Pilgrim's Progress

Belief in mystery is crucial to the Gospel Graham has preached for so long--a Gospel centered on the story that, for reasons unknown to the human mind, God chose to effect salvation through the execution and resurrection of his son. "As time went on, I began to realize the love of God for everybody, all over the world," he says. "And in his death on the cross, some mysterious thing happened between God and the Son that we don't understand. But there he was, alone, taking on the sins of the world."

Despite Graham's physical difficulties--walking uneasily, hearing poorly, tiring quickly--he felt called to come to New York to preach one last great crusade in the summer of 2005. In interview after interview, he underscored that he was going to discuss only the Gospel--a public hint that the man who had not shied away from the arena in past years had rethought his role. "I think the Lord led me in that decision, and that's where I am now," he says. "I spend more time on the love of God than I used to." He pauses, and, alluding to more politically active conservative ministers, adds: "But I have tried to maintain friendships with all these people."

One of those people is Jerry Falwell, who called on Graham after New York. They sat together in Graham's kitchen and discussed the distinction between an evangelist, whose job is to spread the Gospel, and a pastor, who, in Falwell's view, has a duty "to confront the culture." "There is no question that your role and mine are opposites," Falwell told Graham. "You are an evangelist; I am a pastor. I have prophetic responsibilities that you do not have." Falwell is unapologetic about his own calling. "I have spent the last 30 years forming the religious right," Falwell told NEWSWEEK. "I write a letter every week and send a newspaper every month to 200,000 pastors who are broadly called evangelicals, bringing them up to date on what is happening in Washington, in the state capitals, in the culture, and what we need to do about it. And of course I'm criticized for it, and of course I have calculated the positives and the negatives, but I have long been at peace with what I do."

For Graham, politics is a secondary to the Gospel, which transcends party lines and, for believers, transcends earthly reality itself. When NEWSWEEK asked Graham whether ministers--whether they think of themselves as evangelists, pastors or a bit of both--should spend time engaged with politics, he replied: "You know, I think in a way that has to be up to the individual as he feels led of the Lord. A lot of things that I commented on years ago would not have been of the Lord, I'm sure, but I think you have some--like communism, or segregation, on which I think you have a responsibility to speak out." Such proclamations, however, should not be "the main thing," and he admits he has no perfect formula: "I don't know the total answer to that."

A partial answer may lie in a distinction Graham draws between lobbying organizations and the spirit of individual Americans. "In the founding era of our country, it was not organized religion but personal faith that brought focus and unified the early leadership--maybe an unspoken faith in God, and certain values that came with that faith," he says. "So in that sense, we cannot discount, in my judgment, religious faith in politics." But he is talking about faith as one factor--perhaps the most important, but still just one--in the life of a people, not about churches or lobbies using the name of God to win votes.

One way for a minister to fulfill his duty to his flock on public-policy questions is to focus on ends while leaving the means to others. An ex-ample of this in Graham's own life was his work for nuclear disarmament. When he spoke out on the cold-war arms race, he urged a change of heart--he did not rally support for a particular treaty or a particular agenda.