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William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr., KBE (born November 7, 1918) is an American evangelical Christian evangelist, ordained as a Southern Baptist minister, who rose to celebrity status in 1949 reaching a core constituency of middle-class, moderately conservative Protestants.〔Wacker (2009)〕 He held large indoor and outdoor rallies; sermons were broadcast on radio and television, some still being re-broadcast today. In his six decades of television, Graham is principally known for hosting the annual ''Billy Graham Crusades'', which he began in 1947, until he concluded in 2005. He also hosted the popular, ''Hour of Decision'', from 1950 to 1954, which would later be known as ''The Hour of Power'', which was the longest-running religious show on television. Graham was a spiritual adviser to several American presidents; he was particularly close to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson (who was considered to be one of Graham's closest friends)〔 and Richard Nixon. He insisted on integration for his revivals and crusades in 1953 and invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to preach jointly at a revival in New York City in 1957. Graham bailed King out of jail in the 1960s when King was arrested in demonstrations. He was also lifelong friends with another televangelist, Robert H. Schuller, whom Graham talked into doing his own television ministry in Garden Grove, California in 1970, from the Neutra Sanctuary, after Schuller visited him in 1969, at an Anaheim Convention Center for one of his crusades. Graham operates a variety of media and publishing outlets. According to his staff, more than 3.2 million people have responded to the invitation at Billy Graham Crusades to "accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior". As of 2008, Graham's estimated lifetime audience, including radio and television broadcasts, topped 2.2 billion. Because of his crusades, Graham has preached the gospel to more people in person than anyone in the history of Christianity.〔 Graham has repeatedly been on Gallup's list of most admired men and women. He has appeared on the list 55 times since 1955 (including 49 consecutive years), more than any other individual in the world.〔() Gallup.com list of admired people for the 20th century〕 Grant Wacker reports: :By the middle 1960s, he had become the "Great Legitimator". ...His presence conferred sanctity on events, authority on presidents, acceptability on wars, desirability on decency, () shame on indecency....By the middle 1970s, many deemed him "America's pastor".〔 ==Early life== William Franklin Graham, Jr. was born on November 7, 1918. He is the eldest of four children born to Morrow (née Coffey) (1892–1981) and William Franklin Graham, Sr. (1888–1962). Graham grew up on a family dairy farm, near Charlotte, North Carolina, with his two younger sisters and younger brother. In 1927, when he was eight years old, the family moved about from their white frame house to a newly-built red brick home.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Billy Graham's Childhood Home )〕 He was raised in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church by his parents and is of Scottish descent.〔James E. Kilgore, ''Billy Graham, The Preacher,'' Exposition Press, 1968〕〔David George Mullan, ''Narratives of the Religious Self in Early-Modern Scotland,'' Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2010, p27〕 Before this, in 1924, when Graham was only five, he focused on the outdoors, but rarely did he walk, as he was running and zooming, constantly. At the same time, he started as a student at the Sharon Grammar School.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=They Call Me Mother Graham Morrow Coffey Graham )〕 Starting to read books from an early age, Graham loved to read novels for boys, especially ''Tarzan''. Like Tarzan, he would hang on the trees, and gave the popular Tarzan yell, scaring both horses and drivers. According to his father, that yelling had led him to become a minister. In 1933, when he was fourteen, as Prohibition in the United States ended, Graham's father forced him and his sister Katherine to drink beer until they got sick, which created such an aversion that both avoided alcohol and drugs for the rest of their lives. After Graham was turned down for membership in a local youth group because he was "too worldly",〔 Albert McMakin, who worked on the Graham farm, persuaded him to go and see the evangelist Mordecai Ham.〔 According to his autobiography, Graham was converted in 1934, at age 16 during a series of revival meetings in Charlotte led by Ham.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Who led Billy Graham to Christ... )〕 After graduating from Sharon High School in May 1936, Graham attended Bob Jones College, then located in Cleveland, Tennessee. After one semester, he found it too legalistic in both coursework and rules.〔 At this time, he was influenced and inspired by Pastor Charley Young from Eastport Bible Church. He was almost expelled, but Bob Jones, Sr. warned him not to throw his life away: "At best, all you could amount to would be a poor country Baptist preacher somewhere out in the sticks.... You have a voice that pulls. God can use that voice of yours. He can use it mightily."〔 In 1937, Graham transferred to the Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College of Florida). (Today's Florida College is now located at that site in Temple Terrace, Florida.) In his autobiography, Graham wrote of receiving his "calling on the 18th green of the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club", which is immediately in front of today's Sutton Hall at Florida College. Reverend Billy Graham Memorial Park was established on the Hillsborough River directly east of the 18th green and across from where Graham often paddled a canoe to a small island in the river, where he would preach to the birds, alligators, and cypress stumps. Graham eventually graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois with a degree in anthropology in 1943.〔(Sociology and Anthropology Department ) – wheaton.edu〕 It was during his time at Wheaton that Graham decided to accept the Bible as the infallible word of God. Henrietta Mears of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood (Hollywood, California) was instrumental in helping Graham wrestle with the issue. He settled it at Forest Home Christian Camp (now called Forest Home Ministries) southeast of the Big Bear area in Southern California.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.californiality.com/2011/12/billy-grahams-california.html )〕 A memorial there marks the site of Graham's decision. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Billy Graham」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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