"Secret Agents"

When Billy Graham preached a TV sermon about angels this year, 200,000 requests for reprints flooded in. Despite The Exorcist and the public's fascination with evil spirits, it was obvious that a surprising number of Americans wanted to know about the good spirits as well. When Graham discovered that there were few books in print on angels, he decided to rush into the breach.

The resulting Angels: God's Secret Agents (Doubleday; $4.95) is Graham's thirteenth book. It will not make theological history, but as a sales phenomenon it is one for the books. Out just two months, it seems destined to become the biggest bestseller to date for the world's best-known Protestant preacher, who last week drew throngs in Hong Kong. Some 660,000 copies are already in print.

Angels resounds with the kind of booming-popping hortatory thunder that one expects from the North Carolina evangelist. ("The hosts of heaven stand at attention as we make our way from earth to glory, and Satan's BB guns are no match for God's heavy artillery. So don't be afraid.") For the most part, however, the book is a readable, if superficial rundown of what the Bible says about heaven's hierarchy.

Many people think of angels as "celestial beings with beautiful wings," or even as "feminine weirdos," says Graham. Not so, he assures us. Basically, angels are incorporeal spirits created by God to worship him and carry out his will. Only in special cases do they take on physical form. Graham attributes many unexplainable good events to the work of this force of unseen agents. He believes that God has often sent "unseen angelic visitors to touch my body to let me be his messenger."

Evil System. But angels also have a darker side. In the Bible, they are the punishers of persons or even entire cities that ignore God. Graham thinks that angels had a direct hand in eradicating the "evil system" of Nazism. At the Last Judgment, he says, they will carry out God's punishment of "those who deliberately reject Jesus Christ."

Graham plays down speculation that angels are involved in such riddles as UFOs or the strange archaeological finds doted on by such pop authors as Erich von Daniken. One appeal of Graham's book, however, is that it meets that out-of-this-world urge and provides an orthodox Christian response to it. Then again, maybe the angels themselves are behind those celestial sales.

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