(Nah... Fundamentalists can't admit they're wrong :-)

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             More mellow man of God: Billy Graham

             If anyone is holier-than-thou at Thursday's National Prayer
Breakfast, where Bill Clinton is expected to make the traditional
presidential appearance, it certainly won't be the Rev. Billy Graham. 

             When the patriarch of American evangelism gives the closing
prayer at the annual gathering - Graham's first public appearance since
he was hospitalized with pneumonia in December - he'll stand before the
nation's political and religious elite as much a sinner as anyone else
present. 

             "It's going to be quite a revealing thing at the last
judgment when we see everyone standing naked before God," Graham told
USA TODAY in his first interview since December. 

             After almost a half a century of praying among the great
names and the nameless in 105 countries, he concludes, "We all break
God's laws and fail to live up to his standards." 

             Graham won't point any fingers at Clinton or make mention
of the moral morass alleged in the news. He hasn't talked to his "good
friend of many, many years" and says, "I have no knowledge of his moral
life." 

             However, he said, during a taped interview with Larry King
for broadcast tonight, Clinton "has real difficulties. He needs a lot of
prayer, a lot of love and understanding." 

             When the sex scandal was sizzling two weeks ago, Graham and
his wife, Ruth, sent the Clintons scripture from Isaiah to encourage
them in trusting God, he said Wednesday after the taping. 

             For Clinton's critics, Graham has scripture as well: John
8:7. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone,"
says Graham, his black, leather-bound Bible always at hand. 

             Graham was a co-founder of the National Prayer Breakfast in
1953 and has missed only two gatherings. Is his message any different in
1998? 

             "No," he says, blue eyes shining. "The message is always
the same as it's been for thousands of years." 

             Despite his painful Parkinson's disease, its aggravating
way of snipping threads of short-term memory or staying the will to
stride forward, this is a happy man. Certain. Content. Accountable to
God and, profoundly curious though he may be, able to accept that God's
ways are not accountable to him. 

             "I will stop sometimes in the middle of a sermon" because
of the illness, he tells King, but Graham sees the pause as an
improvement in his preaching, better perhaps than the old days, when "I
used to preach so long and so hard." 

             Asked about inexplicable suffering, he accepts the "mystery
of iniquity." Someday we will know everything, he says. Frankly, he's
looking forward to that moment when God's plan is revealed on a "big
screen in the sky, a panorama of history." 

             He believes ax murderer Karla Faye Tucker, born again
during her years on death row, "went immediately into the presence of
the Lord" after her execution Tuesday evening. He prays for Texas Gov.
George W. Bush, caught between law and mercy, he says. 

             Graham's life has not been devoid of dilemmas, of prayers
yet unanswered, of temptations. He avoided the flaming descent into    
scandals that plagued some other evangelists through a combination of
temporal caution (he's never alone in a room with a woman) and the
frequent prayer "Lord, help me right now!" he says, fists clenched. 

             His path to unshaken faith is detailed at length in his
richly detailed, best-selling 1997 autobiography, Just as I Am, which
arrives in stores in a paperback edition (HarperCollins, $7.99) this
week. 

             But to meet Graham today is to encounter a man distilled to
the essence. 

             He has edited out the politics. Cuban embargo? "I have an
opinion but I won't say what it is," he teases, although he proclaims it
is "wonderful" that Pope John Paul II made the trip and opened doors for
faith. They both believe in stepping past critics into the regime of
communists and dictators to encourage the Christians caught behind
political walls. 

             Graham has arranged for politicians from North Korea and
China to attend the prayer breakfast for the first time, to witness what
it looks like when people are "free to choose faith." 

             He has edited out the hellfire. Says Graham: "I was too
emotional in my early years." 

             And he's not going to pass judgment on others when the
great judge awaits. 

             At 79, Graham says he is unafraid of death. Still, there
are some things he would have done differently. 

             "I should have studied more and prayed more and spent more
time with my family," he says. 

             He now tries to make up for lost time, lingering in comfy
blue jeans at his Montreat, N.C., home, walking, "praying every step of
the way" along the mountain ridge, and blessing the weddings of his
grandchildren. 

             He'll join his son, Franklin, the heir apparent in his
ministry, in an Albuquerque crusade in May, then preach at crusades in
Ottawa, Ontario, in June and in Tampa in October. 

             The highlights of those gatherings are often the youth
nights. Graham preaches to the young, to the restless new age seekers
outside the gates of denominational, institutional faiths. "I believe I
have found what they are searching for," he says. 

             When Graham reiterates "the truth and light of Jesus," his
sometimes soft voice takes on its old resonance. The movie-star
architecture of his 6-foot-3 frame and his craggy face radiate joy. 

             It's his job. 

             If he can no longer crusade around the globe, Graham can
still be a great witness, an exemplar of a faithful life. 

             "I'm not a judge, I'm a shepherd," he says, reluctant to
dwell on "a pedestal where I don't belong. . . . God judges on the basis
of faithfulness." 

             When names are called for crowns in heaven, they may not be
those who came from pulpits of power, he says. 

             They will be the nameless, hidden saints among us. "They
may not be called Christians. They just love God." 

             By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY 
             02/05/98- Updated 01:36 AM ET