Billy Graham on origins

Billy Graham is not necessarily divinely inspired, of course, but his views have been widely respected, and rightly so. I was led to a passage where he was asked his views on origins.

David Frost says that he wished to know how Billy Graham interpreted scripture, and what he thought of evolution. Graham responded that he didn't think anyone could be an absolutely strict literalist, and gave the example of Lazarus, who couldn't have been in Abraham's bosom. Then Graham went on to say this:
Oh, I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, and I think we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book.
The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or this being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man.

Frost asked a further question, and Graham indicated that he hadn't finished his response to the previous one. Graham went on:
. . . I personally believe that it's just as easy to accept the fact that God took some dust and blew on it and out came a man as it is to accept the fact that God breathed upon man and he became a living soul and it started with some protoplasm and went right on up through the evolutionary process. Either way is by faith and whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God.
Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, 1997. (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Cook Communications, 1997. p. 72-74) The book indicates that this is taken from the transcript of an interview of Graham by Frost on BBC-2, in 1964. Frost is given as the author of the book, which is said to be excerpts from interviews with Graham over three decades. The first one was in 1964, and may have been the interview above.

I plan no posts, except maybe a Sunspots, and a Charles Wesley Hymn, over the next couple of weeks, because of travel and church responsibilities.

Thanks for reading.

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October 14, 2007: I have just discovered a post by Steve Martin, entitled "Made in God's Image or Evolved from Apes?" which is related to the quotations from Billy Graham (but makes no mention of Graham).