Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham

by Billy Graham

  “This will be the only thing Ruth might remember,” one of our hosts told us. “Actually, even this is new, since the original gate was destroyed during the war. But the Great Leader, President Kim Il Sung, ordered it reconstructed to give our people a link to their heritage.”

  Ned and I then wandered over to the park along the nearby Taedong River. Ruth had told us many times about trying to learn to ice-skate on the hockey field, which the school had flooded in wintertime. But she never learned; her ankles were too weak. The “Back Hill,” which she remembered as separating the school from the river, was actually the remains of an ancient city wall dating back possibly to the time of King David in the Old Testament.

  During our meeting, President Kim made a point of inviting Ruth to come to Pyongyang in the future, and perhaps it will be possible someday. He also made it clear that he valued our interest in his people and hoped we would continue our friendship.

  I agreed to do so because over the years I had developed a deep conviction that personal relationships sometimes do far more to overcome misunderstandings and tensions than formal diplomatic efforts do. It was largely for that reason that I later encouraged former President Jimmy Carter to make his trip to North Korea during a very tense time in June 1994. I had no interest in getting involved in the details of the political issues that divided our two nations, nor did President Kim seek to talk with me about them. However, I could not help but feel that in his heart he wanted peace with his adversaries before he died. I found him very responsive to friendship on a personal level.

  Did the visit help the churches in some way? We had no firm way of knowing, of course, but we found it encouraging that the following January, President Kim included the two leaders of the Protestant and Catholic associations in the guest list for his annual New Year reception, the first time they had been given that kind of official recognition.

  In 1993, a year after our first visit, Ned returned to Pyongyang at President Kim’s invitation and was warmly welcomed by him. Ned showed him a brief video report of our visit, taken from one of our television programs, as well as a picture book of the trip that we had published. Both of these seemed to please President Kim; we had taken pains to be objective, neither overlooking nor emphasizing our differences. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the words of Jesus in what has come to be called the Golden Rule: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12).

  Ned’s visit resulted in a further invitation for us to return to North Korea. President Kim even suggested to Ned that he (the president) and I might spend several days together and go fishing, which he said he enjoyed doing whenever he could. As a result, we made tentative plans to return in July or August of 1994, if our schedule permitted.

  In the meantime, however, tensions between North Korea and the United States threatened to come to a boiling point over the issue of the international inspection of their nuclear facilities. The suspicion was that North Korea might be developing nuclear weapons. Some Western political leaders advocated a strict economic embargo if North Korea did not comply; others even talked in terms of selectively bombing the nuclear facilities.

  These proposals alarmed me, because I was convinced that such actions would only stiffen the resolve of North Korea’s leaders and could easily pave the way to another major war on the Korean Peninsula.

  Once again I had no desire to get involved in the specific issues, but could our relationship with President Kim make some difference? He and I held diametrically opposite religious and philosophical beliefs, but for some reason he seemed to value our relationship. I knew that almost no one else from the West had been granted that kind of access.

  Accordingly, we scrapped our plans for a visit during the summer of 1994 and instead accepted an invitation to return to Pyong-yang for a few days following our January 1994 Crusade in Tokyo.

  Before leaving the United States, I talked with President Clinton and gave him a report of my planned visit to North Korea. I also expressed a willingness to convey a message to President Kim, and he said he would consider it carefully. However, we had not heard from his office by the time we left.

  Once again Ned accompanied me. After Tokyo we spent several days in Beijing, where I preached in two churches, including one house church, and met with several government leaders. The new American ambassador to China, Stapleton Roy, had us to lunch and briefed us on the North Korean situation from his perspective. We had first met him at Ambassador Lord’s luncheon in Beijing in 1988; he told us then that he had just flown in from Tibet.

  Ambassador Roy conveyed to me a message of greeting from President Clinton to President Kim and asked us to deliver it if we were received by him. As before, the announcement of our trip was withheld by mutual agreement until only a few days before the trip was to take place, and we still were not sure what our exact schedule would be.

  North Korea, which shared part of its northern border with Siberia, had a reputation for being very cold in the winter. But it was a clear and comparatively mild day when we stepped off the plane in Pyongyang on January 27, and the weather stayed that way the whole time we were there. “It looks like the God you believe in has made good weather,” one of our government guides said to a Team member with a twinkle in his eyes.

  Once again I was invited to give a lecture at Kim Il Sung University, this time in their largest lecture hall. I spoke on the major problems facing the world, comparing them to mountains that had to be crossed before our world could ever have peace. I pointed out that as a Christian, I was convinced that the root of all our problems came from the human heart, and that our greatest need was spiritual in nature. We need to be changed in our inner beings, I said. “When we come to know Christ by committing our lives to Him,” I added, “God comes into our lives and begins to change us from within.”

  As before, they listened attentively; afterward several of them went to a microphone and asked a number of questions. While at the university, I also dropped by a class in English for some informal discussion and visited a museum devoted to the student days of President Kim’s son, Kim Jong Il.

  Early on Saturday, January 29, 1994, we got word that Pres-ident Kim Il Sung would receive us that morning. We journeyed through the now-familiar countryside to the same residence where we had been received in 1992; and I found him just as alert and friendly as before. He embraced me and then, with the press corps still present, greeted me with words that deeply touched me, particularly given the differences in our points of view: “I consider it a great honor to have a friend like you in the United States. You have become like a member of our family.”

  After the journalists were dismissed, we discussed a number of topics of a general nature, including the possibility of a visit by Ruth. Then we adjourned for a private meeting, accompanied only by our interpreters. I conveyed to President Kim the message President Clinton had asked me to extend to him. In turn he asked me to convey a confidential message to my President.

  Unlike the brief message he had asked me to give to President Bush during our previous visit, however, the one to President Clinton was fairly extensive. Several times Steve, who was interpreting for me, stopped to discuss the exact meaning of certain phrases with President Kim’s interpreter to be sure there was no misunderstanding. The message included a specific proposal that President Kim felt would break the logjam in the difficult discussions over the nuclear issue.

  I also took the opportunity to speak very directly about my own faith in Christ—a faith that, I reminded him, his own mother had professed. He acknowledged that she had taken him to church sometimes when he was a boy, although he admitted with a smile that he had always wanted to go fishing instead. He listened respectfully to what I said but made little comment.

  This second visit to Pyongyang was filled with unexpected events and opportunities. One day we went to the central television studio for an unrehearsed interview by several Korean journalists. Having never done anything quit
e like that before, the people at the studio were intrigued by the suggestions that our television director, Roger Flessing, gave them to make the interview more spontaneous.

  “Never before has a religious leader been given this much public attention,” one of our hosts said later.

  On Sunday morning, I preached in the recently opened Chilgol Church, the third church building to be constructed in Pyongyang. It was located at the edge of the city, beside the birthplace of President Kim’s mother. Her birthplace was preserved as a national monument, and we visited it in the crisp morning air before the church service. We also visited President Kim’s humble birthplace outside Pyongyang, a national shrine to which hundreds of thousands of North Koreans make a pilgrimage every year.

  Sunday afternoon we had an unprecedented opportunity to speak to a large gathering of about 1,000 at the main lecture hall of the Great People’s Study House, which was similar in function and prestige to America’s Library of Congress. Never before had a foreigner been permitted to speak there. Furthermore, we were told, it was the first time in North Korea’s history that a meeting with a religious emphasis had been held legally outside of a church building.

  Steve and John knew from their discussions that the decision to grant us permission to speak in a public place was fiercely debated behind the scenes, but we had no idea why the way had opened up. Whatever the reason, I was grateful for the chance to present the Gospel to people who would have had very little, if any, contact with the Christian message in their lives.

  I spoke on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13—“You are the salt of the earth”—stressing the need for personal renewal through the power of Christ if we were to be the kind of people our world needs. Every seat in the auditorium was taken. The audience, which we understood was made up mainly of political and economic leaders, undoubtedly had been carefully selected, but that did not bother me in the least, for God could open the heart and mind of any person by His Holy Spirit as the truth of the Gospel was presented.

  As soon as possible, I detailed President Kim Il Sung’s message in a private letter to President Clinton, along with some of my own impressions. A few days later, at a press conference in Hong Kong, reporters repeatedly tried to get me to reveal at least something of the message’s content. Of course, I refused. All I would say was that one of my staff had already taken the first available plane back to the United States to convey the letter to the White House. The unexpected death of President Kim six months later made his specific proposal obsolete, but in my view the general principles behind it could still serve as a basis for future contacts.

  In late 1995, Ned was able to pay a further brief visit to North Korea. And he returned in 1996 to deliver eight hundred thousand pounds of American brown rice, provided jointly by his organization, East Gates Ministries International, and the World Emer-gency Fund of the BGEA. North Korea was experiencing a serious food shortage due to devastating floods the previous year. Vice Premier Kim Yong Nam expressed his nation’s gratitude to Ned and repeated the invitation for Ruth and other members of our family, as well as friends from the Pyeng Yang Foreign School, to visit the country.

  We continue to have contact with North Korea, asking God to give us wisdom as we seek to let the people of that nation know not only of our own friendship but also of the love of God in Jesus Christ.

  35

  New Days, New Directions

  The Internet, Television and Satellites, Evangelism Training, Outreach to Youth 1990s

  THE INTERNET

  I had spoken innumerable times to live audiences in every conceivable type of place, from football stadiums and cricket grounds to bullfighting rings and aircraft carriers. I had also spoken countless times to invisible audiences over radio and television. But this was a first for me. America Online, in collaboration with Time magazine, had invited me to visit its interactive electronic service shortly after my seventy-fifth birthday in 1993.

  I was in an electronic auditorium, participating by computer in an hour-long live interactive program, or “chat session.” The first 300 people who signed in were the audience, typing questions on their computers. Seated at a table to my right were some personnel from America Online, including someone they hired to type my replies into their central computer.

  As I felt my way into the process, it seemed like a cumbersome way to communicate. The setting was awkward and unfamiliar. The room was dimly lit, and in front of me questions flashed on a large screen. Next to me were my Bible and a stack of reference works, just in case I needed them.

  I could answer only about a dozen questions during the hour, and 300 people didn’t sound very impressive as an audience. But then someone informed me that additional thousands were standing “outside” the electronic auditorium, observing every question and answer.

  “If there was only one person in today’s world that you could bring to Christ,” one participant asked, “who would it be, and why?”

  “Every person is important to the Lord,” I replied. “I don’t think one person is more important than another person in God’s sight.”

  Occasionally, accuracy got sacrificed as my answers were hurriedly typed in. “Prince of Peace” came out as “Prince of Peach”!

  It was a fascinating experiment, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A year or so later, Christianity Today established its own service on America Online, making live interactive sessions on Christian issues a daily occurrence. By 1996 the BGEA had its own Internet website, and counseling for our December 1996 Christmas television special was done completely over the Internet (since the space normally made available to us by churches for our telephone counseling centers was being put to other uses during the holiday season).

  Fascinating though it was, the experiment with America On-line was only an extension of what we had been doing throughout much of our ministry: seeking to use every means possible to extend the reach of the Gospel. The message of the Gospel never changes—and for good reason: God never changes, and neither does our basic spiritual need nor His answer to that need. But the methods of presenting that message do change—and in fact they must change if we are to keep pace with a changing world. If we fail to bridge the gap between us and those we hope to reach, our message will not be communicated, and our efforts will be in vain. During this century, God has given us new tools to do His work—electronic and visual tools, such as radio, films, television, telephones—and each of these has played an important role in the expansion of our ministry.

  TELEVISION AND RADIO

  My experience with the Internet brings to mind a number of similar situations. Most preachers and teachers would say, I think, that talking to a live audience stimulates the speaker. It still astonishes me, however, to realize that I can be all alone in front of a radio microphone or a television camera and still reach more people than I ever could in a lifetime of personal appearances. That is not only why we have put on our own radio and television programs but also why I have gone on a wide variety of commercial and secular programs as a guest.

  Over the years, I have been invited to make special guest appearances on a variety of television shows—far too many to recount here. I have accepted as many of them as I could, everything from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to Good Morning America. My friend Larry King has had me on his nightly CNN interview program a number of times. One of Phil Donahue’s earliest programs originated from the Ohio Reformatory for Women, with the governor and me as guests answering prisoners’ questions. I’ve also been on shows starring the likes of Jack Benny and Joey Bishop, Bob Hope and Steve Allen. (On these programs I was usually cast in a skit.)

  Some of the programs I’ve appeared on reach back almost to the beginnings of national television in the 1950s and 1960s. Dave Garroway had me on frequently, and Hugh Downs, the host of NBC’s Today program for years, also interviewed me many times. Merv Griffin had me on his show a number of times and became one of my friends in the entertainment industry. One night during the pro
gram he asked me to take over as emcee, and, if I wanted, even to preach; I did end up giving a sermonette.

  One of the ablest interviewers I have known is David Frost. We first met when he came to our 1954 meetings in London’s Harringay Arena. (David’s father was a Methodist preacher, and his mother spent a vacation with Ruth and me in our home.) Some of those I’ve met in the media have become good friends. Paul Harvey, the radio commentator, has probably been my best friend in the American media. He has always been very supportive of us and often keeps his many listeners informed about our work. We have been guests in his home many times, with his delightful wife, Angel.

  Sometimes people have questioned whether a minister of the Gospel should be on entertainment shows. When it was announced that I was going to appear on Laugh-In— a television show that sometimes included sketches that were risqué or profane—we received so many letters from our supporters that I had to draft a special response just to answer their concerns.

  “My sole purpose in accepting these invitations,” I wrote, “is to witness for Christ in a totally secular environment. Very few Christians have this opportunity. [It is important] to keep contact with the millions of Americans that never darken the door of a church. . . . It seems to me that this was the method of our Lord. He went among publicans and sinners.”

  Did these television appearances make any spiritual impact on the lives of the individuals who were watching? That, of course, is difficult to measure. Only God knows the answer. Time after time, however, we have heard of people with no religious inclination whatsoever who came to a Crusade meeting or tuned in to one of our television specials just because they had first seen us on a secular program. In their eyes (and, perhaps more important, in the eyes of their peers), my having been on such programs took away the stigma of going to a religious meeting to hear me in person.