The First and Best of Them all

(Image from All Uganda news)

To Americans over fifty Billy Graham was the evangelist. Not a priest or bishop, he didn't need silk raiments to clothe his words with authority, just the Bible held in his left hand. There were slicker, more telegenic preachers who rose to challenge his prominence, but his strict probity from the start enabled him to stand while others fell ignominiously.

He also established standards of financial and sexual propriety that maintained his reputation over a half-century of possible temptations and served as a model to shell-shocked colleagues after the televangelical scandals of the 1980s.

WSJ: "Yet, unlike some of his contemporaries, who won fame but flamed out— Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker —Mr. Graham’s mission was never derailed by scandal."

R.I.P., Rev. Graham, and as the saying goes, I hope you found what you were looking for.