Billy Graham, the Last Nonpartisan Evangelical?
It’s difficult to overstate the influence of the Rev. Billy Graham — who died at 99 in his Montreat, N.C., home on Wednesday — on American public life, and indeed the world, over the past century. It’s estimated that the globe-trotting preacher shared the Christian message with 215 million people in more than 185 countries, an effort that resulted in millions of conversions. Life magazine once listed him as one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century, and a Ladies’ Home Journal survey once ranked him as a top figure in “achievements in religion” — second only to God.