BILLY GRAHAM(born 1918)International evangelist, writer, and religious leader

OVERVIEWFor half a century, he has been the face of evangelical Christianity, preaching a simple gospel message in stadiums all over the world. What’s more, his ministry has brought evangelism into the age of technology, multiplying his efforts through radio, TV, and films. All of that makes him undoubtedly the most-heard preacher ever.

EARLY LIFE AND MINISTRYGraham was born November 7, 1918, in Charlotte, North Carolina, the first son of William F. and Morrow Graham. His parents owned a dairy farm and were active members of the Associate Presbyterian Church. At the age of sixteen he was converted through the ministry of Mordecai Ham, a well-known southern evangelist.After a brief period at Bob Jones College (Tennessee), Graham enrolled in Florida Bible Institute in Tampa, Florida (B.Th., 1940). There he not only gained a foundation in the Bible which would greatly influence him the rest of his life, but also received his call to the Christian ministry. During that time he began preaching and was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in 1940. Later that year he enrolled at Wheaton College (Illinois), where he met his future wife, Ruth McCue Bell, the daughter of L. Nelson and Virginia Bell, Presbyterian medical missionaries to China. They married on August 13, 1943, and have five children.Upon graduation in 1943 (B.A., Anthropology) he became pastor of a small Baptist church in Western Springs, Illinois. Two years later he resigned to become a full-time evangelist with the newly formed Youth for Christ organization. Almost immediately he began to travel extensively, not only through the United States but to war-scarred Great Britain. In 1947 he reluctantly accepted the presidency of the Northwestern Schools in Minneapolis (which included a Bible college, liberal arts college, and seminary), but continued to travel widely as an evangelist, finally resigning from the presidency in 1951.

NATIONAL PROMINENCEGraham skyrocketed to national prominence in 1949 through his meetings in Los Angeles. The meetings in a huge “canvas cathedral” (tent) resulted in the conversion of several well-known personalities and attracted the attention of media giant William Randolph Hearst, whose newspapers gave widespread coverage to the event. Almost overnight Billy Graham became a household name, and in the next few years his city-wide evangelistic meetings in stadiums and arenas in some of America’s largest cities established a pattern for mass evangelism that would always be associated with his ministry. He has preached in person in more than eighty countries to over 110 million people, more than any other individual in history. Hundreds of millions more have heard him through television, radio, and film.

DEFINING EVANGELISM

Graham’s primary commitment has always been to proclaim the historic message of the Christian faith to nonbelievers. This desire to reach unbelievers led him to utilize the mass media for the proclamation of the gospel to an unprecedented extent. His worldwide radio program “The Hour of Decision,” started in 1950, soon was heard on hundreds of stations. He likewise utilized television extensively almost as soon as it became widespread (choosing to purchase prime time on major stations for several days three or four times a year, rather than attempting a weekly production). As technology has advanced, Graham has used satellites and videotapes to extend single crusade meetings across entire continents. Through its World Wide Pictures unit the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (founded 1950) has produced and distributed dozens of documentary and dramatic films, becoming the largest producer of religious films in the world. Graham has authored over fifteen books, most of which have hit the best-seller lists and have been widely translated. He also is a frequent guest on major television programs.While drawing upon the work of such evangelists as Wesley, Whitefield, Finney, Moody, and Sunday, Graham sought to refine and update the methods of mass evangelism. Each citywide crusade is carefully organized, with a trained staff working with local church leaders and volunteers for many months in advance. Early in his work Graham realized the need for more effective follow-up of those making spiritual commitments in his meetings. Working with Dawson Trotman (founder of The Navigators) he developed a system that includes basic Bible studies, personal counseling, and immediate contact with a local church.Almost from the beginning of his public ministry Graham opted for a cooperative approach to evangelism, i.e., working with all churches and denominations that would cooperate with him. This led to criticism from both fundamentalists and liberals—the former denouncing him for compromising (in their view) with liberal churches and clergymen, the latter rejecting his message and methods as simplistic, out-of-date, and socially irrelevant. Conservative critics also assailed him for integrating his meetings, which he did more than a year before the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on civil rights (1954). In the late 1970s and early 1980s others criticized him for accepting invitations to preach in communist-dominated Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, although many of those same critics later acknowledged that his visits had a significant impact on the later course of religious freedom there.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CONTRIBUTIONSIn spite of these critics, however, Graham’s integrity, personal humility, and popular appeal have made him one of the most influential religious leaders of the twentieth century. The annual Gallup poll has ranked him among the ten most admired men in America since 1951. He has sometimes been called the unofficial White House chaplain, due to his friendship with every American president since Harry Truman. He has received numerous honorary degrees, including one from the Debrecen Theological Academy in Hungary (the oldest Protestant seminary in the world), and over fifty major awards, including the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion (1982) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1983), America’s highest nonmilitary honor.Of special significance is Graham’s influence on the resurgence of evangelical Christianity in the latter half of the twentieth century. As the most visible proponent of biblical Christianity, Graham has become the symbolic leader of evangelicalism, in

spite of his refusal to become associated with special interest groups or causes. His concern for the future of evangelicalism led to the founding of the influential magazine Christianity Today, where he remains chairman of the board. Graham has also used his influence to draw together evangelical leaders and evangelists in a series of international congresses, including the World Congress on Evangelism (Berlin, 1966), the International Congress on World Evangelization (Lausanne, 1974), and the International Conferences for Itinerant Evangelists (Amsterdam, 1983, 1986). He has been chairman of the board of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Massachusetts) and honorary chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.