Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 30, 1993 TAG: 9311020248
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN McFARLAND ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: FORT WORTH, TEXAS LENGTH: Long
``What about Billy Graham?''
Palau, a 58-year-old international preacher with immense popularity in South and Central America, has been pegged by some to replace Graham as the United States' pre-eminent evangelist.
Graham, 74, has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and is expected to slow his hectic, global schedule. His empire raises an estimated $100 million per year.
But can a minister who quietly accepts that MTV cartoon characters like Beavis and Butt-head are cultural fixtures really step into Graham's shoes?
Palau thinks so.
``It's elating. Who doesn't want to be compared to the best of the best?'' asks Palau, who was born in Argentina and immigrated in 1960.
Not so fast, says William Martin, a Rice University sociologist who wrote a biography of Graham.
``I don't think there is an heir apparent to Billy Graham,'' Martin said. ``I don't think anybody will be able to move into his position when he retires or dies.''
Martin calls Palau one of the major second-tier evangelists.
``I think he's extraordinarily good,'' Martin said. ``He has about as good results as you would find among contemporary evangelists.''
Palau models his ministry and organization after Graham. Graham has influenced Palau since 1962, when he served as a translator at a Graham crusade in California.
In the 31 years since, an estimated 10 million people in 60 countries have attended more than 300 of Palau's cross-denominational crusades and rallies. The Luis Palau Evangelistic Association, his Portland, Ore.-based non-profit organization, cites more than 500,000 ``known decisions for Jesus Christ'' as a result of the crusades.
A listing of his crusades reads like a world atlas: Jakarta, Kiev, Buenos Aires, San Antonio. He has preached on every continent except Antarctica. From Aberdeen, Scotland, to Zurich, Switzerland, Palau has tried to awaken cities to their need for God.
Now, Palau plans to step up operations in the United States.
``I think we're about 20 years behind Europe in going away from Christianity,'' he says. ``If we don't have a massive reawakening in America, we will go the way of Western Europe. Proportionately, there are more atheists in Europe than there ever were in the Soviet Union.
``I think vigorous campaigning can turn that around, although I know that's an ambitious statement,'' Palau said while in Fort Worth for a five-day crusade expected to draw up to 50,000.
Palau's ambitious plan includes starting up a national television call-in show, expanding his radio broadcasts to 500 stations by Christmas, and crusading in every major U.S. city by the year 2000.
In the short term, he wants to bring cities together for crusades, which are planned a year in advance and organized primarily by local volunteers.
For the Fort Worth crusade, about 10,000 people from 500 churches of varying denominations, racial and socioeconomic makeups worked to bring the revival to town.
Palau already has been to a handful of American cities, including Fresno, Calif., Phoenix, Ariz., and Spokane, Wash.
As a graduate student at Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland during the social unrest of the 1960s, ``it seemed like America was truly headed for Hell. It seemed like all the demons had broken loose on the states,'' Palau said.
Now the United States is a racially divided country driven by greed and money, thus making it an even harder place to evangelize, Palau says.
``America's not the bottom of the pit, don't get me wrong - there are worse places. But there's a selfishness that has come in,'' he said.
``This is not the Christian way, and it's really in the long run self- defeating because when you got everyone asserting themselves, you have a case for shooting each other.''
The fight against the violence and hopelessness in America must be fought with more contemporary weapons, Palau says. So he incorporates some modern devices into his crusade. Christian rap music replaces the traditional hymns at many events, and big-screen video shots of sporting events are used to attract younger audiences.
``I think we need to adapt rather than fight it. I'm sure somebody is called to fight it, but my attitude is rather than fight it, exploit it,'' he said.
``Those two guys - Beavis and Butt-head - you can scream all you like, but they're here to stay, those two,'' says Palau, showing a sort of respect for the animated delinquents.
Beavis and Butt-head are a popular cartoon duo who appear on MTV and mutter things like ``fire is cool.''
Palau's emergence in North America has been gaining momentum since the late 1980s, when he realized that Graham eventually would slow down and leave a spiritual void in this country.
``In the states, I began to notice that nobody is tackling the big cities - or if they are, it's smaller things, not on a massive scale,'' Palau says, noting Graham was the one exception.
He said he also felt the need to offset the pounding Christianity was taking amid scandals involving several American evangelists, including Jim and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart.
``I thought, you know, `We need to raise the flag here and say not everybody is living this way,' '' Palau said. ``Just because six or eight of them have a massive fall and become notorious, there's still a half-million preachers out there who slug it out and are honorable.
``Its very painful, you know, because it brings Christ to be a laughingstock across America,'' he said.
by CNB