i Billy Graham ii iii Billy Graham American Pilgrim z Edited by ANDREW FINSTUEN ANNE BLUE WILLS GRANT WACKER 1 iv 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Finstuen, Andrew | Wills, Anne Blue | Wacker, Grant, editor. Title: Billy Graham : American pilgrim / edited by Andrew Finstuen, Anne Blue Wills and Grant Wacker. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2016050920 (print) | LCCN 2017012227 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190683528 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190683535 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190683542 (updf) | ISBN 9780190683559 (online content) Subjects: LCSH: Graham, Billy, 1918– | United States—Church history—20th century. | Evangelism—United States. Classification: LCC BV3785.G69 (ebook) | LCC BV3785.G69 B495 2017 (print) | DDC 269/.2092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050920 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America v For Edith L. Blumhofer vi vii Contents Preface ix List of Contributors xi Introduction—Grant Wacker 1 PART ONE: Religion 1. Professor Graham: Billy Graham’s Missions to Colleges and Universities—a ndreW Finstuen 23 2. From Desire to Decision: The Evangelistic Preaching of Billy Graham—Michael s. haMilton 43 3. Singing to Save: Music in the Billy Graham Crusades— edith l. BluMhoFer 64 4. God’s Ambassador to the World— WilliaM Martin 83 PART TWO: Politics 5. Preaching Good News to the Poor: Billy Graham and Evangelical Humanitarianism— david P. kinG 119 6. A Politics of Conversion: Billy Graham’s Political and Social Vision— curtis J. evans 143 7. “Heavenly Houston”: Billy Graham and Corporate Civil Rights in Sunbelt Evangelicalism’s “Golden Buckle”—d arren dochuk 161 viii viii Contents PART THREE: Culture 8. “You Cannot Fool the Electronic Eye”: Billy Graham and Media— elesha coffman 197 9. Billy Graham’s New Evangelical Manhood—s eth doWland 216 10. “An Odd Kind of Cross to Bear”: The Work of Mrs. Billy Graham, from “Pretty Wife” to “End of Construction”— anne Blue Wills 232 11. Complicated Innocence: A Case Study of the Billy Graham Image—s teven P. Miller 262 Afterword: Billy Graham’s Legacy— MarGaret Bendroth 278 Epilogue: What Now?—k en GarField 295 Index 303 ix Preface in 2011 the Lilly Endowment Inc. awarded the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals (ISAE) at Wheaton College in Illinois a major grant to examine the life and influence of the American evangelist Billy Graham (b. 1918). The ISAE used the award to fund planning meetings, research grants, public lectures, course offerings, two conferences (one academic, one popular), a DVD about the history of Graham’s crusades (A Gathering of Souls: The Billy Graham Crusades, from Tim Frakes Productions), three spin- off volumes now under contract with Eerdmans Publishing Company, and the scholarly essays that appear in this book. All are published here for the first time. The editors thank the endowment for its generous support. Many people helped bring this book to completion. First, we wish to thank Paul Ericksen and Bob Shuster of the Billy Graham Center Archives. Their knowledge of the Graham materials and eagerness to assist research- ers is legendary. We also wish to thank John Akers and David Bruce of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, who helped the authors make sense of the complexity of Graham’s story, as well as offering tips about elusive resources to check out and encouragement for carrying the book to publication. At an early planning meeting in Maine, James Bratt astutely critiqued the papers that eventually formed the book’s chapters. Larry Eskridge ably handled planning details, and Joan Eskridge provided tech- nical support. Leighton Ford, Martin Marty, and Kenneth L. Woodward participated in a lively and perceptive public discussion about the project at Wheaton College in 2013. Matthew Sutton and an anonymous reader for Oxford University Press offered valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript. Their carefulness established a gold standard for reviewers of manuscripts. As always, Mark Noll staked out a spot on the sidelines, where he brought keen perceptions about American evangelical history (and much else) to bear on our work. Katherine Wacker suggested the book’s title. Most important, we wish to thank Ingrid Finstuen for her x x Preface expert management of the project, for turning gnarled manuscript pages into smooth ones, and for handling the countless details of communi- cation with the volume’s authors and agents of Oxford University Press. Ingrid toiled with wit and grace. The dedication to Edith L. Blumhofer betokens our profound appreciation for a scholar, colleague, and friend. October 2016 Boise, Idaho Davidson, North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina xi List of Contributors Margaret Bendroth is the executive director of the Congregational Library and Archives in Boston. She is the author of several books, including Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present (Yale University Press, 1993), The Spiritual Practice of Remembering (Eerdmans, 2013), and The Last Puritans: Mainline Protestants and the Power of the Past (University of North Carolina Press, 2015). Edith L. Blumhofer, professor and director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College, is the author of several books, including Her Heart Can See (Eerdmans, 2005), a biography of hymn writer Fanny Crosby; Restoring the Faith: the Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture (Illinois, 1993); and Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody’s Sister (Eerdmans, 1992). Elesha Coffman is an assistant professor of history at Baylor University. She is the author of The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (Oxford University Press, 2013). Her work has also appeared in American Catholic Studies, Religion and American Culture, Books & Culture, and Christianity Today. Darren Dochuk, associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame, is the author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain- Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (Norton). He has also co- edited a number of essay collections, including Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place, and Region (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the State of American History (University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), Faith in the New Millennium: The Future of Religion and American Politics (Oxford University Press, 2016), and The Routledge History of the Twentieth-Century United States (Routledge, forthcoming 2017). xii xii List of Contributors Seth Dowland is an associate professor of religion at Pacific Lutheran University. He is the author of Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Curtis J. Evans, associate professor of American religions and the history of Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School, is the author of The Burden of Black Religion (Oxford University Press, 2008) and A Theology of Brotherhood: The Federal Council of Churches and the Problem of Race (Oxford, forthcoming). Andrew Finstuen is dean of the Honors College at Boise State University and an associate professor in the Department of History. His first book, Original Sin and Everyday Protestants: The Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, Billy Graham, and Paul Tillich in an Age of Anxiety (University of North Carolina Press, 2009), won the 2010 American Society of Church History’s Brewer Prize. In 2017, he coproduced the documentary filmAn American Conscience: The Reinhold Niebuhr Story, which aired on Public Television. Ken Garfield is the former religion editor of the Charlotte Observer. He has also written for the Duke Divinity School (Faith & Leadership resource), New York Times, Christian Century, and Religion News Service. He has written four books, including Billy Graham: A Life in Pictures (Triumph Books). Michael S. Hamilton, Vice President for Programs and Special Initiatives at the Issachar Fund, is currently working on the book Calvin College and the Revival of Christian Learning in America (Eerdmans, forthcoming). David P. King is the Karen Lake Buttrey Director of the Lake Institute on Faith and Giving as well as assistant professor of philanthropic studies within the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. He is currently writing a history of the Christian humanitarian organization World Vision (University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming). William Martin, author of A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story (William Morrow, 1991), is considered the pioneering authority on the subject of Billy Graham. He is the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Rice University and Chavanne Senior Fellow for Religion and Public Policy at Rice’s Baker Institute. Steven P. Miller is the author of Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) and The Age of Evangelicalism: America’s Born- Again Years (Oxford University Press, 2014). xiii List of Contributors xiii Grant Wacker is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Christian History at Duke Divinity School.