This story first hit the news, or at least first crossed my radar, back around last Christmas. Keith Olbermann mentioned it on his show, and the next morning an impersonator on the Imus show (not Rob Bartlett but the other one) did a "Jerry Falwell" monologue about it, a clip of which I recently posted
here.
Well now
there's more news. In a nutshell, there now exists a multi-million dollar theme-park-style Billy Graham Library. It's basically an air-conditioned barn with a talking cow:
Visitors will be able to walk through a replica of [Graham's] boyhood home before heading for the library, a barn-like building that is entered through a giant glass cross that rises from the ground to the roof. Once inside, they will be greeted by a life-size mechanical Holstein named Bessie. The cow will speak to them about the evangelist's humble beginnings.
You can see a picture of the barn at the link in the my first paragraph. Not everyone in the Graham family is overjoyed about it:
Franklin Graham wants to bury his parents at the library, but his mother adamantly opposes the idea. "It's a circus, a tourist attraction," Ruth Graham, the evangelist's wife of 63 years, told the Washington Post in December.
I'm with her. Click the link and read the whole thing. It's fascinating, but to me it's also sad in a way. I respect the Rev. Graham in a way I've never respected any other televangelist. If you don't know much about him, do a bit of research. He took risks in the South that almost no other whites - particularly prominent whites with conservative followers - were willing to take. And unless I'm very much mistaken, he was a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and even bailed him out of jail in Alabama a time or two.
Incidentally, I mentioned somewhere that it was curious that no republican candidates are attending the dedication of this library. Now that I think about it, it might not be so curious after all.
If this were any other Christian televangelist I'd be laughing my ass off about it. But I can't get around the fact that it looks like a good man might come to a bad end and not get the dignity and respect he deserves in death. That seems to be the way Ruth Graham feels, too. I think it's all very sad.
W.W.E.D.?