The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (879 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
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Graham, Billy
(William Franklin Graham
;
b. 1918).
American Christian evangelist. He was ordained a
Southern Baptist
minister and became a local pastor (1943–5), then a college president (1947–52). The first of his big evangelistic ‘crusades’, in which he preached to a series of mass meetings, was in Los Angeles in 1948. Many others have followed, notably one attended by hundreds of thousands in London in 1954, which made him a world figure. Graham took his message to a worldwide audience via satellite TV in his 1989–90 ‘Mission World’ campaign and the 1996 ‘Operation Matthew’ and ‘Billy Graham World Television Series’, which had estimated viewing figures of 2.5 billion people across 160 nations.
Grahast(h)
(Pañj
b
, ‘householder’ =
g
hasth
ram). The Sikh
Gur
s
taught that God-realization is not to be sought by leading a reclusive life, but through fulfilling the responsibilities of family life. In the first verse of
R
m
D
s'
L
v
n
the grahast
state is affirmed (
di Granth 773).

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