Billy Graham museum generates controversy

CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 28 (UPI) -- The North Carolina museum recording the life of evangelist Billy Graham is seen by some as a fit memorial and by others as a cheap display.

Family and friends tried to find an appropriate way to commemorate and carry on his six decades of work -- an honor from which Graham, 88, shies away, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

"The last thing my father wanted was to have a monument to himself," Franklin Graham said of the museum that opens Thursday.

The Billy Graham Library in Charlotte has dozens of pictures and videos of Graham, who has been a spiritual adviser to several presidents. But the $27-million museum recreating his parents' dairy farm has a gimmicky feel to it, say members of his family and others.

Their concerns start with a glass cross that forms the door to the 40,000-square-foot museum. The lobby has hens clucking on a soundtrack and a stuffed cat electronically sighing and a cow talking to visitors.

Eddie Gibbs of the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., worries about how Graham will be remembered.

"I would hate to see Billy Graham's memory tarnished or cheapened," Gibbs said.