Many things have changed in his 81 years, says Rev. Graham, but not basic human nature, or spirituality. During a New York trip to address a banquet for United Nations diplomats this week, Graham reflected on religious developments during an astonishing century, and he looked ahead. Some of the things I've heard are going to happen technologically are way beyond anything I can think about. I don't think that's going to change society.
Society is made up of people, and people are the same the world over.
In the early 1900s, he reflected, optimism reigned among liberal Christians. A magazine was named that. They believed things would get better and better in the world. It was as devastating a war as the world had ever known, with the atomic bomb and so forth, and it had a great impact on all religions. I grew up in the South, and church was a big thing in our lives.