c. 2006 Religion News Service

MOBILE, Ala. _ Franklin Graham should have parked his dirt bike when he had the chance.

“I’m praying that the Lord will do something to get your attention _ break your leg or put you in the hospital,” Ruth Graham told her son, who was skipping church to enter Sunday races. “I have prayed, `Lord, don’t kill him, but do whatever it takes to get his attention.”’

A few weeks later, he recalls in his autobiography, he broke his foot.

A few years after that, he knelt in a Jerusalem hotel room and asked God into his life.

The self-proclaimed rebel son of Billy and Ruth Graham talked about his life in late April prior to conducting a festival here. He said he wanted to bring a message of hope and “light at the end of the tunnel” for the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

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Graham’s relief agency, Samaritan’s Purse, has raised $38 million for hurricane victims and has helped repair homes for 7,700 families in five states.

Graham also thinks people want the truth, a belief that’s garnered him a reputation for being outspoken. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Graham told NBC News: “The God of Islam is not the same God. He’s not the Son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It’s a different God, and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion.”

He recently told ABC’s Nightline that he hadn’t changed those views, and the subject is one that Graham said he’d prefer not to address. But Graham, who now leads both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, is compelled to speak when particular topics arise.

“I feel that as a minister of the gospel I have to speak the truth,” he said.

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(This interview has been edited for content and clarity.)

Q: In your autobiography you wrote that you weren’t quick to embrace the call you sensed to evangelistic preaching, that you wanted someone else to be the messenger. Why?

A: I didn’t want to be in a position where I was compared to my father because who can beat Billy Graham? Who can match Billy Graham? I certainly can’t.

He’s an individual that God has called in a very special way. But at the same time I realized God had called me to preach and if I was going to sit around being concerned all the time what people thought, then I was never going to get anywhere. I just finally had to decide if this is something God’s called me to do, I just need to do it, and do it unto God _ not to Billy Graham _ and do the best that I can to tell men and women about a loving God who gave his son for the sins of this world, and a loving God that if we confess and repent and turn from our sins, who will forgive us of our sins.

Q: Many speak of the multitude of ways in which the gospel can be presented. And you try to do so through your festivals as well as through your work with Samaritan’s Purse. How would you compare the two in terms of effectiveness _ and do you have a preference for one ministry over the other?

A: I don’t have a preference. I enjoy preaching, that’s for sure. … What makes Samaritan’s Purse unique is our spiritual focus. It’s not just humanitarian. But we realize that when we go into people’s communities and homes, these are people, these are human beings that God loves. And maybe a lot of people are wondering: Does God love me? … Is God judging me? Have I done something to make him angry? Why did he take my home from me?

Q: How do you respond to those questions?

A: First of all, I don’t blame God. I don’t think it was God’s desire. But we have to understand that there is evil in this world. There is a devil in this world. And he wants to destroy. He wants to destroy life. He wants to destroy our marriages. He wants to destroy everything that we have. And remember, you go up and down that coast, there were churches destroyed. I mean, does God want to destroy his churches? Maybe some of them, I don’t know.

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But there are some good people, wonderful people, that lost everything and lost life, lost family members. … I think sometimes when storms like this happen there’s maybe an evil force behind it. And I don’t think we have to say, `God did it’ or `this is an act of God.’ Insurance companies get out of paying because they say it’s an act of God. God gets blamed for a lot of stuff.

But I think through the storm God can speak to us. And I think when we come through the other side of it, I think God has a message that he wants to share with us and that’s that he loves us and that he cares for us and that in the middle of those storms in life, he’s still there. He hasn’t left us.

Q: What do you see as some of the most ignored hot spots in the world today?

A: Poverty in the world is huge. And we are so wealthy. I really believe that we … as a nation need to address this issue more and more and more. … Our poor in this country have a fairly high standard compared to the rest of the world who live in grass huts, who won’t even get one meal a day, who are facing starvation.

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Q: In what ways would you most like to emulate your father?

A: My father has always been very transparent and he’s always had high ethical, moral business standards in his ministry, and I want to do exactly the same thing. … Because we represent the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and I just think that those kinds of standards can never be too high for an organization.

Q: How are your parents doing?

A: They’re doing pretty good. My father was with me in New Orleans. I was trying to get him to come down to Mobile and preach one night, but … he just felt he was doing too much; he needed to stay with my mother.

Q: You’ve written about your father’s ability not to “get sucked into any political issues” and your admiration for his ability to take any reporter’s question and turn it around to focus on Christ. But you’re known for being outspoken, and most recently for your views about Islam. Are there times and situations in which you feel compelled to take stands that some may find anything from politically incorrect to incendiary?

A: I think people want the truth, OK. And I feel that as a minister of the gospel I have to speak the truth. … Many people in your line of work are not interested in truth. Many are interested in political correctness. They’re more interested in a certain political agenda, a certain moral issue. I have to tell the truth.

If somebody asks me about what I think about gay marriages, well, it’s a sin against God. I mean, homosexuality is a sin. Now, I’m not attacking gay people. I’m not after them. It’s just, I’ve got to tell the truth. It’s a sin against God. When we read the Scriptures, homosexuality is a sin.

Now sex outside of marriage, between a man and a woman, any type of sexual relationship outside the marriage really is a sin against God. I have to tell the truth. So I’m not going after the adulterer or the sinner. But I have to be honest and tell them what their position is before God. And now a lot of them don’t like hearing it. … I just feel that I have to speak the truth when I’m asked these questions.

Q: If you never had to answer another question about a particular topic, what would it be?

A: I think this thing over Islam, because it’s crazy. … I don’t have an agenda against Islam. … I don’t go around and give speeches on Islam. I don’t do that. That’s not what God has called me to do. But I think after 9-11 this country has been confused about Islam. I think they’re still confused over Islam. And you have some people saying it’s a peaceful religion, and then we see things on television that just horrify us. And so there’s a lot of confusion over it. And I think most people today have probably made up their own minds what they think about it.

Q: How, given your own history, have you sought to make your children comfortable “being Graham?”

A: Don’t worry about me or their grandparents, but find out what God’s calling them to do and do it and do it as unto the Lord.

KRE/JL END CAMPBELL

(Kristen Campbell covers religion for the Mobile Press-Register)