Think what Jesus Christ could have done with television.
With the right uplinks, the Sermon on the Mount could have been beamed by satellite over the entire globe.
The problem would have been getting telecast approval from Rome and overcoming Jesus’ terrible demographics. The guy was a bleeding-heart advocate for the underclass and attracted the sleaziest of society’s outcasts, hardly a recipe for high ratings.
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Sorry, but these thoughts came to mind after an interview with Larry Ross, an aide to Rev. Billy Graham, a Wheaton native and, like Graham, a graduate of Wheaton College.
Ross called from Puerto Rico to talk about what’s billed as Graham’s “most ambitious crusade in more than 50 years of ministry.”
That’s saying something.
It seems beyond dispute that Graham has preached to more people than anyone in the history of Christianity. An estimated 180 million people in 180 countries have attended Graham’s crusades-110 million in person and 70 million at sites where his image was televised on large screens as he spoke. Add to that a TV audience of tens of millions.
On Tuesday, Graham, 76, began a five-night crusade at a baseball stadium in San Juan. Three services will be transmitted by satellite to 3,000 sites-auditoriums, stadiums, theaters and open fields, where 10 million are expected to gather in front of those huge TV screens, including 1 million Rwandan refugees at a UN camp in Zaire.
Ross: “Mr. Graham says this is not mass evangelism but personal evangelism on a mass scale. There will be choirs and trained counselors at all 3,000 sites. Each person who makes a commitment to Christ will be met by one of 1 million trained counselors.”
The 3,000 sites don’t include prisons, military bases and hospitals with satellite dishes. Ross: “Some Russian generals have asked for the satellite coordinates so they could pull down the feed for their troops. In Australia, the churches are showing the crusade in 200 pubs that already have dishes for sporting events.”
Later, the services will be broadcast on national TV networks in 117 countries to a potential audience of more than 1 billion.
Ross: “It’s one of the most complex technical efforts ever attempted worldwide, including the Olympics. We have 17 satellite pathways out of San Juan, and we’ll be transmitting five- and six-hour programs for 22 hours a day for three days in 116 languages.
“The programs are culturally specific. That is, we’ll wrap them with pre-produced inserts for a particular country or region.
“For two years we’ve had crews filming musicians around the world, using native scenery as a backdrop. Someone the audience knows will give testimonials-maybe a star soccer player in South America or a Nordic skiier in Scandinavia.”
Gestures that may be fine in one country but offensive in another will be scrutinized. Ross: “In India, the left hand is for bodily functions and the right for fellowship.” Most left-hand gestures will be edited out for India’s feed.
Besides the preaching, the feed features a training session on evangelism to be transferred to videotape for churches.
What Ross says is “the most extensive evangelistic mission in the history of the Christian Church” will cost $25 million: “That figures to 40 cents a person, and we’re financed by small donations. No corporations, no foundations, no deep pockets.”
While not all Christians subscribe to his conservative theology, most surely would agree that Graham has been an admirable, effective messenger of the Gospel.
His integrity is unassailable. His not-for-profit corporation issues scrupulous reports. His salary is $101,250, about what pastors of big churches receive. He takes no speaking fees or book royalties.
Untainted by scandal, he has no political organization or agenda.
Graham’s friend Charles Templeton, a fellow evangelist when both were young but whose doubts caused him to become a liberal Christian and then an agnostic, has said: “Billy Graham is the most honorable man I’ve ever met,” even though he thinks Graham committed “intellectual suicide” by refusing to question his fundamentalist beliefs.
On ABC’s “Prime Time Live” in 1992, Graham revealed what Templeton described as “a native humility that automatically makes people like him.”
Graham: “I’m always feeling I’m a failure. In my preaching and in my ministry . . . I don’t think anybody considers me an intellectual or a very smart man. I’m just an ordinary man. I feel more like a plowboy back on the farm today than I ever did.”
The former plowboy may be the most influential evangelist since the apostle Paul.
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In Chicago, Graham’s crusade will be at 8-9 p.m. Sunday on WPWR-Ch. 50.