Squinting through one half-open eye across a large wooden table, I wonder if this is the first Lunch with the FT to begin with a prayer. It’s a reminder that I am in the presence of American religious royalty. 

Franklin Graham is America’s best-known evangelist and heir to its best-known evangelical name. His late father, Billy Graham, was “America’s pastor” — a counsellor to presidents and preacher to millions, famous for “crusades” to save souls everywhere from Australia and the UK to China and the Soviet Russia. 

Franklin Graham has continued that mission, and also runs Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian charity that delivers aid to war zones such as Ukraine and Gaza. It has its own pilots and its own planes, which bear the motto: “Helping in Jesus’ Name”.