On the red carpet at Billy's bash with Palin & Co.

Prior to Billy Graham’s 95th birthday party last Thursday night, we in the working press gathered, mob-like, behind a rope, waiting to shout questions at and snap photos of celebrity guests at Asheville’s grand Grove Park Inn.

Think Hollywood’s red carpet. But instead of movie stars, we got Republican politicos, Christian musicians and Sarah Palin.

“Hey, Governor,” I called out as the one-time leader of Alaska and her husband Todd strode into view, “what’s Billy Graham’s legacy?”

As the cameras click-click-clicked, she jumped right in with a 17-second answer.

“Oh, he is one who has been able to message what truth is, with the solutions to our world’s problems, our individual problems, and our nation’s challenges,” she said. “He’s been one to articulate what it is and what it will take to get everybody on the right track.”

Before Palin, we got to throw questions to Ricky Skaggs.

“It’s awesome to be at anyone’s 95th birthday, and especially Dr. Graham’s,” the bluegrass picker-singer said. “I’ve got a lot of heroes. But his picture is the biggest one I have in my studio.”

Christian music star Michael W. Smith, who would sing “Happy Birthday” to Graham at the party, had the most succinct take on the Charlotte-born evangelist as he strolled past the press.

“He’s finished well,” Smith said, echoing that first-century evangelist, Paul.

Democrats Bill and Hillary Clinton were invited to Billy’s party, but didn’t show, leaving the best seats in the ballroom – and the most time logged on the red carpet – to Republicans.

Press-shy (at least Thursday) Donald Trump and Glenn Beck stayed in their seats.

But U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., met the press, recalling when he was 22 and caddying for Billy at the 1971 Byron Nelson Golf Classic. “He was playing with Bob Hope and Arnold Palmer, and there were golf balls flying everywhere.”

And GOP Gov. Pat McCrory told us about the time in 1996 when he and Graham came into Panthers Stadium, site of the farmboy-turned-preacher’s last hometown crusade to win souls for Christ.

“There were 75,000 people cheering,” said McCrory, who was then mayor of Charlotte. “And (Graham) turned to me and said, ‘I think they’re confused – this is not about me.’”

Then, before moving along the rope, McCrory added: “Billy Graham was the one guy who knew it wasn’t about him. … And, you know, we all need a little humility in this celebrity world we have today.”

-- Tim Funk

Billy Graham's 95th birthday will be marked by party, celebs, books and TV message

Billy Graham turns 95 on Thursday.

To put that in perspective: His life began in Charlotte four days before the end of World War I.

Quite a milestone, quite a life. And a lot of things are happening to mark Graham’s birthday:

-- A private party is planned for Thursday night at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. Graham will be there, as will 600 or so others, including Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch, Rick Warren and Ricky Skaggs.

-- A DVD featuring what is likely to be Graham’s final public message will be shown in the coming days at 25,000 churches as part of a national evangelical effort called “My Hope America with Billy Graham.”

-- The program will also air Thursday night at 10 on the Fox News Network. Murdoch, the network’s owner, traded letters with Graham about showing the video of him preaching from his Montreat home. Nearly 500 local TV stations are also set to show it. In it, Graham talks about the need for a spiritual awakening in America and how the cross of Christ "demands . . . a new lifestyle."

-- And there are two new books out: Graham’s own, “The Reason for My Hope: Salvation,” and “Billy Graham: A Life in Pictures,” from former Observer religion editor Ken Garfield and a corps of Observer photographers who’ve covered Graham over the decades.

Book rich in pictures, anecdotes

But "Billy Graham: A Life in Pictures" ($19.99) is more than a photo collection. Garfield has tapped into his 12-plus years on the Billy Graham beat (1992-2005) to offer a rich supply of anecdotes and historical detail. Together, they tell you all about the Charlotte farm boy who became a globe-trotting evangelist and pastor to presidents.

“It’s meant to be an Everyman’s appreciation,” said Garfield, 60, now director of communications at Myers Park United Methodist. When he used that “Everyman” phrase with Graham aide David Bruce, Bruce replied, “That’s who Billy preached to.”

Garfield covered five Graham crusades – including in Germany, Charlotte and New York – and interviewed him a dozen times. In person or on stage, Garfield said, Graham was able to “make this connection. … His tenderness and humanity came through.”

Graham’s legacy? “His integrity,” Garfield said. “He got used by Nixon. But there was never any financial or sexual impropriety. … He figured out how to use all media. And he never really swayed from his basic message.”

Recently, in a letter from Montreat, Garfield’s book got a rave review – from Graham.

Garfield will speak and sign copies of his book at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday (Nov. 6) at Sharon Presbyterian Church, 5201 Sharon Road. Also, at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 10 at Levine Museum of the New South, 200 E. Seventh St. Reservations: rsvp@museumofthenewsouth.org.

-- Tim Funk

Cameron, Santorum talk films about faith

Not playing at a theater near you: A love story pairing up conservative Christians and Hollywood.

Evangelicals have long cast the movie industry as a factory of filth. The disdain is mutual: On the big screen, churchgoers are often portrayed as narrow-minded.

Amid that backdrop, some conservatives are releasing Christian films outside the Hollywood system.
Enter actor Kirk Cameron and former U.S. Senator – and GOP presidential candidate – Rick Santorum.

I talked with both this week about their separate but similar quests to spread the Gospel cinematically.

Cameron, 43, came to fame as a teen actor on the ABC sitcom “Growing Pains” (1985-92). Now he appears in Christian dramas and documentaries, most notably “Fireproof,” a 2008 hit movie in which he played a firefighter trying to save his marriage.

As part of a live spinoff of that movie, Cameron will be at Charlotte’s Northside Baptist Church, 333 Jeremiah Blvd., next Saturday (Oct. 26)  at 6 p.m. for “Love Worth Fighting For.”

This evening of advice, music, humor and prayer is geared to husbands and wives who want to spend a few hours “focusing on the most important relationship they have on the planet,” he said by phone. (Order tickets here.)

Santorum, meanwhile, stopped by the Observer to plug his debut film as the new CEO of Dallas-based EchoLight Studios. “The Christmas Candle,” set in Victorian England and based on a novel by evangelical writer Max Lucado, is a handsomely produced film about an Anglican pastor who recovers his lost faith and an angel-touched candle that brings a miracle every Christmas Eve. It’ll hit theaters Nov. 22. (See a trailer here).

Santorum and Cameron said they want to fill a hunger in the heartland for movies that affirm Christian values and beliefs.

“My industry is responsible for so many evils in the world,” Cameron said. “It feels like a privilege to be here (in Hollywood), making movies that are actually producing good.”

He bristled at critics who dismiss “Fireproof” and other Christian movies as earnest but didactic and amateurish: “Who made (them) king of deciding what’s a good movie?”

Santorum sees his new job as a sequel to a 2012 presidential campaign that stressed social issues – and maybe a prequel to 2016.


“It’s consistent with going out there and fighting the fight,” he said. “Having an impact on the popular culture is, to me, part of the overall effort to bring America back to its senses.”

-- Tim Funk

Popular author Anne Lamott coming to Charlotte

Celebrated author Anne Lamott, who has built a passionate following with her funny-sad novels and autobiographical musings on everything from writing to prayer, will be in Charlotte on Nov. 10 to speak at Christ Episcopal Church, 1412 Providence Road.

Tickets are $25 for the 2:30 p.m. lecture and audience Q&A, but that cost includes a copy of her new book, "Stitches: A Handbook of Meaning, Hope and Repair."

She'll sign books at 3:30 p.m.

Lamott's novels include "Hard Laughter," "Crooked Little Heart," and "Blue Shoe."

In recent years, the San Francisco-based writer with dreadlocks has also written about brokenness, joy and Christianity in "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith" and "Help. Thanks. Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.".

My personal favorite among her books is the hilarious and incredibly helpful "Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life."

Interested in hearing Lamott? Register here. There's no deadline for registering, but the event could sell out before Nov. 10. There's online registration only. On the day of her talk, present your ticket and pick up a book, starting at 1:30 p.m. Lamott will speak in the church's All Saints' Hall.

-- Tim Funk

Hating the sins, but loving the TV sinnners

Spoiler alert: Stop reading if you haven't yet seen last week's "Breaking Bad" finale on TV. 

Count me among those who believe we’re living in a new Golden Age of Television. 

While Hollywood caters to the tastes of teenage boys by churning out a never-ending series of superhero sagas for the big screen, complex and compelling human dramas are playing out on AMC, HBO, Showtime, FX, Sundance, and – most recently – Netflix. 

Producers of the best of these non-network shows have created morally murky worlds that look a lot like ours, then populated them with sinners – with a capital S. 

A Mafia chieftain in "The Sopranos." A serial adulterer in “Mad Men.” And a high school chemistry professor-turned-drug kingpin in “Breaking Bad.” 

All “Difficult Men,” which is, in fact, the title of a new book about this mostly cable TV revolution. But also very human men. Watching at home, getting inside their tangled emotional lives, we may recoil at their sins, but still feel tempted to root for these sinners. 

Our own misdeeds never rise to their levels, perhaps, but who among us can’t see a little of ourselves in the fears, the rationalizations, and the delusions of Tony Soprano, Don Draper and Walter White? 

But, alas, these TV characters live in worlds, again like ours, where crime rarely pays for long, where cheaters usually get caught, and where those who live recklessly nearly always crash and burn. 

Enter the creators of these shows, who must eventually step in and play God. 

Take last week’s “Breaking Bad” finale on AMC, which rained down more wrath on bad guys than anything since the Old Testament. 

Yes, the avenging angel in the final show was Walt, the brilliant protagonist who evolved over five seasons from Mr. Chips to Scarface, in the now famous words of the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan.

         

 But Gilligan wasn’t about to spare Walt, whose hubris – a sin as old as Adam and Eve – had led inexorably to the murder of his lawman brother-in-law and the alienation of the wife and son he told himself were the reasons he amassed millions in drug money. 

Clever Walt figured a way for his son and baby daughter to get their tainted inheritance. Still, for them, “Dad” will always be a dirty word. 

“If there’s a larger lesson to ‘Breaking Bad,’ it’s that actions have consequences,” the Virginia-born Gilligan told the New York Times in 2011. “It seems to me that (religion) represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. ... I feel some sort of need for biblical atonement, or justice, or something.” 

Walt’s story, then, qualifies as a cautionary tale: Here was an Everyman who took the wrong road and perished. 

But there’s hope for 2014! 

Don Draper, the ad man on “Mad Men,” another AMC hit, has one more season to find a right road. And it just might happen: He’s hit bottom, he’s done hiding his past, and he’s acknowledged his addictions and sins. 

       

Forgiveness, redemption, resurrection – those things can save wrecked lives and, just maybe, produce terrific television.

          -- Tim Funk
       

Graham has solid place in history

Wonder how it feels to be treated like a historical figure while you’re still alive.

President Barack Obama and his living predecessors could tell us. And civil rights legend John Lewis could, too. Ditto, Mikhail Gorbachev, the final Soviet ruler.

It’s a pretty exclusive club. And it’s clear, as his 95th birthday approaches, that Charlotte-born Billy Graham is a member.

Who else but ex-White House occupants have anything like the Billy Graham Library – a presidential-style museum filled with mementos of his decades-long career?

And this week, Wheaton College in Illinois has been hosting a four-day conference on its most famous alumnus, with speeches, roundtable discussions, and even a Billy Graham Film Festival featuring clips from some of his more famous crusades.

Other recent signs that Graham, who will celebrate another birthday Nov. 7, has achieved larger-than-life status: Popular Christian singer Michael W. Smith has written a song, “Take Me Home,” about Graham’s longing for heaven. And grade-schoolers can now dip into a new biography of Graham that’s tailored to young readers, 9 to 12.

The lasting influence of Graham – pastor to presidents, America’s evangelist-in-chief and preacher to millions around the globe – was the theme of many of the scheduled Wheaton lectures from scholars around the country.

Grant Wacker, a professor at Duke Divinity School, was to speak about “Billy Graham and American History.”

“Billy Graham and the Enigma of the Modern South” was the theme from Webster University’s Steven Miller, who authored a well-reviewed book about Graham’s role in the rise of the Republican Party in the Bible Belt.

One scholar’s focus was Graham’s visits to the Soviet Union – controversial at the time, but now considered part of the bigger story of communism’s collapse.

Also on the agenda: Graham’s relationship with race. He promoted integration and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s, but kept his distance from the civil rights marches in the 1960s.

And a panel scheduled for Saturday was to include not only Charlotte evangelist Leighton Ford and wife Jean Ford, Graham’s sole surviving sibling, but also Martin Marty, perhaps the country’s leading expert on American religion.

Meanwhile, Smith’s song will be out soon. It’s a conversation Graham might have with Jesus when he gets to heaven. “Hello, old friend,” it begins. “You’ve walked beside me all these miles.”

Graham’s take on his fame and his hopes for heaven are covered on the final page of the new biography for kids – “Prophet with Honor,” Christian publisher Zondervan’s adaptation of William Martin’s definitive biography.

“I want to hear one person say something nice about me, and that’s the Lord, when I face him,” Graham says on page 144. “I want him to say to me, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’”

-- Tim Funk

Parade of religion speakers on the way

Time to go get your calendars. Some intriguing speakers are just ahead.

Here’s the lineup:

Monday (Sept. 23) – Noted Israeli archeologist Gaby Barkay will talk at UNC Charlotte about two of the oldest fragments of a biblical text ever found.

The tiny texts include the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:24-26) widely used in synagogues and churches and the oldest example of the divine name “Yahweh” written in paleo-Hebrew letters.

Inscribed on silver scrolls, the fragments predate the Dead Sea Scrolls by 500 years.

Barkay will speak at 7 p.m. in Cone University Center’s McKnight Hall.

Wednesday (Sept. 25) -- James Tabor, chair of UNC Charlotte’s Department of Religious Studies, will kick off the Milford Dialogue, a lecture/discussion series at Park Road Baptist Church. It’s named for the late Rev. Charlie Milford, the church’s former pastor.

A provocative author and a veteran of several archaeological digs in the Holy Land, Tabor is scheduled to consider the impact the first-century Jesus has on 21st century Christians.

Tabor’s books include “Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity,” “The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find That Reveals the Birth of Christianity” and his controversial “The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity.”

Tabor will speak at 6:30 p.m. in the Community Center of the campus of Park Road Baptist, 3900 Park Road.

Sept. 28 – CNN political anchor Wolf Blitzer will moderate a community dialogue at Lenoir-Rhyne University on “Politics, Religion and LGBT Equality.”

Also on the panel: Mitchell Gold, a Hickory business executive, gay advocate and author of “Youth in Crisis: What Everyone Should Know About Growing Up Gay”; the Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, pastor of Clinton Tabernacle Church in Hickory; and the Rev. Jack McKinney, a Baptist minister and pastoral counselor.

The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the university’s P.E. Monroe Auditorium, 625 Seventh Ave. S.E. in Hickory.

Sept. 30 and Oct. 21 – Myers Park United Methodist Church will host a two-part interfaith dialogue.

On Sept. 30, Rabbi Murray Ezring of Temple Israel will join the Rev. James Howell of Myers Park United Methodist for a discussion about “Christianity and Judaism.”

On Oct. 21, Imam John Ederer of the Muslim American Society of Charlotte will join Howell to explore “Christianity and Islam.”

Both presentations will begin at 7 p.m. at Myers Park United Methodist, 1501 Queens Road.

-- Tim Funk