Portrait Of A Happy Family -- Book By Daughter Of Billy Graham Celebrates Values

What seems so extraordinary about the Rev. Billy Graham's family is not Graham, the pastor to presidents who graced Time magazine's cover last week on his 75th birthday.

It is everyone else, especially his wife of 50 years, Ruth Graham.

In an age of dysfunctional celebrity families, the Grahams' eldest daughter, Gigi Tchividjian, said she decided to write a book about a happy family - not a perfect one, but one that has hung together, passing its Christian heritage on from one generation to the next. (Tchividjian uses the name Gigi Tchividjian Graham on the book jacket.)

What emerges is a portrait that dwells less on the celebrity of a famous father than on the values Tchividjian says other families can share and develop.

She said she often is asked what it is like to be the daughter of the minister who has been called "America's pastor," a man Time said has preached in person to more people than any other human who has ever lived.

Tchividjian relates in her book, "Passing It On" (McCracken Press; $25), that she has "never been much bothered by those thoughts.

"It was instilled in me from the earliest memory that I was to seek my identity in God and his will for my life. Anything else would be identity spelled with a capital `I' ."

Tchividjian - pronounced chi-vid'-gion ("It rhymes with religion.") - was in Seattle this past week. She came to promote her book and to visit with her youngest brother, Ned Nelson Graham, who is president of East Gates International, a Christian ministry in Sumner that is working to develop relations with church and government groups in China and North Korea. Based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Tchividjian, 48, was accompanied by a sister, Ruth "Bunny" Dienert, who is her editor and "best friend." There are five Graham siblings in all.

For all that being the daughter of Billy Graham might bring, Tchividjian said the greatest lesson her father gave her was trying to look at everything from eternity's perspective - how God will view things.

While growing up, the Graham children used to sing little Bible choruses. Her father's favorite was, "With eternity's values in view, let me do each day's work for Jesus, with eternity's values in view." Thus, taking time to comfort someone hurting from the death of a spouse might be more important than meeting a personal deadline, she said.

Tchividjian said her mother passed on her strength of faith and the love of reading Scripture: "Her Bible was always open. . . . She received her strength from prayer and Bible study when Daddy was gone."

And Graham was gone often on his crusades, she said. "The fact of the matter is, we were raised for all practical purposes by a single mom."

But her mother was a positive force. She never complained that Graham wasn't around. If she had, "I think we might have developed some resentments (toward their father)," Tchividjian said. Instead, she got the children involved in various projects, "something for us to look forward to." Before long, they were looking forward to their father coming home.

Each day, the family had devotions - prayers, Scripture readings and conversation filled with laughter: "It was fun. It was a time when we just got together and acknowledged our faith in God and our love and appreciation of him," Tchividjian said.

The Grahams' extended family was nearby. Tchividjian's maternal grandparents, Virginia and Nelson Bell, who had been missionaries in China for 25 years, lived across the street from the Graham home in Montreat, N.C. Her paternal grandparents, William Franklin and Morrow Coffy Graham, lived on their dairy farm 100 miles away in Charlotte. It was "Mother Graham," her paternal grandmother, who urged her and the family to pass on the faith, as Moses instructed the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6:6-7.

"People have asked us if we didn't want to rebel, surrounded by all this `religion'. That's not the way it was presented to us. . . . What we saw around us in our home and in our community were Christians having fun. They enjoyed life."

Tchividjian shook her head at the plight of families today. She recounted the case of one teenager she knows of who was raised by warm, loving parents in a stable environment. A friend called her recently to say the 14-year-old had been placed in a mental hospital after police found he was using drugs and possibly dealing arms and stealing.

"I have no explanation," said Tchividjian. Looking at the duress families are facing in general these days, she said: "From our background, I would really think it is a satanic attack on the family, this breakdown."

Tchividjian, who has been married 30 years to Stephan Tchividjian, a clinical psychologist, said her book was not meant to tell people how to run their families, but "to encourage families to hold onto what they have. . . . I want this to be a book of encouragement for families not to give up."

If she could do anything to change the country, she said she would do whatever she could to give hope to young people. "I can't think of anything that makes me sadder than to see a young person who is discouraged or depressed, or has no hope for the future."

She said she is so concerned about violence and guns that she thinks "definitely . . . there has to be some kind of gun control." She said she personally supported a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases as proposed in the Brady Bill.

"You can say all you want, that you are for freedom, but freedom without responsibility is no freedom. It becomes just chaos, in my mind," she said.

By the same token, she also called for stronger controls on sexually explicit material on television. "It's awful," she said.

Tchividjian said the country "made a terrible mistake by taking God out of the schools." In doing so, she said, it removed from that portion of young people's lives hope that there is a loving eternal being, and a respect and healthy fear of authority.

Then along came the "Me Generation" and the notion that it was OK to do whatever felt good, she said: "Kids are just setting themselves up for disappointment. Life is not like it is on television or the movies."

Tchividjian urged adults to spend time talking with their children. Don't bury your nose in a newspaper when having breakfast with the kids, she said. Don't drown out conversation in the car by turning up the radio. Spend time talking about TV programs you've watched together, perhaps discussing the show from a biblical perspective.

Churches also need to be involved in helping young people, she said. She noted her oldest son, Stephan-Nelson Tchividjian, who is a minister in the Fort Lauderdale area, calculated that if every church in Broward County was willing to take two foster children, all the foster children in his county would have homes. "Just two families in every church. That is not asking a whole lot," she said.

Tchividjian said her father, who has been slowed by Parkinson's disease, has probably five more years of active crusade ministry. "We don't know how he does what he does now," she said. His mind is as sharp as a tack, she said, but he is having trouble walking and climbing stairs.

While others speculate who in the family might inherit Graham's mantle, Tchividjian said, "I think each one in the family, each of the children, will do their part to carry on."

It's a heritage any family can share, she said. All it takes is someone to decide, "We're going to start a godly heritage, and pass it on."