July 9, 2001
Graham mixes old-style preaching
with Christian rock in Kentucky
___By Leslie Scanlon
___Religion News Service
___LOUISVILLE, Ky. (RNS)--The Christian rock singer Jennifer Knapp told a crowd of 46,000 in Louisville that she remembers, from when she was a kid, "this old man on TV telling me about God" and making her miss the shows she really wanted to watch.
___The old man was Billy Graham. And on the third night of Graham's recent Kentucky crusade, the 26-year-old Knapp--who passed through a time, she said, when she didn'tthink "anybody could possibly love me on this earth, let alone some God"--was the 82-year-old evangelist's opening act.
BILY GRAHAM'S IMAGE is projected on a large screen during a special concert event aimed at a younger generation. (BP photo)
___And the music only got louder from there. Think Kirk Franklin and dc Talk, leather pants and dreadlocks, hip-swiveling, chest-pounding, fist-pumping, make-the-geezers-wear-earplugs kind of loud.
___And then, in a delicious juxtaposition of generations, think of a blanket of silence that fell as Graham--his tie neat and crisp, as always, his message even sharper--stepped forward to tell a throng of folks who weren't even born when he hit the evangelical scene in the 1940s all about Jesus.
___Graham's voice--that famous deep drawling voice that's been heard around the world--seemed to thicken with emotion as he urged them to come forward and get right with God, telling them not to wait, because "your soul is at stake tonight."
___Some in the crowd said they came because this might be their last chance to see a legend--and Graham seemed to be thinking of the future too.
___"You look at this scene; you may never see it again," said Graham, who's been repeatedly hospitalized in the past year. "This is something you'll carry in your mind forever. You come!"
___Before the start of Graham's "Concert for the NeXt Generation," some of the young people, many soaked to the skin by a downpour but happy anyway, acknowledged they'd come mostly for the concert, which was free.
___Some of the performers, especially dc Talk, were more familiar to them than Graham.
___But Graham "has a look in his eyes, he knows what he's doing," said 16-year-old Karl Otto. "He cares for us. He may not care for that music--he may have hated it--but he brought it here to us."
___Graham is "up-front, I'd almost say he's real raw about everything," said 21-year-old Chris Thornsberry. "He says this is the way, the only way. He doesn't leave any room for negotiation about it. People appreciate that."
___Graham's crusade concerts targeted to young people began as an experiment in Cleveland in 1994. "Nobody knew what would happen and what to expect," said Larry Ross, a spokesman for the Minneapolis-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. What happened is that 65,000 people came and of the 18 that have been held so far, all but two have broken stadium attendance records, although the one in Kentucky did not.
___Not everyone in the Saturday night crowd was young and limber. At one point, Kirk Franklin, who had slithered down from the stage and was lapping the stadium, a throng of hundreds trailing behind him, danced a few hops with a middle-aged woman, then bent down to smooch a gray-haired woman in a wheelchair.
___"A lot of people will tell you that Jesus is all wrong for our generation," said Toby McKeehan of dc Talk. "But I'm here to let you know--oh yeah!--Jesus ain't just for grandmas and grandpas." That was the introduction, of course, to dc Talk's hard-rocking "Jesus is Just Alright."
___The way Graham sees it, when he preaches in another country, often he has to use an interpreter, Ross said. With young people, "music often provides that interpretation."
___Throughout the night, using music, video, words and an octogenerian, there was an attempt to target the message--salvation through Jesus alone--in contemporary terms. The guys in dc Talk condemned racism, saying "we are an interracial group" and proud of it. Franklin told everybody to grab three people and hug them, and "find three people you would be scared of on a normal day."
___Young people on the video talked of peer pressure, survival, success, mistakes, taking a stand, hope, choices, messing up and still finding acceptance with God.
___The Saturday night concert was part of a larger Graham crusade, held at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium near downtown Louisville. Throughout the crusade, more than 10,000 people made professions of faith in Jesus Christ.
___
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