Sculpture of the late Rev Billy Graham unveiled at US Capitol

AP:

A bronze sculpture of the late Rev Billy Graham, the prolific evangelist also known as “America’s Pastor”, was unveiled at the US Capitol on Thursday, May 16.

Graham’s likeness, depicting the Charlotte-born minister with his archetypal gesture toward an open Bible in his hand, was revealed inside National Statuary Hall during a gathering attended by House Speaker Mike Johnson, Governor Roy Cooper, former Vice President Mike Pence, state congressional and legislative members and Graham’s family.

The 7-foot (2.13-meter) tall statue is one of two that North Carolina and each state get to place on display inside the hall or elsewhere in the Capitol to honour notables in their history. The process for Graham’s statue to replace one of North Carolina’s began nine years ago.

“Billy Graham finally takes his rightful place on these hallowed grounds of American democracy,” Johnson said at the dedication ceremony. As with other speakers, Johnson recalled the personal importance that Graham’s ministry of preaching the Christian gospel had on them and their families: “Billy Graham is such a towering figure in my life, and as he is in all of our lives.”

Graham, who lived most of his adult life in the mountain community of Montreat, died in 2018 at age 99. Graham was the most widely heard Christian evangelist in history, preaching in person to nearly 215 million people worldwide, according to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His last crusade meetings were held in New York in 2005.

An adviser of presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush, Graham influenced both the political and spiritual realm during his ministry career. As a symbol of that nexus, Graham’s body had lied in honor in the Capitol Rotunda after his death, marking just the fourth private citizen at that time to receive the distinction, the association said.

The Rev Franklin Graham, the evangelist’s son, said his father would have been uncomfortable with all of the attention had he been there Thursday, “because he would want the focus to be on the one that he preached. He’d want the focus to be on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

While not a social activist, Graham integrated his Southern crusades in 1953, a year before the Supreme Court’s school integration ruling. And he long refused to visit South Africa while its white regime insisted on racially segregated meetings. Graham said later in life he regretted that he didn’t battle for civil rights more forcefully.

“We acknowledge that he is a better representation of our state than the statue it replaces, which brought memories of a painful history of racism,” said Cooper, who recalled hearing Graham as a youth at a Raleigh stadium. “Not that Rev Graham was perfect. He would have been the first to tell us that.”

Graham helped build evangelicalism into a force in American life during the 20th century while forging powerful connections to Christian believers worldwide, including those in communist countries. His ministry was marked by the use of mass media, including a daily newspaper column, network radio and prime-time telecasts of his crusades.