A Prophet with Honor

by William C. Martin

  For many years Graham had said repeatedly and convincingly that death held no terror for him. That fearlessness was rooted, of course, in his absolute confidence that death was but a passage to the glorious eternal life that he had invited millions of his fellow humans to share with him. On at least one occasion he had spoken of heaven in terms harking back to his earliest preaching. In 1992 he said, “I don’t think I’ll miss anything about earth, because I think everything that is for my happiness and well-being will be in heaven. If there’s a golf course there and golf makes me happy, there’ll be a golf course.”

  More typically, Graham spoke of the ineffable but surely matchless glories of being in the presence of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and reunion with the redeemed of the ages. He talked of questions he wanted to ask God when they had a few minutes together, such as why there is suffering in the world and whether those who have never heard the Christian gospel will truly be damned forever and ever. He wondered, no doubt, about what people would say of him in the days and decades after his death, but only one accolade seemed truly important: “I want to hear one person say something nice about me and that’s the Lord, when I face him. I want him to say to me, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’ I’m not sure I am going to, but that’s what I’d like to hear.”

  Surely, few Evangelical Christians doubted Billy Graham would receive that Ultimate Compliment. But many, both within and without those circles, had a more immediate question. In the famed evangelist’s waning years, it became common for observers of the religious scene to speculate as to who would be “The Next Billy Graham.” The answer is quite likely, “No one.” Billy Graham is not, like the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury, an office in the Christian church that must be filled by the likeliest candidate. Graham rose to prominence at a rather low point in the history of Evangelical Christianity, when candidates for leadership were relatively few and it was easier for one person to stand out above others. Half a century later, Evangelicals had become a movement at least equal in size and strength to Catholics and “Mainline” Protestants in the United States, and most of the Christian missionary work conducted throughout the world was done under the aegis of some Evangelical/Fundamentalist/Pentecostal denomination or parachurch agency. Many faithful and talented men and women contributed mightily to that remarkable transformation. Still, from his crusades to the great international conferences, to the fostering of religious freedom in godless regimes, to the training of tens of thousands of individual itinerant evangelists, to the pioneering use of media, it was Billy Graham who, more than any other, shaped and inspired that movement. And, to the world’s good fortune, he consistently manifested an expansive spirit that reached out to enlist an ever-widening circle of individuals and groups to join him in that effort. From revivals supported by small knots of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals to crusades and conferences and global missions in which Christians of every stripe and color and culture work together in common cause, Graham was a powerful, even unique force for Christian ecumenism. Individual lives and nations, the world, and the Church of Jesus Christ are richer for that fact.

  The remarkable success, scope, and complexity of the movement to which Billy Graham contributed so much make it unlikely that any single figure could ever match or exceed his influence over it. It is possible, of course, that ten, fifty, or a hundred years from now, some young man or woman with just the right combination—a combination easy to describe but apparently harder to embody—will manifest comparable achievement and leadership. It may be that developments in transportation and communication will enable this New Light to shine more brightly than Billy Graham’s ever could, just as jet power and radio and television and satellite and computer technology enabled him to reach more people than any of his predecessors could have dreamed possible. But unless and until that happens, William Franklin Graham, Jr., can safely be regarded as the best who ever lived at what he did—“a workman,” as Scripture says, “who needeth not to be ashamed.”

  Notes

  In the source notes that follow, page designations refer to the page on which the reference appears. In addition, the following abbreviations will appear frequently:

  Throughout

  BG: Billy Graham

  BGCA: Billy Graham Center Archives

  BGEA: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

  CN: Collection

  MF: Microfilm

  Part IV

  LBJLA: Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Archives

  JFKLA: John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Archives

  NARS: National Archives and Record Service

  NPM: Nixon Presidential Materials (National Archives and Record Service)

  HRH: H. R. Haldeman

  WHCF: White House Central Files

  WHSF: White House Special Files

  Part V

  AH: Alexander S. Haraszati

  Chapter 1: Mr. Graham Goes to Washington

  Page

  26.The description of the crusade service is necessarily a composite, since it was not possible to be simultaneously present at all facets described. The service around which the account is primarily based occurred on April 27, 1986. Some aspects of the description, however, are drawn from interviews and observations of other services during the crusade, whose dates were April 27–May 4, 1986. The story of the traffic-directing police officer was published in the July/August 1986 issue of Decision, the official magazine of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). All other material in this chapter is drawn from personal observation.

  27.“Redeemer Nation” and “soul of a church.” The phrases are borrowed from Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millenial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), and Sidney E. Mead, The Nation with the Soul of a Church (New York: Harper & Row, 1975).

  27.“like Queen Esther.” Esther 4:14.

  28.“his wonders to perform.” I am well aware of the strong feelings and complex theological issues involved in the use of inclusive language, which does not assign a masculine gender to God. Because Billy Graham, his evangelistic predecessors, and most of his contemporary Evangelical followers emphatically do not use such gender-neutral language, I have elected, for good or ill, to abide by the conventional practice of using masculine pronouns to refer to deity.

  29.“Just As I Am.” Lyrics by Charlotte Elliot, music by William B. Bradbury.

  Chapter 2: A Great Cloud of Witnesses

  32.“Seek good and not evil.” Amos 5:14.

  32.“as soon as God’s Ordinances cease.” John Cotton, “God’s Promise to His Plantation,” quoted in Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 16.

  33.Puritans envision “the New Heaven and the New Earth.” Ibid., p. 62.

  34.“one of the greatest company-keepers.” Jonathan Edwards, “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls, in Northampton, and the neighboring towns and villages of New Hampshire, in New England, in a Letter to the Reverend Dr. Colman, of Boston,” in The Works of President Edwards, vol. III (New York: S. Converse, 1830), p. 16.

  34.The revival “very much at a stop.” . . . “a new people.” Stout, New England Soul, p. 72.

  34.Advance publicity for Whitefield. Ibid., p. 26.

  34.People leaping from the balcony. Edwin Scott Gaustad, The Great Awakening in New England (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), p. 27.

  35.“the old Spirit of Preaching.” George Whitefield, Journals, cited in Gaustad, Great Awakening, p. 30.

  35.Whitefield criticizes local pastors. Whitefield, Journals, quoted by Stout, New England Soul, pp. 192, 194.

  35.“the Word ran like lightning.” Whitefield, Letters, quoted in Gaustad, Great Awakening, p. 27.

  35.“not since the earthquake of 1727.” Thomas Prince, “An Account of the Revival of Religion in Boston,” p. 9, cited by Gaustad, Great Awakening, pp. 27–28.

  35.Revival greatest where
roots ranshallow. Stout, New England Soul, p. 196.

  36.Edwards on the millennium. Jonathan Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival (Boston, 1742), quoted in Stout, New England Soul, p. 204.

  36.Marshall, Voltaire, and Paine on religion in America. J. Edwin Orr, The Role of Prayer in Spiritual Awakening (Los Angeles: Oxford Association for Research in Revival, n.d.), p. 1, quoted in Lewis Drummond, A Fresh Look at the Life and Ministry of Charles G. Finney (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1983), p. 18.

  37.James McGready’s revival techniques. Charles A. Johnson, The Frontier Camp Meeting: Religion’s Harvest Time (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1955), pp. 32–37. Much of the description of the camp meetings is based on Johnson, pp. 41–68, which quotes frequently from eyewitness accounts.

  37.“liquid boiling waves” and “flaming abyss.” James McGready, “A Short Narrative of the Revival of Religion,” in New York Missionary Magazine and Repository of Religious Intelligence IV (1803), p. 228, quoted in Johnson, Frontier Meeting, p. 55.

  38.“slain . . . laid in neat rows.” John Lyle, “Diary of John Lyle (1801–1803),” typed manuscript, Durrett Collection, University of Chicago, pp. 21–35. Cited by Johnson, Frontier Meeting, p. 58.

  38.“ground was crowded with bleeding bodies.” B. W. McDonnald, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Nashville, 1888), p. 47, cited by Johnson, Frontier Meeting, p. 59.

  38.“like the roar of Niagara.” James B. Finley, Autobiography of Rev. James B. Finley; or, Pioneer Life in the West, ed. William P. Strickland (Cincinnati, 1856), pp. 166–67, cited in Johnson, Frontier Meeting, p. 64.

  41.“like cannonballs through . . . eggs.” Drummond, Fresh Look, p. 62.

  41.Finney “attracted widespread criticism.” Keith J. Hardman, Charles Grandison Finney, 1792–1875 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987), pp. 84–85.

  41.“weepers seldom receive any lasting good.” Finney, quoted in George W. Gale, Auto biography of Rev. George W. Gale (New York, 1864), p. 272.

  41.The Benevolent Empire. For further information, see Donald W. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Clifford Griffin, Their Brother’s Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800–1865 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1960); Winthrop Hudson, The Great Tradition of the American Churches (New York: Harper & Row, 1963); Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1957).

  42.“the right use of the constituted means.” Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1960), p. 13. Italics added.

  42.“a SOLEMN FACT . . . Seldom.” Ibid., pp. 186–88.

  42.“the only way to preach.” Ibid., pp. 208–9.

  42.“A good preacher would also pay attention to the faces.” Ibid., pp. 210–11.

  42.“not hesitate to use theatrics.” Ibid., p. 220.

  42.“When the blessing evidently follows” . . . “converting sinners.” Ibid., p. 189.

  42.“the great business of the church . . . every kind of sin.” Charles Grandison Finney, “The Pernicious Attitude of the Church on the Reforms of the Age,” Letters on Revivals, no. 23, The Oberlin Evangelist, January 21, 1846, p. 11. This letter is reprinted in full in Dayton, Evangelical Heritage, pp. 20–22.

  43.“useful in the highest degree possible.” Finney, Lectures, p. 404.

  43.“the millennium may come . . . in three years.” Ibid., p. 306.

  43.“church cannot turn away . . . slavery a sin.” Ibid., p. 288.

  43.“Finney’s converts became active participants.” See, for example, William Warren Sweet, Revivalism in America (New York: Scribners, 1945), p. 160.

  46.“the public will think . . . it must succeed.” Letter from Moody to McCormick, April 5, 1866. Cyrus H. McCormick Papers, quoted in James F. Findlay, Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist 1837–1899 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 117.

  46.“Moody, save all you can.” D. L. Moody, New Sermons, Addresses, and Prayers, p. 535, quoted in Findlay, Dwight L. Moody, p. 253.

  47.“a fair, square, practical thing.” Quoted in William G. McLoughlin, Jr., Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York: Ronald Press, 1959), p. 248.

  47.Eton meeting canceled. Findlay, Dwight L. Moody, pp. 176–77.

  47.“Moody made it a big business.” McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, p. 166.

  48.“the Calliope of Zion.” This phrase originated with H. L. Mencken, The Truth Seeker, April 15, 1916, p. 246, quoted in William G. McLoughlin, Billy Sunday Was His Real Name (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. 155.

  49.Sunday’s baseball career. Joseph L. Reichler, ed., The Baseball Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 1389. McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, pp. 3–8; “Evangelist Types Vary Over Years,” Detroit Free Press, February 2, 1952. McLoughlin states that Sunday claimed to have stolen 95 bases. The Detroit Free Press credited him with 96 thefts in 116 games. The story is better with 95 stolen bases; unfortunately, The Baseball Encyclopedia is probably correct. According to McLoughlin, Sunday also claimed to have batted .359 one year, but The Baseball Encyclopedia records no such figure. Statistics for Cobb and Wills are from The Baseball Encyclopedia, pp. 751 and 1474, respectively.

  49.Sunday’s tabernacles. To help disperse and amplify the sound, Sunday often used an Augaphone, a cone-and-umbrella-shaped device designed to disperse the voice of speaker, who stood directly under it, to all parts of the building.

  49.“the devil’s been hunting his hole.” Sunday, quoted in Homer Rodeheaver, Twenty Years with Billy Sunday (Nashville: Cokesbury, 1936), p. 98.

  50.“As he became flashier . . . sort of woman.” McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, pp. 174, 159, 175.

  50.Sunday’s preaching style. Ibid., pp. 154–56.

  50.“he used his athleticism.” Ibid.

  50.“With Christ you are saved . . . decide now.” Boston Herald, December 9, 1916, p. 3, quoted in McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, p. 409.

  50.“converted without any fuss.” Quoted by Mencken in The Truth Seeker, April 15, 1916, p. 246, quoted in McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, p. 128.

  50.“They will not have much to change.” Life and Labors of Rev. William A. (Billy) Sunday, with Selected Sermons (Decatur, Ill.: Herman, Poole, 1908), p. 324, quoted in McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, p. 129.

  50.“So it sums up. . . . Gee whizz!” Boston Herald, December 15, 1916, p. 14, quoted in McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, p. 130.

  51.Sunday’s patriotism. McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, pp. xxvi, 258–59.

  51.“godless social service nonsense.” Ibid., p. 140.

  51.“be a horticulturist.” Ibid., p. 136.

  51.“he cooperated with Prohibitionist forces.” Ibid., pp. 231–35.

  52.“a giant for God.” W. T. Ellis, Billy Sunday: The Man and His Message (Philadelphia: John T. Winston, 1936), p. 277, quoted in Douglas W. Frank, Less Than Conquerors (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 238.

  52.“easier for people to do right.” McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, p. 293.

  52.“If I had my way with these ornery wild-eyed socialists.” Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 900.

  52.“aggregate number exceeded 100 million.” McLoughlin, Billy Sunday, p. 29. Professor McLoughlin took this figure from an obituary notice. Though he readily acknowledged it may have been exaggerated, he calculated that Sunday held, on average, 6 campaigns a year for 40 years, preaching approximately 50 sermons per campaign, with an average audience of 10,000 per sermon (in his heyday, he regularly packed tabernacles designed to hold more than 20,000 people), producing a total of 120 million. McLoughlin thought it reasonable to discount this figure by at least 20 million but did not regard the estimate of 100 million as totally implausible. Conversation, July 2, 1991.

  53.“a gangly teenager.” The Reverend Fred Brown, an evangelist who was holding a revival in Charlot
te on November 6, 1935, the date of Sunday’s death, recalled that, on learning the evangelist had died, he and two associates went into a bedroom to pray that someone would rise up to stand in the gap left by his passing. A friend of the Graham family’s, he professed to remember that Billy Graham came forward that evening and made his decision to enter the ministry. Young Evangelicals often make several commitments to “full-time Christian service” during their teenage years. Billy Graham has no specific memory of such an incident, but did not deny its possibility. Fred and Donella Brown, oral history, 1976, CN 141, Box 2, Folder 39, BGCA.

  Chapter 3: Billy Frank

  57.“her first child.” Technically, Billy was the second child. The first, a daughter, had died shortly after birth. Patricia Daniels Cornwell, A Time for Remembering: The Ruth Bell Graham Story (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 60.

  57.“no aged Simeon.” See Luke 2:22–35.

  58.“Frank, be a good boy.” Marshall Frady, Billy Graham: Parable of American Righteousness (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), p. 24.

  58.Frank Graham “on the sidelines of worldly pleasure.” Billy Graham, “Billy Graham’s Own Story: ‘God Is My Witness,’” Part I, McCall’s, April 1964, p. 124; Melvin Graham, interview, November 17, 1987.

  58.Graham family’s beach visits. Frady, Parable, p. 37.

  58.“Frank purchased a house across the road.” Morrow Graham, oral history, June 3, 1977, CN 141, Box 7, Folder 40, BGCA.

  59.“running and zooming.” Morrow Graham, interview with Michael Hooser of World Wide Pictures (a subsidiary of BGEA), April 30, 1971. A tape of this interview was furnished by BGEA.

  59.“never any quietness about Billy.” Morrow Graham, interview (Hooser).

  59.“relieved when he started school.” Morrow Coffey Graham, They Call Me Mother Graham (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1977), p. 21.

  59.“he never wears down.” Ibid., p. 35.

  59.“sugar baby.” Morrow Graham, interview (Hooser).

  59.She’ll “just love you for it.” Ibid.