A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  Evangelicals were not the only ones stirred by the Berlin Congress. At the triennial meeting of the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches, which convened in Miami in December of the same year, Dr. Willis E. Elliott of the NCC’s Christian Life and Mission Division released a scathing denunciation of the congress, which he attended as an official observer. It had been, he said, “a promotional meeting for a party within Protestantism,” a group that under the leadership of Billy Graham and Carl F. H. Henry was seeking to have itself recognized as the Evangelical party within the ecumenical movement. He professed to admire Graham and to stand in awe of “his godlike transcendence over the masses, the Sistine-ceiling frowning-God eyebrows, the Olympian masculinity, you name it, he’s got it; both clarity and power of image.” But he did not admire what he saw as Graham’s obsession “with the promotion and protection of a particular angle on the Bible,” an angle he characterized as “scribal evangelism,” with an outlook that was “Biblicistic rather than Biblical” and had little room for an overtly social dimension. Recalling the reference by many congress speakers to the ever-ticking population clock, he noted that not one had suggested that Christians might assume some responsibility for damping the population explosion, and that this failure stemmed from an individualistic ideology that kept Evangelicalism from contemplating collective solutions to social problems.

  Elliott called on the NCC “to establish a polar position for dialogue with the old evangelism as represented by Billy Graham,” but he hardly succeeded in turning the evangelist into an enemy. In fact, while Elliott was merely releasing a report, Billy Graham was one of the assembly’s two featured speakers, along with Vice-President Hubert Humphrey. Graham described the Berlin Congress as “a step” toward greater unity among Christians. In return, an official of the World Council announced that his organization would thenceforth seek opportunities to cooperate with Graham and his colleagues in evangelistic endeavors. Carl McIntire took this to mean that the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) would soon be absorbed into a one-world church, where wheat and tares were equally valued, where Pentecostals would lie down with popes and men of scant conviction would sacrifice their souls on altars of compromise. In truth, ecclesiastical unity was not on the immediate horizon. The NAE neither disappeared nor linked arms with either the National or World Council, and the councils never quite got around to reviving the spirit of John R. Mott. Still, the Berlin Congress did prove to be a pivotal event for Evangelical Christianity, helping to create a kind of third worldwide ecumenical force alongside Vatican II and the WCC and establishing Evangelicalism as an international movement capable of accomplishing more than its constituents had dreamed possible.

  21

  Dreams and Wars

  By the mid-1960s, Graham seemed to be following through on his oft-announced intention to cut back on full-scale crusades. In 1967 he held weeklong crusades in Puerto Rico, Winnipeg, Kansas City, and Tokyo, in addition to the television campaign from Earls Court. The following year, partly because of illness, he restricted himself to domestic crusades in Portland and Pittsburgh, a four-day stint at the Hemisfair in San Antonio, and a two-week visit to Australia. By this time, North American and British crusades could run on automatic pilot. No one could surpass Billy Graham at conquering critics and silencing skeptics by trotting out well-tested responses to troublesome questions, and no one seemed better able to convince himself that the effort then in progress was somehow distinct and more remarkable than those that had gone before. Still, though he could answer the same questions, preach the same sermons, and draw in impressive numbers of inquirers, world without end, Graham could never quite be content simply doing what he had done before. Always, he needed a new challenge for himself, a new way to stretch the boundaries and influence of Evangelicalism, a new opportunity “to do some great thing for God.”

  Still heady with the ecumenical excitement and international enthusiasm generated by the Berlin Congress, Graham made a brief visit during the summer of 1967 to Turin, Italy, where he preached at services hosted by the Waldensians, a famed sect that espoused Protestant principles centuries before Martin Luther and that many Evangelicals regard as the lone outpost of true Christianity during the dark ages of Catholic domination of the Western world. Reflecting the more expansive atmosphere of post–Vatican II Catholicism and acknowledging Graham’s own ecumenical gestures toward them in the Berlin Congress, representatives of both the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches attended and were warmly received at one of these services.

  From Italy, Graham foreshadowed what would become one of the most significant aspects of his later ministry when he preached for the first time in a Communist country. Early in 1966 he announced that he had been invited by Protestant churches in Poland, with approval from the Communist government’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, to participate in the celebration of a thousand years of Christianity in that country, and that he intended to accept. That prospect of access to iron curtain countries doubtless influenced the directive to participants in the Berlin Congress to refrain from open criticism of Communist theory or practice. Shortly afterward, however, under pressure to grant a similar privilege to Pope Paul VI, the Polish government rescinded its permission, and the visit was canceled. Graham might easily have used this widely publicized rebuff as a pretext for retooling his old harangues against the godless Communists, but he limited himself to a scrupulously diplomatic “I hope we may be permitted to go at a later time.” The Polish door would not crack open again for nearly two decades, but the evangelist received a consolation prize in 1967 in the form of an opportunity to visit and preach in Yugoslavia, heretical as far as Moscow was concerned, but still Communist and thus still a minor milestone for his ministry.

  Graham spent only two days in Yugoslavia, both in Zagreb, but they were rich and emotion-laden. After discreet intervention by Billy’s old friend, Liberian vice-president William Tolbert, the Yugoslav government permitted his entry, but the small community of Baptists who invited him were uncertain as to what officials would permit or what opposition Roman Catholics would mount. Their apprehensions proved groundless. Government policy banned religious advertising, but when a Baptist church erected a large sign announcing the meetings, officials looked the other way. Similarly, Catholics not only approved of Graham’s visit, but when it became clear no Protestant church would hold the expected crowds and the government rejected a request for use of a municipal stadium, the prelate offered Graham the use of a soccer field adjoining a Catholic seminary and military hospital.

  No Yugoslavian media mentioned Graham’s appearance, but missionary radio broadcasts from Monte Carlo and word-of-mouth communication among Yugoslavian Christians brought at least two thousand worshipers to a Sunday morning service on the soccer field. When black clouds began to spill a driving rain on the crowd, Graham announced he would cut his sermon short, but a chorus of protests begged him not to, and after one lone voice pleaded “We’ve waited too long for this,” he preached for an hour in a downpour relieved only by occasional drizzle. Aware that his status as a visiting cleric was a fragile one, but also in keeping with his theological convictions and personal predilections, Graham delivered a straight evangelistic sermon, referring only obliquely to the “difficult” situation of Yugoslavian Christians and exhorting them to demonstrate their benign intentions by following the scriptural injunction to “obey those in authority.” Whatever they had expected, his message evidently more than satisfied the modest gathering. When the service ended, they rushed to greet and touch and kiss him, their eyes filled with joy and gratitude that such a famous preacher not only knew of their existence but had come to visit them.

  In the fall of 1967, after years of importunate urging by Don Hoke, a veteran missionary he had known at Wheaton and in Youth for Christ, Graham registered a new first by holding a crusade in Tokyo. Not only was the Christian church in Japan at the time pitifully small—no more than 16,000 of Tokyo’s 11 milli
on citizens attended church on a given Sunday—-but it was divided into multiplied dozens of tiny sects and coalitions, most run by dictatorial old men jealous of their modest store of power and prestige and disinclined to cooperate with anyone else, including those of their own denomination. Predictably, many of these men resisted falling into line behind Graham’s team, and some of those most in favor of his coming feared a major crusade might be scuttled by the unwillingness or inability of Japanese Christians to join hands with each other. But in a signal demonstration of one of the most important effects of Graham’s ministry, the variegated cells of Tokyo’s Christian life came together to form a reasonably united body. The unity, however, was not complete. In a striking demonstration of Western influence, the Fundamentalist Bible Council of Japan attacked Graham because he tolerated Roman Catholics and cozied up to the World Council of Churches. On the Left, the Japanese Christians’ Peace Organization criticized what they took to be his support of American action in Vietnam. But these were minor cavils, and most Japanese church members seemed delighted that Graham was bringing some public recognition to their tiny movement.

  Tokyo was not turned upside down, but the crusade greatly encouraged what was becoming a Christian community. The fully packed 15,000-seat Budokan indoor arena rang with the sounds of a Nipponized version of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Cliff Richard and baseball star Bobby Richardson gave their testimonies as if they were in Lansing or London. And when the time came for the sermon, diminutive interpreter Akira Hatori, standing on a platform to bring him nearly to Graham’s height, translated stories of Belshazzar and the Rich Young Ruler and conveyed Graham’s invitation to sinners. By the end of ten days, nearly 16,000 inquirers came forward. Compared to Tokyo’s masses, such numbers were infinitesimal, and some doubtless returned to traditional religion, or joined one of the country’s vigorous new religions, or simply slipped back into that city’s sea of secularity, but mission veterans insist that the hundreds who endured provided an encouraging and permanent surge forward for Tokyo’s churches. Though he did so with some misgiving, feeling he might be spreading his organization too thin by expanding to a country where Christianity was so weak, Graham authorized publication of a Japanese version of Decision and established a branch office of BGEA in Tokyo to provide expertise and encouragement to Japanese churches, as well as to serve as a staging base for other Graham forays into the Far East.

  As Graham moved in ever-widening circles, he became increasingly aware of the need for Evangelicals to develop the intellectual skills needed for effective engagement with liberal Christianity and the secular world. Perhaps inspired by Oral Roberts’s example, he revived his decade-old dream of establishing a high-quality Christian educational institution. In what amounted to a public solicitation, he told a reporter in 1966, “If someone came along with $10 million to invest in such a school, I’d consider it. I think a great university with high academics is needed.” The following year, he announced he had formed a nonprofit group to look into the matter more seriously. If the group decided such a school was feasible, Graham would not serve as president, he said, but he would be associated with it in a formal and significant way. To emphasize that point, he added, “I consider this a major decision in my life.”

  The bait Graham tossed out was tempting. More than twenty cities offered him property and the promise of financing for the proposed school. By far the best offer, however, came from insurance magnate John D. MacArthur. The son of a Christian and Missionary Alliance evangelist whom Graham had admired, MacArthur offered to donate a thousand acres of prime property adjacent to the PGA golf center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and to provide major financing for a university. The only condition on the offer was that the school would include a vocational component to teach young people a trade or other skills directly related to subsequent employment. Since his early benefactor, R. G. LeTourneau, had built a vocational school in Texas, Graham saw no problem with that, and the pace of planning for Graham University quickened smartly. Within a few months, the exploration group produced a working document that described the physical plant, the philosophy, and the financial feasibility of the proposed institution. In addition to MacArthur’s promises, several gifts in excess of $200,000 had been pledged, including one of sufficient size to provide 100,000 volumes for the library. BGEA expected to contribute 10 million dollars during the first year and 3 million dollars for five consecutive years thereafter. Faculty salaries would be competitive with many secular institutions and higher than those paid in most Christian colleges and Bible schools. A statement of the school’s philosophy of education explicitly affirmed that students would “fearlessly” pursue “truths about the physical universe” and world cultures, using the empirical and rational procedures common to the natural and social sciences. To discover “Truths concerning God,” however, they would be expected to consult “the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures” and their account of the revelation of God “in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ.” To further circumscribe the search for religious truth, all board members, administrators, and faculty would subscribe each year to a statement of Evangelical faith whose first tenet asserted that the Scriptures “as originally communicated by God to men were fully and verbally inspired without error of any kind” and are “the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith and life; the infallible Word of God.” Students at Graham University would receive computer-aided instruction and would obtain hands-on experience that would enable them “to easily function in a surround of television, computers, data processors, and in formation retrieval.” The university would also boast a double handful of firsts—first to use the computer “for all conceivable services” (including a computerized “apologetic resource center”), first to offer Christian-led courses on applied computer programming, first to establish a Christian school of business, first to pioneer in undersea farming, and grandest of all, “first to offer courses of study on space platforms orbiting the earth (projected for 1975).”

  Given Graham’s proven ability to attract as much money as he needed for any project he backed, it seemed likely the university would become a reality. But the evangelist’s public optimism about his crusades and other ventures frequently masked substantial private doubts, a fact that inspired Ruth and the children to nickname him Puddleglum, after a figure in a C. S. Lewis children’s story who, Ruth explained, “has the boundless capacity for seeing the grim side of every situation.” To illustrate her own Puddleglum’s talent along this line, she recalled an occasion when she was scheduled to fly from Miami to Asheville via Atlanta. After checking the weather in Atlanta, Billy told her, “You probably won’t be able to land. If not, I don’t know where you will go—probably on to New York City. But if they try to land, I hope you make it; Atlanta is one of the busiest airports in the United States. And if you do, I’d advise you to spend the night in a motel—if you can get a room, which I doubt—as a lot of planes will be grounded and the motels will be full. In that case, rent a car, if you can get one, and drive home. But drive carefully because you could have a wreck.” Graham’s overly cautious nature normally would have made him hesitate before moving forward with so daunting a project as a full-scale university, but when co-workers and members of his board voiced concerns that the university might be too great a burden on the organization, he suddenly backed out, a decision that offended and permanently alienated John MacArthur and the directors of the foundation that ultimately administered his great wealth.

  By pulling out of the university project, Graham was able to step back from what would surely have become an enormous drain on his time and his association’s resources. He was less successful at extricating himself from other conflicts of interest and expression. In a send-up of his tendency to waffle or withhold comment on controversial subjects, the Christian Century published excerpts from an interview in which Graham seemed especially reluctant to say anything that might generate disagreement. Asked his views on capital punishm
ent, he said, “I take no position.” On therapeutic abortion: “That’s a complicated question. I’m not going to get involved.” On whether he approved of a bill to restrict the teaching of evolution in California schools: “I’d have to see the bill.” On Vietnam: “We ought to leave that to our leaders—they know the facts.”

  On some issues, however, Graham was taking a more definite stand. At the Miami meeting of the NCC shortly after the Berlin Congress, he had criticized church leaders who “call for social service without also providing a solid spiritual basis for it.” Less than a year later, however, he sent the central committee of the World Council a surprising paper in which he said, “There is no doubt that the Social Gospel has directed its energies toward the relief of many of the problems of suffering humanity. I am for it! I believe it is Biblical.” This reference to biblical warrant for Christian social action was not a mere rhetorical flourish. In fact, Graham had carefully searched the Scriptures, using such reference tools as the Nave’s Topical Bible, in which all the passages on a given subject are grouped together, and had been deeply impressed at the tremendous amount of attention paid to the poor in Holy Writ. Confronted with this evidence, he felt he had little choice but to take a more active and public stand against poverty. To Lyndon Johnson’s great and understandable delight, Graham openly and unmistakably placed his blessing on the poverty program. During one stretch, he spent several days calling congressmen to drum up support for the War on Poverty, and he told a gathering made up of national business leaders and congressmen from both parties that if the American people did not support the programs of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the nation would “pay for it spiritually, morally, and in every phase of society.” When Congress funded the poverty program, Graham clambered into a helicopter with Sargent Shriver and barnstormed around Appalachia, trying to persuade local officials to lend their cooperation to OEO efforts. Finally, he taped a pro-OEO interview for distribution to southern radio stations and even participated in Beyond These Hills, an antipoverty film shown throughout the South. In response to these efforts, the Christian Century grudgingly tendered its “problematic congratulations,” the Baptist Standard marveled that GRAHAM NOW FAVORS WAR ON POVERTY, and Sargent Shriver acknowledged, in a memo to a White House colleague, that “we are extremely pleased.”