WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) - America's best known televangelist, Reverend Billy Graham, 82, has retired as the head of the ministry he founded half a century ago. Graham, who is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, however, will still remain the chairman of the board of his ministry.
Graham's more aggressive son, Reverend Franklin Graham, 48, will take over as leading preacher.
During the recent outbreak of violence in the Occupied Territories, Franklin Graham has been heard making provocative statements to his congregation, saying that all Arabs hate Jews and that all of Jerusalem belongs to the Jews.
Franklin had earlier rebelled against his father during his teenage years and was expelled from college. Since then, he has reconciled and embraced his father's fundamentalist Baptist values.
The elder Graham had been taking a more moderate approach in is preaching in recent years. He refused to attend a Southern Baptist Convention last summer that pitched an aggressive campaign to convert people belonging to other faiths to the Southern Baptist faith. The conversion plan was also aimed at Muslims.
During the 1980s, Ahmed Deedat, a leading Islamic scholar and debater, challenged Graham on several occasions for a public debate in Madison Square Garden on Christianity and Islam. Graham declined all offers.
After retirement, Billy Graham will continue to live North Carolina with his wife, Ruth.
