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Franklin Graham
Franklin Graham in Knoxville, TN
Born	July 14, 1952 (1952-07-14) (age 57) Asheville, North Carolina, USA
Occupation	Protestant Christian Evangelist
Spouse(s)	Jane Graham
Children	three sons, one daughter

William Franklin Graham III (born July 14, 1952), known publicly as Franklin Graham, is an American Christian evangelist and missionary. He is the president and CEO of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and the international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse.

He currently lives with his wife, Jane, in Boone, North Carolina.

Early years

The fourth of five children of evangelist Billy Graham and wife Ruth Bell Graham, Franklin Graham was born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina.

As a teenager, Graham attended Stony Brook School, a Christian private school on Long Island, New York, and finished high school in North Carolina.

In 1972, he attended LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, and was expelled from the school for keeping a female classmate out past curfew.^[1]

He graduated from Montreat-Anderson College (now Montreat College) with an A.S. and Appalachian State University with a B.A.

In 1974, 22-year-old Graham became a Christian in a hotel room while on a trip to Jerusalem. He married Jane Austin Cunningham later that year. They have four children: William Franklin Graham IV (Will), born in 1975, Roy Austin Graham (1977), Edward Bell Graham (1979) and Jane Austin Graham Lynch (Cissie) (1986). Lynch is now married to the NFL's Corey Lynch, safety for the Cincinnati Bengals. Graham and his wife have five grandchildren.

As a young man, Graham was actively mentored by two senior members of the Billy Graham Team; Roy Gustafson and John Wesley White. These men worked alongside Billy Graham and had a desire to positively affect the life and ministry of the eldest son of their lontime friend and collegue. Franklin began conducting events for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 1989 and became the CEO in 2000 and its president in 2002.^[2] Each year, he conducts at least five Graham Festivals around the world as an evangelist associated with the BGEA. Since 1989, he has preached to more than three million people in 126 evangelistic events.

He went to Hong Kong from November 29, 2007, to December 2, 2007, to host the Hong Kong Franklin Graham Festival, the first major evangelistic rally in Hong Kong since its 1997 transfer of sovereignty, which drew more than 420,000 attendees.

Graham spoke at the 1999 Columbine High School memorial, and he also gave the opening prayer at the 2001 inauguration of George W. Bush.

Work with Samaritan's Purse

Shortly after becoming a Christian, Graham joined Bob Pierce, founder of the organization "Samaritan's Purse," on a six-week mission to Asia. It was during this trip that Graham decided to focus on world relief. In 1979, after the death of Pierce, he became the president of "Samaritan's Purse." Graham now also serves as the organization’s CEO, and heads efforts on behalf of the organization in more than 100 countries, including programs such as "Operation Christmas Child" and the "Children’s Heart Project," among others.

Criticism

Graham has been criticized for the amount of money he makes. From just two sources of income alone in 2008 he was awarded $1.2 million.^[3]

Graham came under criticism for comments he made about Islam in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks when he referred to Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion." Further criticism came on April 18, 2003, when he preached at a Good Friday service at the Pentagon.^[4][5][6]

Graham has also been criticized for refusing to participate in 1994 peace negotiations between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Sudanese and Ugandan governments. When Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court in March 2009, Graham argued in an op-ed in The New York Times that Bashir should not be indicted for alleged genocidal acts because the indictment would lead to the collapse of the 2005 peace agreement.^[7] People for the American Way, among others, criticized Graham for downplaying Bashir's war in mostly Muslim Darfur because of peace in the mostly Christian south of Sudan and because Bashir has allowed Graham and his Samaritan's Purse latitude in operating in Sudan.^[8]

Quotes

• "The Bible tells us that God loves us and He cares for us. He's provided a way for us to be with Him in heaven, and that's through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ."(CNN, April 18, 2007)
• "The god of Islam is not the same God of the Christian or the Judeo-Christian faith. It is a different god, and I believe Islam is a very evil and a very wicked religion."[1]
• "We need to confess our sins to God, asking for forgiveness as a nation and seek his wisdom in what we should do in the days to come, especially the president."(CNN, September 14, 2001)
• "I believe that God created one man and one woman. He gave sex to us, and sex is to be enjoyed and is to be used within the bounds that God created . . . In sexual behavior outside the parameters that God created, we're at high risk, and we're seeing the evidence of this with HIV/AIDS. We're outside of these parameters, and we have a huge global problem now."^[9]
• "And I think we're going to have to use every—and I hate to say it, hellish weapon in our inventory, if need be, to defeat these [terrorists]. But let's use the weapons we have, the weapons of mass destruction if need be and destroy the enemy."(CNN, September 14, 2001)

Books

• "A Wing and a Prayer" (2005)
• "All for Jesus" (2003), with Ross Rhoads
• "Kids Praying for Kids" (2003)
• "The Name" (2002)
• "Living Beyond the Limits: A Life in Sync with God" (1998)
• "Rebel With A Cause: Finally Comfortable Being Graham" (1995), autobiography
• "Miracle in a Shoe Box" (1995)
• "Bob Pierce: This One Thing I Do" (1983)

References

External links

• Official site of Franklin Graham Festivals
• People magazine - timeline history
• Father and Son bio

Video links

• Franklin Graham on The Hour
• UnCut Graham on The Hour