IN HIS FATHER'S SHOES\Billy Graham's son to succeed famed evangelist.

Byline: Associated Press 

Billy Graham had been patient with his eldest son as he moved through adolescence and into young adulthood while smoking, drinking and engaging in other vices not expected of the son of America's preacher.

But on Franklin Graham's 22nd birthday, America's most famous evangelist set aside his distaste for confrontation and told his son that he and his wife sensed there was a struggle going on in his life and urged him to make a decision to either accept or reject Christ.

"When he said that, it kind of ticked me off because I knew he was right," Franklin Graham recalled.

Two weeks later, smoking a cigarette alone in a hotel room in Jerusalem, Franklin Graham picked up his Bible and experienced a religious conversion. He put his cigarette out, got down on his knees and made his decision.

"The rebel had found the cause," he writes in his new autobiography "Rebel With a Cause: Finally Comfortable Being Graham."

Now more than two decades later, the son who once chafed at his father's mantle is preparing his eventual succession as the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. At the request of Billy Graham, the association's board of directors in November elected Franklin Graham, 43, to the new position of first vice chairman, with the right to step in should his father become incapacitated.

The passing of the mantle at the $88 million-a-year operation has taken on greater urgency as age and health problems limit the activity of Billy Graham. Graham, 77, who has Parkinson's disease, was hospitalized earlier this month after falling in the shower of his hotel room in New York. In June, Graham suffered a bleeding colon in the midst of a Canadian crusade. A month later, he suffered a back injury while vacationing in France.

"Daddy's still the chairman of the board, still the CEO," Franklin said in a recent interview, but the son is already taking some high-profile responsibilities.

Next year, for example, he plans to stand in for his father at major crusades in Australia and New Zealand.

For people concerned over the transition, Franklin Graham tries to be reassuring.

"I don't plan to change one thing at the Billy Graham Association," he said in an interview. "We are going to be at the forefront of crusade evangelism."

But he will have one ground rule: "We are not going to talk about the good old days. We are going to look to the future."

There has been talk throughout this century - or at least since the passing of Billy Sunday - that the era of famous traveling evangelists was over, and there never would be another person like the last charismatic preacher.

Of course, no one proved more that talk was wrong than Billy Graham, who has preached before more than 180 million people in 140 countries or territories. For the fourth consecutive year, he was named the nation's most admired man in Good Housekeeping's annual poll.

Still, some sociologists say it will be difficult for another evangelist to take center stage in quite the same way. Evangelicals have other options, from large superchurches to religious television to groups such as the Christian Coalition and Promise Keepers. Some no longer think the many months of planning and expense of a crusade is an effective means of evangelism.

Franklin Graham made his own mark as director of the relief organizations Samaritan's Purse and World Medical Mission, and this Christmas season found him in Sarajevo distributing gift-filled shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child.

However, the younger Graham does not see the need for crusade evangelism dying away in a society where people are searching for a kinder, gentler world.

"People are discouraged and they are afraid," he said. "People are asking the question: "Is there a God? If so, does he care?"

If anyone has the potential to keep the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association going near its present levelr, it is most likely to be Franklin Graham, with his name recognition and his father's appearance, some observers say.

"What can be transferred can probably be transferred to Franklin more easily than anyone else," said William Martin, author of "A Prophet With Honor: The Billy Graham Story."

But it will not be an easy task. Billy Graham is trying to do what no other modern evangelist has done successfully - pass on his ministry to his son.

"The evangelists are rather like the judges in the Bible," Martin said. "It is the nature of charismatic leadership not to be transferable."

For his part, Franklin Graham says he knows a vote by the association's board "doesn't mean God in heaven automatically makes me the next evangelist."

"I cannot be Billy Graham," he said. "I can only be Franklin Graham."

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Photo Franklin Graham, right, son of evangelist Billy Graham, hands out Christmas gifts to children in Sarajevo. Associated Press