After listening to stories for almost an hour, I worked up the nerve to ask my most important question.

“You’ve been talking about your time with the presidents,” I said. “I’m struck by the way you’ve been able to offer yourself as an encouragement, a resource and a truth-teller to leaders from both parties. A lot of young people like myself today have witnessed how many Christian leaders got lost in the partisanship and the power that accompanies politics. What advice could you offer to a new generation of Jesus-followers? How can we be more like you?”

Mr. Graham gathered his breath, his eyes searching the ceiling for the right answer.

“First, I’d say, don’t try to be like me, because I didn’t always get it right,” he said. “But also, with one exception, I never asked to meet with them. They always asked to meet with me.”

It was a staggering admission and one that, looking back, I can’t imagine coming from the many preachers and religious opportunists who now elbow their way to our current president’s side. Mr. Graham never sought out presidents or those with political power, and he refused many of the requests they made of him throughout the years.

In fact, Mr. Graham was often critical of the conservative Christian right. When he was asked in 2007 why he never affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, Mr. Graham replied: “I’m all for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak with authority on the Panama Canal or superiority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to all people, right and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future.”

His criticism of the religious right for its narrow agenda and raw thirst for power seemed harsh then, but observers of the partisanship among evangelical leaders today might call them prophetic.