Museum honoring evangelist Billy Graham

Visitors to the new, presidential-style museum honoring evangelist Billy Graham enter and exit the building through crosses as tall as 40 feet high, a design meant to emphasize that the $27-million complex is an extension of the minister's work. Former Presidents Carter, Clinton and George H.W. Bush met with the Graham family before the formal dedication of the Billy Graham Library, expected to draw 1,500 well-wishers. Billy Graham, 88, suffers from fluid on the brain, prostate cancer and Parkinson's disease, and is largely confined to his home in Montreat. Still, he was scheduled to speak at the ceremony. It will take place in view of his childhood home, which was moved to the library site and restored. His wife Ruth, 86, has degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck and is bedridden at their home.

The 40,000-square-foot complex was built on the grounds of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and among its designers was the ITEC Entertainment Co., of Orlando, Fla., which has done work for Disney and other theme parks. The dairy farm where the preacher grew up is just a few miles from the site and the library reflects his roots. The museum, which reporters toured before the ceremony Thursday, is more heartfelt tribute than scholarly review. Graham's personal papers will be stored at the museum, while documents related to his crusades will remain in an archive at Wheaton College, the prominent evangelical school in Illinois where the minister and his wife met as students. There are photos of Graham with the U.S. presidents he befriended going back six decades, and displays of gifts they gave him, including a golf club and a check that President Nixon had given the preacher as an offering. However, there is no mention of how Graham's close ties with Nixon had cast a shadow on the minister. Old TV sets broadcast clips of the troubled times in America when Graham preached, including the Civil Rights era. Graham has been praised for integrating his crusades starting in 1953, but also criticized for his restrained support for the movement.