Billy Graham: an appreciation: wherever one travels around the world, the names of three Baptists are immediately known and appreciated--Jimmy Carter, Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr. One is a politician, one an evangelist, and the other was a civil rights leader. All of them have given Baptists and the Christian faith a good reputation.

This article focuses on the worldwide evangelist, Billy Graham. My intention in this article is to offer a personal appreciation of Graham from the vantage point of my acquaintance with him for forty years. Many articles and books have been written about him. Some are hagiographic, and others are downright mean and unfair. When one lives to be eighty-seven, there is time for critical appraisal even before one dies. The real story of Billy Graham and his influence on American religious life and indeed on Christianity worldwide, however, will be written by historians at a later date. Probably no evangelist in history has left behind more written material than Graham. He has written more than twenty-five books and hundreds of articles and sermons.

During my student days at Harvard Divinity School, I observed that a number of young Southern Baptist intellectuals were embarrassed by Graham because he represented revivalism and a part of Southern culture that they rejected. Furthermore, they did not regard him as someone whom they could cite as a Baptist intellectual or thinker. Sadly, most of these intellectuals soon deserted the Baptist fold and found homes in other denominations, not realizing at that time that, for the most part, they were joining Protestant groups which were in serious decline and hoping for another Billy Graham to shore up their losses. Of course, I was at Harvard in the early 1960s, long before the thought of a conservative resurgence within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) or a fundamentalist takeover of the denominational leadership.

During the same period, European theologians, at first suspicious of Graham, became increasingly open to dialogue and discussion with him. Graham learned much from his encounters with theologians such as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and Helmut Thielecke, all of whom attended Graham's meetings in Europe. Yet, American intellectuals such as Reinhold Niebuhr were unwilling even to meet with him for a discussion. I am sure that today it would be a different story. With mainline American Protestantism in decline, and evangelicalism representing the new face of Protestantism, such a conversation should have been welcome.

In 1957, when Graham held his first New York Crusade, evangelicals were a minority within Protestantism. In order to succeed in New York, an evangelist needed the cooperation of all the churches; thus, Graham had to seek the support of the more liberal Protestant Council of Churches, which in turn related to the National Council of Churches. Mainline Protestants and theologians in the city were negative about the planned crusade. Niebuhr said: "We dread the prospect." Niebuhr then went on to write, "Revivalism requires the oversimplification of moral issues and their individualization for the sake of inducing an emotional crisis. Collective sins are therefore not within the range of a revival.... Graham still thinks ... the problem of the atom bomb could be solved by converting the people to Christ, which means he does not recognize the serious perplexities of guilt and responsibility." (1) In spite of Niebuhr's objection, the Protestant Council of Churches agreed to sponsor the crusade, thus inaugurating a long friendship of Graham with leading New York clergy and his love for the city.

By 2005, the situation had become quite different. The Protestant Council of Churches was weak and ineffective, and mainline denominations were struggling with empty churches. Meanwhile, former storefront churches had become megachurches. When the 2005 Billy Graham Crusade took place in New York, the Bible churches, the Assemblies of God churches, the independent churches, charismatics, and ethnic congregations such as the Koreans made that crusade at Flushing Meadows successful.

Liberal Protestant politicians rejected Graham when he came to New York for the 1957 crusade, but the New York political world happily participated in the 2005 crusade, including the two senators from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former President Bill Clinton were also present. In a very moving scene, President Clinton held hands with the evangelist, and before thousands, he confessed how as a young boy he had always admired Graham, even giving his pennies at the Little Rock crusade in 1959. He noted that Graham was one of those religious and public figures who had remained faithful and had always been a man of integrity. Graham graciously responded, inviting Clinton to join his team as an evangelist and leave the running of the state to his wife. (The Graham team later issued a rejoinder stating that Graham was not supporting anyone for president.) The young evangelist, who had knelt on the White House lawn in 1950 to show reporters how he had prayed with Harry S. Truman and through this action deeply offended Truman, had come a long way. In recent years, Graham has been honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor.

At Graham's first crusade in Los Angeles in 1949, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst supposedly gave the instructions, "Puff Graham," and then the media recognition took over. Graham wrote, "God may have used Mr. Hearst to promote meetings, as Ruth said, but the credit belongs solely to God. All I knew was that before it was over, we were on a journey from which there would be no looking back." (2) Indeed, Billy Graham, his team, family, and evangelical Protestantism have had a magnificent journey. There have been many defining moments, or stops along the way, which have had significance for American, indeed world Christianity. I would like to mention six of these moments.

Resurgent Evangelicalism

Within Southern Baptist circles, controversy exists as to whether or not Southern Baptists are evangelicals, but Baptists around the world do not question whether they are part of that movement, which was dominated by names such as Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, and more recently Billy Graham. Actually, evangelicalism goes back to the New Testament faith of the gospels and the writings of the Apostle Paul and affirms the principles of the Reformation. John R. W. Stott, Anglican clergyman and theologian, defined evangelism and evangelicalism this way:

   Evangelism begins in the loving heart and sovereign will of Almighty
   God, as revealed in Scripture. It is essentially a bold proclamation
   by word and deed of Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified, risen,
   reigning, and returning. It is undertaken in obedience to the Great
   Commission, whatever the cost, and in dependence on the Holy Spirit.
   It summons all humankind to repent and believe, and then to live a
   new life of godliness in God's new community, the Church.

   More simply still, evangelism is the proclamation of the revealed
   Word of God the Father, focusing on His Son, Jesus Christ crucified
   and risen, in the power of the Holy Spirit. For authentic evangelism
   is Trinitarian evangelism, and Billy Graham is essentially a
   Trinitarian Christian, who stands in the central tradition of the
   church. (3)

Stott maintained that "no single person in the twentieth century has been more influential for Christ than Billy Graham." (4)

Because Graham believed that evangelism is the duty of the whole church, he naturally saw that it was absolutely necessary for Christians to work together. Although one does not usually associate the word "ecumenical" with the name Billy Graham, to a certain extent one could say that in addition to being a great evangelist, he was also one of the great ecumenical leaders of the twentieth century. Graham, the farm boy, explained his leanings towards ecumenicity in this way:

   We had a collie--at least one--and what would any farm be without
   plenty of cats? Not knowing any better, I once took a cat and shut
   it in the doghouse with the dog. They hated each other with some
   ancient instinct when they went in, but after spending the night
   inside they came out as friends forever. Maybe that is where the
   seeds of some of my ecumenical convictions were planted, wanting to
   help people at odds with each other find ways to get along together.
   (5)

The ecumenical movement must be seen as a wide spectrum, including diverse groups from the left to the right. Defining the ecumenical movement solely as either associated with the National Council of Churches or with the World Council of Churches is an error, for that definition would be too narrow. An ecumenical movement exists outside of those structures. Evangelicalism in recent years has become a significant ecumenical force, encompassing most major Protestant denominations. Probably no person has contributed more to this concept of ecumenism than Graham.

Beginning with the first Congress on Evangelism held in Berlin in 1966 through the 1974 Lausanne conference and the Amsterdam conferences leading up to the year 2000, evangelical ecumenism has come of age and become a worldwide movement. The 10,000 delegates that met in Amsterdam in 2000 encompassed a plethora of denominations from all over the world. Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Bible church leaders, and even Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox participated in these meetings. These evangelism conferences have been some of the most ecumenical or interdenominational world congresses ever held. Behind all of them, Graham was the motivating force.

These world congresses of evangelism literally changed the face of world Christianity. Philip Jenkins's book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, chronicled the rise of the church in the southern hemisphere. Yet, the index of his book did not mention Graham or Baptists. These omissions are all the more remarkable given the fact that the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) represents the largest Protestant Christian community in the world with more than 110 million participants. Moreover, churches associated with the World Evangelical Alliance now number around 500 million adherents, most of whom live in the two-thirds world, and most in this alliance accept Graham as their leader. Many participants at the evangelism congresses received scholarships to attend, scholarships sponsored by the Graham organization. To its peril, much of academia has neglected the evangelical renascence, combined with the charismatic movement, in its study of this phenomenal growth of Christianity in the two-thirds world.

Having participated in the Berlin, Lausanne, and Amsterdam meetings, I believe that evangelical ecumenism will be the driving force of a new ecumenism in the twenty-first century. Whereas the present conciliar movement as characterized by the World Council of Churches functions more in the tradition of the Oxford Faith and Order Conference of 1937, the renascence of evangelicalism on a world level goes back to the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. That conference was the culmination of the student movement for world mission and proclaimed boldly the watchword for evangelism popularized by John R. Mott: "The Evangelization of the World in this Generation."

I will never forget attending the Berlin Congress on Evangelism in 1966. I had just completed my studies at Harvard Divinity School and had moved to Hamburg, Germany, to work on my doctorate in Missionswissenschaft (missiology) with Bishop Stephen Neill. To go to the divided city of Berlin, still suffering from the Cold War separation of East and West, to meet Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, and to march down the Kurfuersrtendamm to the Gedaechtniskirche with Charles E. Fuller, Oswald Hoffmann, Harold J. Ockenga, and many other formative leaders of modern evangelicalism was a memorable experience.

Time does not allow further testimony to Graham's growth from fundamentalist to world leader of evangelicalism. He had an open mind and was willing to grow and change. He once told me about meeting Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, whom he had always heard depicted as liberals, but then he felt so honored to learn that they were godly men. Helmut Thielecke was especially moved when Graham asked him to take part in a Los Angeles Crusade in 1963. Thielecke acknowledged that he was one of those German theologians who saw the American evangelist's ministry as "show-business," but when he was seated on the platform he confessed, "As the people came forward in their thousands to confess their faith, however, I was aware only of calm meditation on the part of his crew and detected no expression of triumph. His message was solid stuff." Thielecke expressed these feelings in an open letter to Graham and offered some criticism that was graciously accepted. Thielecke also noted that Graham had admitted to be doing "the most dubious form of evangelization. But what was his other alternative? The flocks that had no shepherds otherwise would not be served. This answer gave him credibility in my eyes and convinced me of his spiritual substance." (6) Interestingly, the German edition of Graham's Peace with God printed in full this letter from Thielecke to the evangelist.

Knowing more about Graham's conversations with other leading theologians such as Barth and Brunner would be interesting. These two theologians were never reconciled to Graham's evangelistic methodology. After Barth heard Graham speak in Basel, Switzerland, while standing with an umbrella in streaming rain, he acknowledged to Graham, "I agreed largely with your sermon, but I did not like that word must. I wish you would change that." Graham countered that it was a scriptural word and Barth readily agreed. Graham concluded, "In spite of our theological differences, we remained good friends." Upon meeting Brunner and relating to him the conversation with Barth, Brunner advised Graham, "Pay no attention to him. Always put that word must in. A man must be born again." (7)

One of Graham's greatest contributions to twentieth-century Christianity was his leadership in the worldwide movement of indigenous evangelism. In the face of declining interest in evangelism among liberal church leaders, Graham called forth a global wave of evangelism that greatly influenced twentieth-century Christianity.

Racism and Social Justice

Graham was a son of the segregated South. Yet, as a farm boy he worked with an old African American who persuaded him to go to hear the evangelist Mordecai Ham. This experience was a transforming moment in Graham's life, because it was at this meeting that he found Christ as his Savior.

Even before the landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education, Graham threw his weight behind the Civil Rights movement. At the 1952 crusade in Jackson, Mississippi, Graham rejected the governor's suggestion to hold separate meetings for the whites and blacks. He told the Mississippi crowd, "There is no scriptural basis for segregation. ... The ground at the foot of the cross is level, and it touches my heart when I see whites standing shoulder to shoulder with blacks at the cross." (8) Graham's opposition to segregated seating soon intensified, and at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, rally in 1953, he dramatically tore down the ropes that the organizers had put up to separate whites from blacks. (9)

Not much has been written about Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s friendship. In 1957, Graham asked King to pray at his crusade in New York. At Graham's rallies in Harlem, his crusade committee included Gardner Taylor and Thomas Kilgore, two of King's closest and most influential friends. At their suggestion, Graham held three private strategy meetings with King in New York, after which he became one of the few whites to call King by his birth name "Mike." The two men shared enormous optimism over the potential of serial crusades to advance the power of evangelism through mass organization and communication. Graham remembered their friendship this way:

   Early on, Dr. King and I spoke about his method of using non-violent
   demonstrations to bring an end to racial segregation. He urged me to
   keep on doing what I was doing--preaching the Gospel to integrated
   audiences and supporting his goals by example--and not to join him
   the streets. "You stay in the stadiums, Billy," he said, "because
   you will have far more impact on the white establishment there then
   you would if you marched in the streets. Besides that you have a
   constituency that will listen to you especially among white people,
   who may not listen so much to me. But if a leader gets too far out
   in front of his people, they will lose sight of him and not follow
   him any longer." I followed his advice. (10)

In 1960, Graham invited King to travel with him on the plane he had chartered to go to the Baptist World Congress in Rio de Janeiro.

Graham was often accused of straddling the fence or trying to please both sides. He once remarked, "As the issue unfolded, I sometimes found myself under fire from both sides, extreme conservatives castigating me for doing too much and extreme liberals blaming me for not doing enough. In reality, both groups tended to stand aloof from our evangelistic crusades, but those people who actively supported us understood very well our commitment to doing what we could through our evangelism to end the blight of racism." (11)

Today, social justice and evangelism are not often seen as having much in common. But history demonstrates that in the nineteenth century, revivalism was a leading force in the movement toward the abolition of slavery, the reform of prisons, and the improvement of hospital care. Charles Finney supposedly once remarked that one of the greatest hindrances to evangelism was the lack of concern for human rights.

In combating racism, Graham discovered other social issues that needed to be addressed. Stung by Reinhold Niebuhr's criticism, Graham was a fast learner. If liberals had changed their minds and grown as much as a conservative like Graham had, a dramatic change in mainline churches would almost certainly have resulted.

The Lausanne Covenant of 1974, which Graham publicly affirmed and signed, gave evangelicals a new thrust for social concern. In the section on Christian responsibility, the covenant stated:

   Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having
   sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually
   exclusive. Although reconciliation with man is not reconciliation
   with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political
   liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and
   socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty.
   For both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and man,
   our love for our neighbor and our obedience to Jesus Christ. The
   message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every
   form of alienation, oppression and discrimination and we should not
   be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When
   people receive Christ they are born again into his kingdom and must
   seek not only to exhibit but also to spread its righteousness in the
   midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be
   transforming us in the totality of our personal and social
   responsibilities. Faith without works is dead. (12)

This profound document shaped a whole new generation of young evangelical pastors who had studied at such places as Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts. Both seminaries had their roots in the new evangelicalism. Graham was influential in the early years of Fuller and instrumental in founding Gordon-Conwell.

During this period, as Graham's support of social concern grew, his willingness to be involved with politicians diminished. He had been so burned by his contacts with President Richard Nixon, whom he had loyally supported, that after Nixon's resignation in 1974, Graham remarked, "I'm out of politics." In refusing to join the Moral Majority in 1979, he declared, "I'm for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak with authority on the Panama Canal or superiority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to all people, right and left. I haven't been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future." (13)

Peace in the World

In 1977, Graham was invited to Hungary for his first crusade in a communist country. He was looked upon with suspicion, especially by the church leaders, who knew of Graham only from communist propaganda. Bishop Tibor Bartha of the Hungarian Reformed Church greeted Graham publicly at the Baptist Church in Budapest, saying, "Dear Dr. Graham, your theology is different than mine. Mine is one of diakonia, service. But, how can I call my people to service when our churches are empty? Therefore, I have learned from you this week that we must evangelize our people! But I would challenge you to work more for peace in the world. We are at a critical period of history and the world could be destroyed by the two super powers." (14) Graham accepted this challenge. In the next few years, he preached in the Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, the German Democratic Republic, and even China. Many of his followers opposed his going to these communist countries, even some members of his own board. Yet, Graham understood that he must preach the gospel wherever he was invited. If the KGB were in attendance, that was fine with him. KGB agents also needed to hear the gospel.

Graham did a great service for the Baptists worldwide. Although he did not go as a Baptist but as a world renowned evangelist, people knew he was a Baptist, and his Baptistness helped the cause of religious freedom. Patriarch Pimen of the Russian Orthodox Church welcomed him with open arms. Being invited to the International Peace Conference in Moscow in 1982, where representatives from religious traditions other than Christian were present, was a challenge for Graham's constituency back home. Nevertheless, he went and spoke convincingly of his Christian concern for peace:

   I spoke from the Bible on peace. I stated frankly that although I
   was aware that many of them came from Non-Christian backgrounds, I
   was speaking to them as a Christian, noting that "everything I have
   ever been, or am, or ever hope to be in this life of the future
   life, I owe to Jesus Christ."

      I made it clear that I was not a pacifist, nor did I support
   unilateral disarmament; nations and peoples had a right to defend
   themselves against an aggressor. I then pointed out that the Bible
   dealt with peace in three dimensions: peace with God through Christ,
   peace within ourselves, and peace with each other. God was concerned
   about all three aspects, I said, and none was to be ignored if we
   were to have true peace. (15)

Graham then spoke of the Christian responsibility to be peacemakers and called on religious leaders and national leaders to repent. He affirmed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and its call for recognizing religious freedom for the individual. Following his address, he received a standing ovation. In speaking to men and women suffering under a totalitarian system, Graham took on the delicate role of being a peacemaker, which was often not understood by his country or constituency. But Graham, in this respect, was prophetic and acted as a mature Christian leader.

Graham's visits to China in 1988 and North Korea in 1992 were even more controversial. Of course, Graham's trip to China was significant for his wife, Ruth, who had been born there as the daughter of missionary parents. In these travels, Graham provided a model for Christian leaders who visit other countries. He never went into a difficult place without seeking the best advice from those who knew the culture and situation. Sidney Ritterberg was his advisor about China. Ritterberg had served as a neutral interpreter during the Chinese Civil War and became the only American citizen accepted as a member of the Chinese Communist Party prior to the Cultural Revolution. His good relations with Chinese leaders ended abruptly in 1949 when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused him of being an American spy. The Chinese arrested Ritterberg and kept him imprisoned for sixteen years. Upon his release, he was allowed to come to the West. When Graham decided to travel to China, he consulted with Ritterberg who advised him about China's need for the gospel but also gave a warning, which today's young western Christians who are Chinese enthusiasts need to hear. Ritterberg stated, "The principal obstacle to the spread of Christianity in China has, from the first, been that Christ has been presented as a white Westerner and Christianity as a foreign importation.... The great challenge for Christianity in China is: (1) to become thoroughly Chinese, and thus to become truly, universally Christian; (2) to help fill the spiritual vacuum that has been created by the collapse of Chinese Communist ideology." (16) Graham's ability to listen to such advice and to learn and change made him a remarkable leader in world Christianity.

America's Pastor

Hardly a week goes by that some news item about Graham is not broadcast. He has been a frequent guest on the Larry King show and has been interviewed numerous times by other journalists. In June 2006, Chris Matthews on "Hardball" interviewed the evangelist and asked about his relationship to the various presidents. From Harry Truman until the present, Graham has been acquainted with every American president. To many of them, he became a pastor during difficult days. He spoke about faith with Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Graham has been invited to the White House numerous times, and on many of those occasions has been invited in as the president's pastor, as was the case for President George Herbert Walker Bush.

Graham has also served as pastor to the nation. When a tragedy occurred, he was often called upon to speak a word of comfort and hope. Following the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Graham comforted the bereaved and sought to help people understand. His honesty and lack of arrogance have resulted in his being sought out as a counselor for the nation.

David Frost, the British newsman, attended the Oklahoma City memorial service and remarked that it was Graham who "offered the most comfort to those who had lost loved ones." With empathy, Graham comforted the grieving parents and loved ones, saying, "Times like this will do one of two things. They will either make us hard and bitter and angry at God, or they will make us tender and open and help us reach out in trust and faith.... I pray that you will not let bitterness and poison creep into your souls, but you will turn in faith and trust in God even if we cannot understand." (17)

Millions around the world listened to Graham's words of hope delivered at the memorial service in Washington's National Cathedral following the attacks of September 11. He asked, "Who can understand it?" and then he responded:

   I've become an old man now and the older I get, the more I cling
   to the hope that I started with many years ago.... We all watched
   in horror as planes crashed into the steel and glass of the World
   Trade Center. Those majestic towers, built on solid foundations,
   were examples of the prosperity and creativity of America. When
   damaged, those buildings eventually plummeted to the ground,
   imploding in upon themselves. Yet underneath the debris is a
   foundation that was not destroyed. There lies the truth of that
   old hymn that Andrew Young quoted, "How firm a foundation."

      Yes, our nation has been attacked. Buildings destroyed. Lives
   lost. But now we have a choice; whether to implode and disintegrate
   emotionally and spiritually as a people, and a nation, or, whether
   we choose to become stronger. (18)

Graham as pastor to the nation provided a helpful reminder for young pastors about the need for humility when consoling families, churches, cities, or a nation. Graham did not give glib answers. He did not pretend to know all the answers. But, he proclaimed hope with confidence and humility.

When Graham traveled to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, he was asked by Jon Meacham what to tell people who ask how a loving God could let something like this happen. Graham's answer exhibited his humility:

   Well, I spoke yesterday to the clergy and I asked myself why, and I
   told them I don't know why. There is no way I can know. I think of
   Job, who suffered the loss of everything--even sons and three
   daughters, all of his cattle, all of his sheep and his flocks,
   everything gone. He couldn't help but ask why, but he didn't find
   the answer immediately, and he really never had the answer at the
   end.

      God came back and restored to him all these things, but the cause
   of the thing in his life was not God, it was the devil. I didn't
   mention that yesterday, because I don't think this is the place to
   talk about Satan and the Devil, because I don't know. The devil
   might have had nothing to do with this; I don't know. But God has
   allowed it, and there is a purpose that we don't know maybe for
   years to come. (19)

In the space of several sentences, Graham confessed four times that he did not know or understand why things like Hurricane Katrina happen. Such humility in a public setting is very unusual for a television evangelist. Today, many evangelists flood our screens giving us answers about things about which they know little.

As America's pastor, Graham has been acceptable to all denominations and traditions because he has not sought to proselytize, but rather in a humble way, to comfort grieving people and offer hope. Such humility is a lesson for us all.

Integrity

In survey after survey, pastors are no longer given first place as the persons most trusted or the ones with the most integrity in their communities. This is a sad commentary on the state of the ministry today. Yet, Graham always has been and continues to be admired as a person with integrity. His integrity has endeared him to the American public and to the world. I remember being with him in Hungary on his first visit. Because of censorship, the people as well as their leaders were not aware of who Graham was. A Methodist pastor, later to become a bishop, related in my hearing how during the week of Graham's meetings in the country he had had the privilege of being with the evangelist many times. The pastor confided, "I have noticed this week the secret of Billy Graham's ministry. He is a person of integrity and humility." President Bill Clinton also has commented on Graham's integrity. At the 2005 New York crusade, Clinton remarked that many religious and secular leaders had fallen, but Graham stood as a model to all of integrity and honesty.

In his closing address at the 2000 Amsterdam Conference, Graham admonished Christian leaders worldwide saying, "I do not believe we should spend our time cursing the darkness. I do not believe we should spend our time in useless controversy, trying to root out the tares while harming the wheat. I do not believe we should give in to the force of evil and violence and indifference. Instead, let us light a fire." (20)

Some denominational leaders today seem to be either dictatorial or incompetent. Too often, religious leaders take their model from the political realm of winning and losing. Graham, however, has tried to model his life on the basis of Christian compassion, integrity, and honesty. He never wanted to offend those who were opposed to him. I remember being at a press conference in Lausanne during the Vietnam War. The reporters were relentless in attacking Graham for not condemning the conflict. After the press conference, Graham went up to those who had criticized him the most. He put his arms around them and sought peace and reconciliation.

John R. W. Stott observed that Graham's sense of humor was often able to defuse a situation and bring peace. During the 1949 crusade in Los Angeles, an Episcopal clergyman complained that Graham had put back the cause of religion a hundred years. Graham responded, "I did indeed want to set religion back, not just 100 years but 1900 years, to the Book of Acts, when first century followers of Christ were accused of turning the Roman Empire upside down." (21) Stott noted, "This quip of Billy Graham's is an odd example of his innocent humor in the face of opposition and of his ability to turn a critical comment to the advantage of the gospel. It is also an unselfconscious assessment of his ministry. He sees himself (and rightly so) as belonging to the mainstream of evangelical faith and witness down the Christian centuries." (22)

Baptist World Alliance

From 1955 to 1985, Graham spoke at every Baptist World Congress. Only when his health had begun to decline did he have to discontinue traveling overseas for the quinquennial events sponsored by the BWA, but in his absence, he sent a televised message or other statement to the assembled Baptists of the world. Frequently, he was the speaker at the climactic concluding event of the congress. Each time, he affirmed his Baptist roots and his support of the BWA.

At the 1985 Los Angeles Congress, Graham began his sermon with the following comment, "I want to say something about the Baptist World Alliance. I believe in its ministry. I believe in what the Baptist World Alliance is doing throughout the world and I give full support." (23) During the difficult years when the BWA was under attack by the SBC leadership, Graham remained firm in his support of the BWA. Invited to speak at the 1995 SBC meeting in Atlanta, Graham began his address by stating that he wanted Southern Baptists to do two things: support the women and support the BWA. While the decision about the formal withdrawal of the SBC from the BWA was still pending, Graham assured Baptists around the world of his support. In an open letter, he wrote, "I enthusiastically endorse the BWA and pledge my support. I urge you to do so as well. I know of few organizations across the world which minister as effectively as the Baptist World Alliance. At times, in fact, it has been the only channel through which assistance could be given to churches in hostile countries."

Conclusion

Baptists in the United States and throughout the world are grateful for evangelist Billy Graham and his commitment to be a proclaimer of the good news of Jesus Christ. The evangelical movement, which is indebted to God for using Graham to bring a fresh new vision of evangelism, has matured into one of the most significant Christian world movements. The Amsterdam Declaration of 2000 summarized well the global character of evangelicalism:

   As a renewal movement within historic Christian orthodoxy,
   transdenominational evangelicalism became a distinct global reality
   in the second half of the twentieth century. Evangelicals come from
   many churches, languages and cultures but we hold in common a shared
   understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the church's
   mission, and of the Christian commitment to evangelism. (24)

The story of how God took this humble farm boy from North Carolina and made him into one of the great religious figures of the twentieth century is truly amazing. Journalist David Aikman counted Graham as one of the six "great souls who changed the century," noting, "To remain humble, teachable, and gracious amid success and in the face of sometimes bitter opposition and criticism is the mark of true virtue. And to remain relentlessly loyal to God's call while exposed as consistently as Graham has been to all the world's power and glory, well, 'tis the mark of a Great Soul." (25) Baptists as well as all Christians worldwide can be grateful for the significant ministry and leadership of Billy Graham.

(1.) Harold Myra and Marshall Shelley, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 230.

(2.) Billy Graham, Just as I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham (San Francisco: Harper, 1997), 150.

(3.) John R. W. Stott, quoted in Lewis A. Drummond, The Evangelist (Nashville: Word, 2001), viii.

(4.) Ibid., x.

(5.) Graham, Just As I Am, 7.

(6.) Myra and Shelley, The Leadership Secrets, 229.

(7.) Ibid., 228.

(8.) Graham, Just As I Am, 139.

(9.) William Martin, Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story (New York: William Morrow, 1991). 170-71.

(10.) Graham, Just As I Am, 426.

(11.) Ibid.

(12.) J. D. Douglas, ed., Let the Earth Hear His Voice: International Congress on World Evangelization, Lausanne, Switzerland (Minneapolis: World Wide Publications, 1975), 4-5.

(13.) Myra and Shelley, The Leadership Secrets, 68.

(14.) Tibor Bartha and Billy Graham, personal communication.

(15.) Graham, Just As I Am, 505.

(16.) Ibid., 613.

(17.) Myra and Shelley, The Leadership Secrets, 188.

(18.) Ibid., 106.

(19.) Jon Meacham, "God, Satan, and Katrina: Billy Graham on the Storm, the Mystery of Evil, and a Regret from his Long Ministry," Newsweek, March 12, 2006. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11780382/ site/newsweek/, accessed August 10, 2006.

(20.) Amsterdam 2000 (Minneapolis: World Wide Publications, 2001), 112.

(21.) Quoted in Drummond, The Evangelist, vii.

(22.) Ibid.

(23.) Official Report of the Fifteenth Baptist World Congress, Los Angeles, California, July 2-7, 1985 (McLean, VA: Baptist World Alliance, 1985), 51.

(24.) Amsterdam 2000, 120.

(25.) Myra and Shelley, The Leadership Secrets, 282.

Denton Lotz is general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, Falls Church, Virginia.