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A Family at Cross-Purposes: Billy Graham's Sons Argue Over a Final Resting Place
Washington Post ^ | 13 December 2006 | Laura Stepp

Posted on 12/14/2006 8:14:58 AM PST by shrinkermd

It is a struggle worthy of the Old Testament, pitting brother against brother, son against mother...

Retired and almost blind at 88, the evangelist is sitting in his modest log house on an isolated mountaintop in western North Carolina and listening to a family friend describe where Franklin Graham, heir to his father's worldwide ministry, wants to bury his parents.

The plan is as follows:

...I was horrified by what I saw," she tells Billy, in the presence of a reporter invited to be there.

The building, designed in part by consultants who used to work for the Walt Disney Co., is not a library, she says, but a large barn and silo -- a reminder of Billy Graham's early childhood on a dairy farm near Charlotte. Once it's completed in the spring, visitors will pass through a 40-foot-high glass entry cut in the shape of a cross and be greeted by a mechanical talking cow. They will follow a path of straw through rooms full of multimedia exhibits. At the end of the tour, they will be pointed toward a stone walk, also in the shape of a cross, that leads to a garden where the bodies of Billy and Ruth Graham could lie.

Throughout the tour, there will be several opportunities for people to put their names on a mailing list.

"The whole purpose of this evangelistic experience is fundraising," Cornwell says to Billy Graham. "I know who you are and you are not that place. It's a mockery. People are going to laugh. Please don't be buried there."

Billy Graham's eyes never leave Cornwell's face as she talks. Ruth Graham sighs. A lot.

"It's a circus," Ruth says at one point, softly. "A tourist attraction."

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: billygrahamland; exploited; revgraham
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What is happening is the are deconstructing Reverend Graham into Elmer Gantry.
1 posted on 12/14/2006 8:15:05 AM PST by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd

I haven't see the Grahams on tv in a long time. Why don't they ask their father and mother where they want to be buried? You'd think they would have already made these decisions and it would be in writing.


2 posted on 12/14/2006 8:17:16 AM PST by hsmomx3 (Steelers in '07--Go BIG BEN!!!)
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To: shrinkermd

Should be a humble place for a humble man. A gravesite at his log cabin would be more appropriate.


3 posted on 12/14/2006 8:19:33 AM PST by BigFinn
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To: shrinkermd

I hope my sons don't read this. It might give them ideas.

They'll probably want to bury me across the road from Big Al's Gentlemen's Club so they can kill two birds with one stone when they visit.


4 posted on 12/14/2006 8:21:11 AM PST by Iowa Granny
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To: shrinkermd

I think a nice plot with a small headstone would be a better testament to their faith then this sideshow attraction.


5 posted on 12/14/2006 8:24:13 AM PST by Millee (Tagline free since 10/20/06)
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To: BigFinn

It sound like the parents at least mom has spoken but no one is listening.

"Ruth Graham has told her children that she doesn't want to be buried in Charlotte. She has a burial spot picked out in the mountains where she raised five children, and she hopes her husband will join her there."

I would agree a humble place for a humble man just seems right....


6 posted on 12/14/2006 8:25:50 AM PST by Kimmers
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To: shrinkermd

I have come to respect him less over the years. First it was the comment that there was religious freedom in the USSR, then statements (memory a bit hazy here) about all religions being the same. There was a Reader's Digest article lately that had a picture of him with a glow around his head, as if he was divine. I thought it was in poor taste, so I tore it out and threw it away.


7 posted on 12/14/2006 8:26:22 AM PST by phelanw
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To: Iowa Granny
I hope my sons don't read this. It might give them ideas.

I want my wife to bury me at the mall so she will come and visit every day...

8 posted on 12/14/2006 8:26:33 AM PST by llevrok (My seat back is never in the full and upright position.)
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To: shrinkermd

I like Franklin Graham. Before I believe what is written in the Washington Post, using unnamed sources, I would want to know more about what is happening. Media sources have it out for Franklin because of his Operation Christmas Child and his audacity to help out other areas of the world for Christ. I'm not saying this isn't true because I don't know. But I certainly don't trust what the WP has to say without knowing the story from a more credible source.


9 posted on 12/14/2006 8:26:37 AM PST by twigs
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To: twigs
From a Charlotte area tv station website:

Franklin Graham issued a written statement Wednesday afternoon saying he is “disappointed” by the Washington Post article. Graham said he considers the burial site matter “to be a personal one and do not intend to debate it publicly. I believe that the decision about where my parents will be buried should be made by them, and not by me, my siblings, or any outsiders.”

http://www.wcnc.com/news/topstories/stories/wcnc-121306-cls-graham.80d7fec.html

10 posted on 12/14/2006 8:32:12 AM PST by kayak (Praying for Jemian's son, all our military, and our President every day!)
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To: BigFinn

That's exactly what Ruth Graham wants. I don't see why any of their children have a right to overrule her.


11 posted on 12/14/2006 8:35:28 AM PST by linda_22003
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To: shrinkermd

My preference... cremation and scatter my ashes. That which is important has either already left or has been left behind. This husk is of little more use.


12 posted on 12/14/2006 8:42:41 AM PST by taxcontrol
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To: shrinkermd
As [visitor crime novelist Patricia] Cornwell ends her short speech to Billy [attempting to convince him to be buried with Ruth in the mountains] that November evening, Billy says, "I sure appreciate what you say, and I have no comment. I've heard all this before."

Cornwell is not dissuaded.

"I tell you, if you're buried there [at the Library in Charlotte] I'll dig you up and move you here," she says.

Ruth chuckles from her bed. "I'll be one of the pallbearers," she says.

At the sound of Ruth's voice, Billy's face softens toward Cornwell, as he says, "I'll just think and pray about what you've said."

13 posted on 12/14/2006 8:42:44 AM PST by TaxRelief (Wal-Mart: Keeping my family on-budget since 1993.)
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To: phelanw

I got a letter from John MacArthur's ministry a few years ago with an excerpt from Graham speaking to Robert Schuller on the "Hour of Power." The gist of his statement was that Faithful Christians are not the only ones who God will let in to heaven. Faithful followers of other religions are heaven-bound, too. I don't know what became of that statement, but it ruffled a few evangelical feathers.


14 posted on 12/14/2006 8:49:03 AM PST by hoppity
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To: Millee
I think a nice plot with a small headstone would be a better testament to their faith then this sideshow attraction.

I visited a cemetary in Geneva, Switzerland back in the 80's. Massive headstones, ornated burial sites everywhere.

In the midst of this was John Calvin's grave. A simple 3'x7' covered with ivy. The marker was a simple stone with J.C. carved in it.

Pride (and fund raising) goes before a fall.


15 posted on 12/14/2006 8:49:31 AM PST by tx_eggman (Democrat Campaign Slogan - 2006: "Bring Out The Gimp!")
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To: taxcontrol
What!??!
No compacting-of-your-ashes-into-a-cannon-and-shooting-them-out-over-your-estate???

a la hunter THompson

[ultra-heavy molasses-grade sarcasm off}

16 posted on 12/14/2006 8:51:03 AM PST by ExcursionGuy84 ("Jesus, Your Love takes my breath away.")
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To: twigs

I'm with you... the whole things sounds hinky... AND the fact that it's Patricia Cornwall .. somehow I find the whole conversation absurd... she doesn't strike me as the type to be sitting around talking about this stuff with the Grahams...


17 posted on 12/14/2006 8:56:56 AM PST by pamlet
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To: Iowa Granny
I'm being creamated and I want my ashes strewn over my ex-wife's apartment so she has to clean up after me one last time.
18 posted on 12/14/2006 8:57:44 AM PST by The Brush
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To: shrinkermd

Excuse me but why don't they just ask him where he wants to be buried??? I guess that's too easy.


19 posted on 12/14/2006 8:59:40 AM PST by fish hawk (.)
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To: BigFinn

Who cares? It's a corpse. I have never really seen the need in this nonsense. The important part (the soul) is already gone. All that's left is a dead body.


20 posted on 12/14/2006 9:00:42 AM PST by billbears (Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. --Santayana)
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