seem more and more a throwback. Though his savvy use of technology and mastery of marketing techniques have been embraced by the Pat Robertsons and the Jerry Falwells of the world, his peers as a preacher are men like the late Norman Vincent Peale.
"You won't see me identified with any of the so-called religious right," he told an interviewer in 1993. "I'm just neutral."
Mr. Graham's careful avoidance of controversy, along with his scrupulous avoidance of the fiscal and sex scandals that have brought down so many religious figures, help explain the durability of his appeal. Many in the crowd said they had found the simplicity and directness of his message deeply moving.
"Billy Graham has lasted so long because he seems to be true," said Walt Williams, a 23-year-old screenwriter from the East Village who said he has admired Mr. Graham since he read the preacher's autobiography as a teenager. "He's a soft-spoken man. In days when everything is so loud and biased, he talks to people in a loving way."
In recent years, as his health has declined, Mr. Graham has withdrawn from the spotlight, in favor of his son and the likely heir to the Graham franchise, Franklin Graham. The elder Graham suffers from hydrocephaly, or water on the brain, as well as prostate cancer. The effects of a broken hip and pelvis have left him reliant on a walker. He said in interviews this month that he found great inspiration in watching Pope John Paul II maintain his dignity even as his body withered.
But yesterday, as his longish white hair danced in a late-afternoon breeze, Mr. Graham looked as if he could preach again tomorrow. His voice was firm and even as he concluded his sermon, as he always does, by inviting audience members to come forward and give themselves to Christ to be born again.
"You come to this crusade expecting to live many more years, but you don't know," he said. "This may be the last day of your life. You never know. The Bible says today is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation."
For a few more minutes, Mr. Graham looked out over the crowd with a level gaze, his eyes narrowing, as hundreds, then several thousand people flowed toward the stage, to be welcomed and referred to local churches by volunteer counselors.
Then he put his sunglasses on, and, with the aid of his walker and his son, he slowly withdrew from the pulpit. Half an hour later, the expanse at the foot of the stage was still filled with new disciples.
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