After a slow walk to the ARCO podium at the Institute of Politics (IOP) last night, Reverend Billy Graham was greeted with a standing ovation from the 800-member audience. Two more standing ovations were to come at the end of Graham's address, entitled "Is God Relevant for the 21st Century?"

Speaking in his characteristic Southern drawl, Graham said that today's technology cannot solve humanity's biggest problems: evil, suffering and death. He urged students of all faiths, instead of turning to technology, to turn to God.

Graham, 80 years old and suffering from Parkinson's disease, is one of the nation's most renowned evangelists as well as a respected presidential advisor. In his introduction of Graham, IOP Director Alan K. Simpson described him as "the single most respected world figure in the second half of the twentieth century, and a great part of the country's collective conscience."

Graham compared the technological situation at the turn of the millenium to the technological revolution of Israel 3,000 years ago. Both then and now, Graham said, there have been "moral and spiritual problems that need moral and spiritual answers."

"Have you ever thought of what a contradiction we are?" he asked the audience. "We can probe the deepest secrets of the universe, but racism, injustice and violence sweep our world."

Graham cited several examples of technology's dark side, including computer viruses and the Oklahoma City bombing. But the problem does not lie in the technology itself, he asserted, but in the spiritual emptiness of those using it.

Thus, Graham exhorted even those students without religious beliefs to recognize their soul, which he defined as "the part that yearns for meaning and light."

Moreover, technology doesn't solve all problems, Graham said. Death is still inevitable, though technology "projects the myth of control over our own mortality."

Graham related an instance where he was asked what the greatest surprise of his life had been. He responded, "Its brevity." Submission to God, he explained, is the only way not to fear death.