A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  Those who knew Graham best insisted convincingly that his fame had not gone to his head. BGEA photographer Russ Busby, who probably spent more time in the evangelist’s presence than any member of the association except Cliff Barrows and the Wilson brothers, and who is noted for his wry humor and independent spirit, proposed that “the biggest asset Billy has is his honest humility. He has an ego, like the rest of us. Sometimes it takes off, but he brings it back under control. To my knowledge, he seldom thinks more highly of himself than he ought to. When he does, it only lasts briefly—I don’t mean weeks; I mean a day or two, and that’s it. Billy Graham is human, but he works on it. It takes a big ego to be a big preacher, but the difference between Billy and the others is that when God wants to speak to him, at least he can get his attention.”

  Like his twin desires for privacy and recognition, Graham’s humility stood in paradoxical tension with his understandable delight, also real, in his fame and accomplishments. He would muse about “our little ministry,” suggest that its heyday was long past, and express doubt that future historians will have any real interest in it, then note almost offhandedly that a recent crusade crowd was “the largest gathering of any kind in that whole region,” or he would make some reference to Wheaton’s Billy Graham Center, whose voluminous and carefully tended archives virtually guarantee that he will not be forgotten. He also could not completely free his spirit of all traces of competition. At Columbia, South Carolina, in 1987, a few months before Pope John Paul II was scheduled to appear in the same stadium, he urged his supporters to do whatever they could to fill the stadium for the closing service on Sunday afternoon. “We don’t have to wait for the pope to come to fill it,” he said. Then, as his overwhelmingly Protestant audience broke into enthusiastic applause, he seemed to sense that he had said more than he intended, and he tried to regain the high ground. “I hope he does fill it,” he said. “I think he will. He’s a wonderful pope. But it would be good preparation for him. It would show people what it looks like filled.”

  Though he worked hard to be humble about himself, Graham allowed his natural ebullience to run free when talking of others. His penchant for hyperbole is legendary and good-naturedly discounted by his friends and associates. Crusade organist John Innes recalled a service at which the evangelist had introduced his old friend Stuart Hamblen as “the greatest hymn writer in America today.” Innes said, “We were all thinking, ‘He’s got to be kidding.’ Stuart had written ‘It Is No Secret What God Can Do’ and a couple like that, but he was hardly the greatest hymn writer in America. Another time, Billy described a [crusade] city as one of the most beautiful he had ever visited. We were all wondering what part of the city he had been in. It was one of the ugliest places you could imagine.” Innes, however, did not regard such statements as either conscious untruths or insincere flattery. “I don’t think Billy has ever been a liar. I think at the moment he says those things he truly means them. He builds people up. He’s a natural builder-upper.” Asked about this tendency, T. W. Wilson chuckled wryly and told of seeing a note Graham had addressed to a mutual friend with the inscription, “To my best buddy.” “Well,” Wilson said, “I had one addressed the same way. But he really means it. He might say the same thing to a number of people, and he means it with everybody he says it to.”

  Graham’s siblings deny that their brother inherited the tendency to exaggerate from their parents, but insist that whatever its source, it was a trait of long standing. “It’s always been there, as far as I know,” said Jean Ford, and Melvin Graham acknowledged that “Billy Frank has very seldom had anything negative to say about folks. He’s never been anywhere that he doesn’t come home and say, ‘I just love that place. I love those people. Never seen anybody like them.’ With the team, he’s always bragging on this one and that one, talking about what a tremendous influence they have had on him, telling them, ‘Without you, I don’t know how we’d have made it.’ That’s something he’s done for years and years. If he’s with you, he’s going to make you feel like you’re just about the most important person he’s ever met. And you know”—he leaned forward and a big, knowing smile flashed across his open farmer’s face—“that don’t make anybody mad. And, of course, it works both ways. That’s one reason people like him so.”

  Graham professed no great insight about himself. “I am not a self-analyzer,” he said. “I know some people who just sit and analyze themselves all the time. I just don’t do that. I don’t ask myself why I do this or that. I rarely think introspectively like that.” He may not have spent much time thinking about what kind of person he was, but he thought a great deal about what kind of person he wanted to be. When asked what one word he would like people of future generations to use when they characterized his life and his ministry, he hesitated not a moment. Snapping his head slightly, as if to lock it into position to fire precisely at a key target, he thrust out his jaw and said, “Integrity! That’s what I’ve worked for all my life: integrity!” Depending on how one chooses to interpret his occasional reconstructions of his past actions and motives—his relationship with Richard Nixon offers a key example—Graham’s record may not turn out absolutely free of spot or wrinkle, but it is nonetheless remarkable. Bob Evans, who is quite aware of his friend’s private insecurities and imperfections, said of him, “There is no dark side to Billy Graham. I don’t feel there is any secret insincerity or hidden agenda. He is as transparent a person as I have ever known. He makes mistakes. He is human. He has made some false moves and has tried to correct them. But it is not like the movie stars’ biographies where you find that Rock Hudson was a secret homosexual or anything like that. There is nothing of that sort with Billy Graham.”

  Happily, such laudations are not limited to professional colleagues or others with a stake in putting the best face on the ministry. George Bergin, a rough-hewn handyman who acts as caretaker for the Grahams’ home in Montreat and whose wife helped Ruth with the cooking and housework, volunteered as he maneuvered a Jeep down the steep and narrow road that connects Little Piney Cove to the village below, “You’ve been visiting some mighty good people today. My wife and I have been knowing Mister and Miz Graham for fifteen years, and I’m telling you, they’re the same inside the house as out.” But perhaps the most succinct assessment of the evangelist’s character came from his old friend, Chuck Templeton. Though still convinced that Graham had committed “intellectual suicide” back in 1949, that his theology was untenable, and that his vulnerability to being used by the famous and powerful was a notable shortcoming, Templeton observed with considerable feeling, “Whatever you may think about him, you’ve simply got to recognize that Billy Graham is a good guy.”

  Early in his ministry, Graham occasionally suggested that he felt he would not live to be an old man. In part, that may have been a symptom of an overall preoccupation with doom that he seemed to manifest. But it was also a reasonable conclusion to draw from a life that for all its vigor had been marked with illness and affliction. In addition to the publicized ailments that forced him to cancel or postpone crusades, Graham suffered from an astonishing assortment of ailments, including hernias, ulcers, tumors, cysts, polyps, infections, pneumonia, chronic high blood pressure, throbbing headaches, spider bites, and a series of falls that broke eighteen of his ribs. Most of his associates shy away from labeling him an indisputable hypochondriac, but they admit that he sometimes got high mileage from his disabilities. Jean Ford smiled as she compared her brother to his wife: “Ruth will go to her grave saying, ‘I’m fine. Never felt better.’ And Billy will say, ‘You see, I told you I was sick.’ The things that are wrong with him are real things, and some of them are very odd and peculiar, but he is very open with his hurts. I don’t know whether there’s any hypochondria there or not, but he doesn’t mind letting you know if he’s not feeling well. I’m sure anyone in his position would be tempted to use that. This is one area where he can really be human.” Leighton Ford agreed. “I don’t think it’s escapist,
” he said, “but it is a way of being like other people. He can’t sit in a restaurant and have a quiet dinner like anyone else, but he can have a sore knee like anyone else.”

  As he entered into the eighth decade of his life, Graham freely admitted, “I have declined some. I’m not anything like I was ten years ago. I’ve slowed down some. I notice when I go down steps, I always use the railing if there’s one there.” His colleagues, however, marveled at his vigor, and Melvin Graham thought his brother was being too hard on himself. “Billy Frank thinks his age is hurting him,” Melvin said. “He thinks people are going to say he’s over the hill. Now he may not have the stamina he once had. Used to, he could preach all night long, wide open. He doesn’t do that anymore. And maybe it’s true that he can’t keep going full steam much longer. I don’t know. But I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think he’s over the hill too far.”

  37

  “To the Ends of the Earth”

  *Billy Graham and his men found well-deserved satisfaction at having managed to stand in the public eye for more than four decades while suffering only occasional seasons of doubts about their integrity or judgment. They were pleased with their past. They were less settled about their future, though they realized that the end of Graham’s ministry could not be far off. Graham acknowledged that “we have a committee that looks into that once in a while” but hinted that his own preference might simply be to let his ministry end when he died or retired. “It would take a lot of courage from the Lord just to close it,” he said. “Nobody’s ever done that—just said, ‘God had this ministry for a period of time, and now it’s finished.’ We have certain things that could be continued, like our little magazine and World Wide Pictures. Some of the television ministry could go on in other parts of the world for ten or fifteen years if I suddenly died today.” He conceded it was not likely anyone could simply pick up his crusade ministry and carry it forward at the same level. His voice conveying realistic assessment rather than obvious pride, he said, “There are a lot of wonderful young men around, but I don’t think anyone has arisen, probably, to be the kind of evangelist I have been.”

  When Franklin Graham was ordained to the ministry in 1982, his father understandably began to think of him as a possible successor. Kenneth Chafin, former dean of the School of Evangelism, recalled when Graham first began to play with that idea. “We were in a crusade, and Billy called to say he wanted to see me right away. I told him I needed to introduce Robert Schuller at the School of Evangelism, but he insisted. He wanted to sit in the sun, so we went out to the stadium and sat on towels with our shirts off. T.W. sat off about fifty yards away. Billy asked me point-blank, ‘Do you think Franklin can succeed me?’ I told him, ‘I don’t think so. God chose you. He’ll choose your successor.’ He said, ‘But the staff says he’s good.’ I told him, ‘He is good, but he’s a novice. He can’t preach the way you do.’ Billy didn’t want to hear that.”

  It must have been difficult for Graham to believe that God might not want his son to take over his ministry, since it seemed almost miraculous that he was even a Christian. Franklin was an able preacher and occasionally held crusades but saw his primary role as that of facilitating evangelism by demonstrating Christian love and compassion through two admirable Christian relief organizations he heads, Samaritan’s Purse and World Medical Missions. “I’m not an evangelist,” he said back then, “though I’m concerned about evangelism. Where my father has used the large stadiums of the world—the crusades—to reach people, I believe I can use the gutters. So we’re going down the same road. But he’s going high, and I’m looking low.”

  With a staff of nearly forty people and combined budgets, in 1990, of approximately $7 million, less than 20 percent of which was spent for administration and fund-raising, the two organizations concentrate more on long-term benefits than on flashy one-time contributions. World Medical Missions coordinates the efforts of American physicians who visit Third World nations for four to six weeks at a time, performing surgery and assisting in establishing basic health care programs. The work of Samaritan’s Purse is more varied. In dozens of trips to Lebanon, some of which have put him at considerable personal peril, Franklin has overseen the building (and subsequent rebuilding) of much-needed hospitals in that war-torn land. In Ethiopia, rather than add to shipments of food that lay unused or rotting on loading docks, the organization provided local Christian leaders with money to buy diesel fuel, which enabled them to distribute the goods, then initiated an extensive program of drilling water wells and installing drip-irrigation systems that allowed farmers to grow food with less than half the water previously needed. In India, where women often trudge for miles to get a day’s supply of water, Franklin and his colleagues hit on the idea of drilling wells on the grounds of Evangelical churches and providing water freely to people in their villages. As villagers flock to the church grounds, pastors and lay leaders engage them in conversation about Christ. By the end of 1990, Samaritan’s Purse had fully funded 130 wells, providing approximately 350,000 people with access to fresh, clear water. In a similar gesture, the organization gives away coconut trees, which provide poor families with food and other materials that can cause a marked rise in their meager standard of living. By using these gifts to create bridges to Hindu families, one native evangelist was able to establish nearly 150 new churches in a single year. Additional programs tailored to local needs and possibilities have been launched in Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Haiti, and several African countries.

  Because of his firm insistence that winning souls is more important than ministering to bodies, coupled with impressive evidence that the latter facilitates the former, Franklin Graham largely managed to avoid the suspicion that he was trying to lead Evangelical Christianity into a rebirth of the old Social Gospel. On the contrary, his quiet, self-effacing dedication to his ministries greatly enhanced his stature in Evangelical circles and made his taking over the reins at BGEA seem less farfetched.

  Despite his growing prominence and respect, Franklin was obviously skittish about trying to follow too closely in his father’s footsteps. “I really feel sorry,” he said, “when I see people like Richard Roberts [son of Oral Roberts], who is trying so hard to assume his father’s identity—by the way he combs his hair, his facial expressions when he looks into the camera. He’ll never be his father. . . . And I’m not my father. For me to try to comb my hair and act and look like him, I would always be a disappointment in people’s minds.” Few believed Franklin would attempt a major crusade ministry modeled on his father’s, but he was clearly a possibility to lead whatever would be left of BGEA when the elder Graham passed from the scene. “Franklin says he doesn’t want to do it right now,” Billy observed, “but it would be advantageous in some ways, because he has my name, he’s had experience in management, and he’s preaching. It would be easier for people who have given to us financially to give to him.” Board member Carloss Morris felt something might be worked out. “I think the Lord decides these things, but from the human side I can envision it. I think we could have a great ministry under Franklin. That boy’s got a big heart for the Lord and a big heart for helping people all around the world.” T. W. Wilson agreed. “Franklin is totally committed to the cause of Christ,” he said. “He has a world vision. And who better than a son would preserve Billy’s good name and that of his ministry? I’ve told Billy, ‘If a man has to lean one way or the other, I’d rather see him lean too far in the direction of conservatism than have one drop of liberalism in his blood. And Franklin believes something, thank God. He’ll keep this thing going for God’s glory, and honor you as well.’ Now, I haven’t always felt that way. He was a rounder, I’m telling you. But then he really got turned on for the Lord. I think he is one of the most highly improved young men that I know.”

  Franklin’s theological conservatism was definitely in his favor. T. W. Wilson was not alone in fearing that a successor might depart from the course Billy Graham had followed, and some sus
pect that is one reason the evangelist had been reluctant to settle on a definite plan for succession. Johnny Lenning wondered aloud “if Billy would not just as soon have the whole thing closed down when he finishes, so there would be nothing left to go apostate. Then you would have had a ministry that for four decades has been clean and aboveboard, so that you could look back and praise God for what was done, instead of looking back and seeing what its roots were before it degenerated.” Despite such sentiments, however, few people seemed seriously to believe that BGEA would simply close its doors when Graham retired or died, but true to their professed belief that their own work had been divinely ordained and guided, most key figures in the association seemed willing to leave the future in the sure hands of God. Asked what he thought would happen when Graham passed from the scene, Maurice Rowlandson said, “My answer to that, in the true meaning of the words is, ‘God only knows.’ It isn’t man’s job to provide the successor. When men did that in the days of the apostles, they chose Matthias, and you never heard of him again. God’s choice was Paul. Our choice could be quite wrong. But if God lays his hand on the right man at the right time, he’ll provide him with the right organization.” Cliff Barrows sounded a similar note. “I don’t have the foggiest idea what will happen,” he said. “I don’t know whether there will ever be anyone to take Bill’s place or not. Somehow, I feel this has been an era that God has allowed to happen, and that now he is going to do it another way rather than continue to gather huge crowds together. But then, God may surprise us all.”