Billy Graham, preaching from the belly of the beast

[Right_in_Virginia]

Billy Graham, preaching from the belly of the beast
Washington Times, Feb 22, 2018, Wesley Pruden

Five of us from The Washington Times were invited to Pyongyang in April 1992 by Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of Rocket Man. The man called “the Great Leader,” regarded as the founder of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, wanted to open his hermit kingdom to the world, and we were the first Western newspapermen to test whether North Korea could withstand a regiment of editors and reporters in their midst for 11 days.

When we got to town we were astonished to find Billy Graham there already. What in the world was the most famous Christian evangelist on the planet doing in the very belly of the beast? The harsh religion of atheism was enforced in North Korea with a vigor hardly known anywhere else. Had Kim il-Sung, we asked him, been persuaded to allow a crusade for Christ in Pyongyang?

Not quite, Mr. Graham said, flashing the broad smile that was part of his famous charm. His wife, Ruth McCue Bell, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, had spent two years in North Korea as a schoolgirl early in World War II, and he explained that his visit, though laid on at the direction of “the Great Leader,” was one with modest aims. “I wanted to thank North Korea, in her behalf, for their hospitality at a crucial and dangerous time in her life.”
 

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/22/billy-graham-preaching-from-the-belly-of-the-beast/