Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Making Champion Men by Billy Graham, and the dangers of mixing religion and politics. How will Billy Graham be remembered? Is his son Franklin damaging that legacy? Historian and Graham biographer Grant Wacker weighs in. How will evangelist Billy Graham (1918-2018) be remembered? And is his son Franklin damaging the religious leader’s legacy with his excessive politicizing for the Republican Party and Donald Trump? In the new biography “One Soul at a Time,” historian Grant Wacker, an emeritus professor at Duke Divinity School, builds on his previous work about Graham to explore the man behind the legend, and positions his six decades of ministry within the larger contours of American religious history. It’s a great read. I talked with Wacker recently. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. You already wrote “America’s Pastor , ” a definitive religious biography of Billy Graham. Why did you want to write “One Soul at a Time“? Well, my wife assures me this is the last word I will ever write about Billy Graham if I want the marriage to persist, and I do! So this will be the end. It was rewarding to go back over a project that I started off years ago as the more academic study of Graham in America, and then reconceived as a narrative that focused on the man himself. It gave me a chance to integrate some of the research that my students had done. It was satisfying in that I was able to bring in new scholarship, and also to change my mind about some aspects of Billy Graham. I became more aware of his complexity, that he was a truly great man but that he also had flaws and imperfections. This is what happens: Great men and women are always deeply flawed people as well. Billy Graham and President Dwight Eisenhower in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. What were some of those flaws? First, the strengths outweigh the flaws, greatly, or else I would not have spent so many years of my life working on him. Would you write about a person that you fundamentally disliked, or thought had done great harm? For me, the answer is no: Life is limited, and I’ve only got so many hours. I fundamentally like and admire Billy Graham and think he was a great man. It struck me, the more I worked with him, that what was most attractive for me about Graham was how people’s lives changed positively because of him. Wherever I went, I’d get the same story over and over, of ordinary folks telling me, “My life was off the rails, and then I saw Billy on TV, or I went to a crusade, and it changed my life.” What I found hard about him, first, was his evasiveness. If you like him, you can say it was “adaptability,” but if you don’t like him you see it as an inability to take a stand on important issues. He uttered so many qualifications on so many issues that it’s troubling. You want him to just drive his stake in the ground and stand by it. If you like him, you say he was irenic. If you don’t, you say he was a chameleon. The second, which is related, was his susceptibility to glamour and power. One of his associates said it very well: Billy was like a cushion who bore the imprint of the last person who sat upon him. He was susceptible to people who were famous and rich. That was the heart of his now-notorious private conversation with Richard Nixon about Jews controlling the media. There was not an anti-Semitic bone in Billy Graham’s body. He was being obsequious to Nixon. And then, closely related, would be the name-dropping. The times I was with him, it would be instant. Why would he want to do that? He’s Billy Graham! He doesn’t have to establish his credibility with us by telling us about Gorbachev, or Nikita Khrushchev or Frank Sinatra. But on the other hand, what came through was the sincerity, the integrity. People constantly press me on this question of the Graham Rule. There never was a hint, no matter how hard people pushed on it, that he ever veered away from that rule in his private life. And that takes a lot of strength. Historian and author Grant Wacker. Courtesy photo. Will there ever be another Billy Graham? Or has the culture changed too much, become too fractured, for one person to carry that whole mantle? I do not think that there will ever be a single person who will fill that role. The culture has changed; the media has changed. Graham was an artifact of the second half of the 20th century. As the century has moved away from us, I can’t see anyone else emerging. There are also the confrontations that have emerged from (his son) Franklin Graham, and that is clouding the picture. Having said all that, when he was asked this question, he said: “Yes, there will be a thousand Billy Grahams, and none of them will have heard my name. A lot of them will be pushing bicycles through jungles.” What he meant was that his message would endure. And I like to think that’s true. I mean, I’m an evangelical. The most fundamental message — that of redemption and hope — will endure and other people will carry it. President Donald Trump speaks to the Rev. Franklin Graham as they attend a ceremony to honor the late Rev. Billy Graham in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, on Feb. 28, 2018, in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool via AP) You mentioned the way Franklin Graham is “clouding the picture” of his father’s legacy. What do you mean? I fear Franklin’s politicizing of the evangelical message. I do think that Franklin himself does a lot of good with Samaritan’s Purse and humanitarian organizations, and that part of his work will help to sustain the legacy. But he has politicized the message in a way that his father, at least in his later years, would find abhorrent, and that aspect of Franklin Graham’s work will harm the legacy. How will Billy Graham be remembered? He was complicated, and he also changed over time. That’s another reason I admired him enough to give him years of my life. He changed. He was able to account for new data. The most striking change was in how he felt about communism. By the early 1980s, he had made a dramatic change to help all nations get along. And he was criticized for it. George Will said, when Billy Graham came back from Russia in 1982, that Graham was America’s most embarrassing export. But Graham thought the Soviets and the Americans were like little boys playing with matches in a tub filled with gasoline. He made major attempts to depoliticize in those later years. He fell back into political comments in later years, but at least by then he knew the danger. So I hope people recognize that he changed, and also that he kept his personal moral life straight. What will survive about Billy Graham is the deeper message about the possibility of a new life, and the importance of faith, repentance and keeping your priorities straight. I was intrigued by new research in the book that shows how Billy Graham’s sermons changed over the decades. His early preaching had a lot of Old Testament quotations, but he became far less “fire and brimstone” in his later years. That fact came from curators at the Museum of the Bible, Anthony Schmidt and Allison Brown. They crunched the numbers on the sermon texts, which we can do now that the sermons are digitized. And what we find is that Graham became remarkably more inclusive over time. Billy Graham: “The Love of God Is Absolute” Does Billy Graham have anything to say on the topic of universalism? He does as we will find out but I think before anyone judges him unfairly let me remind you of the landscape through which he has journeyed for 93 years and as the most well known evangelist of our time. We must understand that Billy Graham has been a part of the Evangelical culture which has primarily included two views of God that are so diametrically opposed that each side regularly accuses one another of “heresy” claiming the other maligns the character of God. These two camps are called Calvinism (or Reformed, Predestination) and Arminianism (or the “free-will of man”). Our objective here on ChristianUniversalism.com has been to show how the underlying Storyline emerging from both Arminian and Calvinistic camps has been pointing and supporting that of the Ultimate Restoration of all creation. For the Calvinists this has been observed through their insistence that the Scriptures declare God to be the Sovereign Lord over His creation including our salvation noting that His never fails to draw whom He sets His love upon. As the Arminians point out it should not be difficult for the Calvinists to make the leap to universalism since they believe that all God desires and decrees will be fulfilled and that all whom Christ died for must be saved. On the other side, the Arminians cling tightly to the belief that God “desires all to come to repentance” and has provided all that is necessary to make that happen, except to actually make it happen because He is often trumped by man’s “free-will.” The Calvinists rightly chide them for their ineffectual view of the cross since it offers only a possibility for redemption. They also accuse the Arminians of being practically universalists since they say that Christ died for every single person who ever lived. It is inconceivable for a Calvinist to believe that Christ would die for someone He wanted to be saved and not possess the ability (“irresistible love and grace”) to make it happen. We have come to see that they are both right; but partly right and partly wrong. We submit to you, since there is no possible way to reconcile these two different views of God, that the God who desires that all people be saved is the SAME GOD that will is able to make it happen! But if you do not believe this, as an Evangelical you must live in this tension created by your brothers and sisters in Christ who believe very opposite things. This is the climate Graham has lived in for his 80 years as a young adult and adult evangelist. He has been witness to a litany of infightings and divisions created by the denominations of men. No wonder he yearned for a “third way.” And how remarkable he remained a loving and hopeful man in spite of it all! So in light of all this you must have grace for our dear brother Billy Graham who has seen more of life and the world and spirituality than any of us will come close to experiencing. He has earned our respect and our ear as he approaches the end of his life. But some would object that since Billy Graham was in essence an Arminian he was not a deep and profound theologian. At least not the kind that would satisfy the appetite of our modern Calvinists. But that doesn’t mean his was not a deep and profound faith. He spent countless hours in the word while living it “out on the field” among people from every walk of life, counsel to those plagued by every conceivable problem. As an Arminian who saw that God’s heart loved and desired to save all Billy Graham began wisely to see that perhaps God really does get what He wants and what He died for, indeed what He paid for. Stymied by this perceptible truth up against the doctrine of eternal conscious torment I believe Graham had to choose one: either God wants all to be saved but can’t or He must somehow have some way in which He accomplishes the desire of His heart–the salvation of all through His son Jesus Christ. In the following interview you will hear the part of his heart trying to hold on to the universal proclamation of God’s love over the world while at the same time trying to logically work out the implications of that truth. This is from an interview with Billy Graham by Jon Meacham of Newsweek Magazine, August 14, 2006: In Graham’s view, the core message of the Gospel, and the love of God “for all people” should take priority….But more recent years have given him something he had little of in his decades of global : time to think both more deeply and more broadly….He…refuses to be judgmental…thinks God’s ways and means are veiled from human eyes and wrapped in mystery. “There are many things that I don’t understand,” he says. He does not believe that Christians need to take every verse of the Bible literally; “sincere Christians,” he says, “can disagree about the details of Scripture and theology—absolutely”….he is arguing that the Bible is open to interpretation, and fair-minded Christians may disagree or come to different conclusions about specific points. Like Saint Paul , he believes human beings on this side of paradise can grasp only so much. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror,” Paul wrote, “then we shall see face to face.”….“As time went on, I began to realize the love of God for everybody, all over the world,” he says. “And in his death on the cross, some mysterious thing happened between God and the Son that we don’t understand. But there he was, alone, taking on the sins of the world.…I spend more time on the love of God than I used to.”…. When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: “Those are decisions only the Lord will make…I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have.” **Meacham, Jon. Newsweek Magazine. 14 August 2006. Excerpt from interview with Billy Graham. Billy Graham’s New Thinking on Politics, the Bible – Newsweek National News – MSNBC.com. This interview does not substantiate Billy Graham to be a Christian universalist but it shows his struggle to reconcile the God who says He loves the world with the traditional teaching that God is going to consign billions of His image-bearers to a place of torture and agony forever with no redemptive purpose. It shows that Graham has actually wrestled with what He knows about the Father heart of God, the sinfulness of the world and the traditions of man. He has allowed it to make him wiser and gentler, even if he still “sees but a poor reflection.” He will soon see face to face. Grace and peace to you Billy Graham. Thank you for being a man of integrity, honesty, humility and now one who displays the kind of wisdom and compassion that only comes from a lifetime of service to God and others. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we truth in the Living God, who is the Savior of all mankind, especially those who believe. These things command and teach.” 1 Timothy 4:9-11. Update: Billy Graham released a new book Oct 15, 2013 The Reason for My Hope: Salvation where he expresses a very different view of the unsaved than the one he exhibits in the above interview and also in this interview with Robert Schuller. See our post Billy Graham’s New Book Offers Hope (In Yourself) Making Champion Men by Billy Graham. Basilio was a warrior, born with the "Will To Win"; He was ready, willing and able; He was relentless in his attack - could dish it out and take it too - his forte being head-to-head warfare until he wore down his man; During his career, Carmen won the Welterweight Championship of the World and the Middleweight Championship of the World. He defeated such men as "Sugar" Ray Robinson, Lew Jenkins, Ike Williams, Billy Graham, Don Jordan, Johnny Saxton, Gil Turner, Art Aragon, Tony DeMarco, Vic Cardell, Eddie Giosa, Pierre Langlois and Carmine Fiore. Herb Goldman ranked Basilio as the #17 All-Time Welterweight; Basilio was inducted into the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1969, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1982, the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990 and the United States Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. The ‘’ and women in ministry. A female Baptist pastor and a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leader say the “Billy Graham Rule” — in the news since revelations that Vice President never eats alone with a woman other than his wife — has serious implications for women in ministry. The buzz over the practice adopted in the 1940s to keep men in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association free from scandal as they traveled across the country began with a single sentence in a March 28 Washington Post profile on Second Lady : “In 2002, Mike Pence told The Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either.” Baptist reactions ranged from “why would anyone have a problem with that?” to ridicule and outright scorn. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said the rule comes down to “a very simple and irrefutable observation.” “It is virtually impossible to have a sexual affair, to be engaged in infidelity, if one is not with a woman alone,” Mohler said. If the rule were applied to U.S. presidents, he said, Bill Clinton wouldn’t have been impeached. Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty University and research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the rule “befits the world of Mad Men more than the modern-day work world where women are to be treated as equals.” She wrote for Vox that she remembers feeling slightly embarrassed the first time she realized a male colleague had turned down her offer to give him a ride back to the office after a meeting across campus because of her gender. The offer “wasn’t sexual,” she recalled “until it was,” along with her imaginary retort, “Besides, I’m just not that into you.” Merianna Harrelson with her family. Merianna Harrelson, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in West Columbia, S.C., said she first encountered the Billy Graham Rule in youth group, when she was encouraged to turn to female interns for counseling or advice instead of her male youth minister. “I can remember thinking that there was something more going on in the interactions the male youth group members were getting that I wasn’t receiving because they had access to the youth minister,” she said. Harrelson said the idea that professional adults need chaperones “perpetuates false notions of sexuality.” “Men are not sexual beings who cannot control their sexual desires,” she said. “Females are not sexual temptresses. When we operate in the adult, professional world with these false, negative ideas of sexuality, we only reinforce a culture of sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse.” Shauw Chin Capps, moderator-elect of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and CEO of Hopeful Horizons in Beaufort, S.C., said she has never knowingly encountered the Billy Graham Rule, but if a male colleague refused to meet with her because she is a woman she would “probably think that he’s pulling my leg.” Shauw Chin Capps. “I do think there are healthy, common-sense boundaries that any minister, male or female, can and should implement,” she said, such as meeting with the door open, having glass in office doors or letting staff know the meeting can be interrupted. The reason may not always be about “temptations,” she said, but the appearance of what is or is not appropriate “often varies depending on the person.” Harrelson said it is unrealistic to expect a female pastor to minister to her flock without ever winding up alone with a church member of the opposite sex. “Whether you are doing hospital visitations, counseling or worship preparation, there will always be times when you find yourself alone with a member of another gender,” she said. “Rules like the Billy Graham rule only hinder women from stepping fully into the ministries God has called them to.” Capps said Pence’s rules for marriage are between him and his wife, but his personal values should not influence how he selects professionals to work with him or for him in public service. “I can see how that could naturally lead to favoring men over women,” she said. “That would be discrimination.” Greg Laurie: Legendary Billy Graham – 10 things that will surprise you about the world-famous evangelist. A look back at Billy Graham's crusades. A year after his death, the legacy of America's preacher lives on. The Man. The Legend. "God’s machine gun." Billy Graham was an American institution for almost six decades, counseling presidents, world leaders, Hollywood stars, the queen of England, gangsters and the common man alike. To many, he was a modern-day prophet who helped our nation in the most trying of times. In my new book, "Billy Graham: The Man I Knew," (Salem Books, April 13, 2021) I unearthed many never-before-told stories and facts about the world’s best-known and beloved evangelists. Here are 10 facts you will discover about Billy Graham. 1. Billy Graham had dreams of playing Major League Baseball. He was a dairyman’s son from North Carolina who wanted nothing more than to become a Major League Baseball player after meeting the legendary Babe Ruth at an exhibition game in his home state. Billy batted lefty and had a fair throwing arm and a decent glove, but showed no signs of superstar potential. He had visions of grandeur: playing in Wrigley Field in Chicago and Yankee Stadium in New York – a place that he would fill to capacity years later, and not because crowds wanted to see him hit home runs. 2. He made his fair share of trouble. The famed evangelist was hyperactive, mischievous and wasn’t born walking on water. He teased his siblings, didn’t have blinders on when it came to pretty girls and got into several scrapes with his schoolmates. He also wasn’t crazy about sitting in the church pew on Sunday mornings. During services, he shot wads of chewing gum paper at women’s hats with a strong rubber band. Much of his unruly behavior was due to the fact that he was fidgety by nature and possessed hyperkinetic energy. Once his parents took him to a physician, who told them their child was "built differently." 3. He worked as a door-to-door salesman. To earn money for college, Billy Graham took a job with the Fuller Brush Co. in the summer of 1936. The 18-year-old youth sold the brushes door-to-door, combining his selling with his witness for Christ. Once he was doused with a pail of water by a housewife who was bothered by the intrusion. He also encountered a group of roughnecks, and pretended he had a gun in his pocket. The men quickly backed off and ran. Graham said that summer’s experience selling brushes bolstered his self-confidence, helped him gain financial independence and was crucial for his personal and professional development in the years to come. 4. His time on the golf course made significant impacts on his career. While at the Florida Bible Institute in the Tampa Bay community of Temple Terrace, Graham held many odd jobs. He performed housekeeping duties, washed dishes, mowed lawns and later earned a coveted spot as a caddy at the school’s golf course. This gave him access to the era’s most renowned Christian scholars, administrators, preachers and evangelists. He later utilized the sport for developing friendships with future allies, including several U.S. presidents: Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. He once said of golf: "The only time my prayers are not answered are on the golf course." More from Opinion. 5. Billy Graham’s wife was vital to the success of his career and witness. Billy’s wife of 64 years, Ruth Bell Graham, had dreams of becoming a missionary like her parents, Dr. L. Nelson and Virginia Bell. However, Ruth put them aside when she and Billy married and started having children. Billy credited her as the love of his life, his strongest supporter and his most-trusted counselor. She could also be his harshest critic, but that often worked in his favor. Such was the case when Billy penned an op-ed for Ladies’ Home Journal on the Women’s Liberation Movement in the early 1970s. After he wrote the article, he submitted it to Ruth. He recalled, "She handed it back to me all blue-penciled and said, ‘I don’t agree with most of this.’ So I re-wrote it." 6. Billy and Ruth Bell Graham lived on less than $50 a week prior to the launch of his crusades. Before Billy Graham became a household name in 1949 with his Los Angeles Crusade, he served for 21 months as the pastor of Western Springs Baptist Church (later renamed "The Village") in a Chicago suburb. When he wasn’t preaching or organizing house-to-house visits to those deemed uncommitted, he launched a successful supper club for businessmen, a Boys Brigade for young men, a 45-minute radio broadcast ("Songs in the Night"), preached twice on Sundays, held a mid-week prayer meeting and he and Ruth taught Child Evangelism classes on Wednesday afternoons. All that in addition to pastoral calls when the need arose. For this, he was paid $48 a week. Like all of us, he was a complex person with varying skills, emotions and passions. 7. He didn’t always make a great first impression. Known as a "pastor to the presidents," that did not apply to one commander in chief – Harry Truman. Just beginning in ministry, Graham showed up to the Oval Office in a pistachio green suit, a hand-painted tie and white buck shoes in a not-so-subtle fashion nod to Truman, who was a haberdasher before getting into politics. Graham and his team members showed up dressed to the nines and were given 20 minutes. After he asked Truman about his religious background, in his zeal, he corrected the president on a point. Graham didn’t realize he was doling out unsolicited advice to the world’s most powerful man, who stood up from behind his desk, a clear signal that his time was up. They were, in effect, getting the presidential boot. Afterward, Billy and his team recreated for the press how they knelt in prayer for a picture that appeared in newspapers nationwide. Billy was "persona non grata" at the White House for breaching the details of a private conversation. He later apologized to Truman, who realized he never briefed Graham on protocol. 8. Billy Graham became a missional media mogul. Howard Stern often claims that he is "King of All Media," but that title truly belongs to Billy Graham. In the 1950s, his ministry surged and he began to branch out into all forms of media. That decade he started a Christian film studio called Billy Graham Evangelistic Films (later named ); a radio show called "," a syndicated column called "My Answer," which ran six days a week in newspapers across the United States and reached 20 million people; two monthly magazines ( and Decision), and wrote many best-selling books. He was one of the most famous Americans in the world, not for hitting a ball, slugging a villain or smooching a starlet, but for spreading the Word of God. 9. He was a preacher with a genuine appreciation for culture – even psychedelic rock. Billy once attended a music festival featuring the Grateful Dead, Canned Heat, Johnny Winter and Santana in an attempt to understand what was happening with youth culture in the late 1960s. Before he spoke to concertgoers from the stage, he went "undercover" and strolled the straw- covered grounds, eavesdropping on conversations, listening for what was on kids’ minds and hearts, and trying to understand what they were truly searching for. Billy genuinely embraced them, dubbing them the "most exciting and challenging generation in history." His words at the festival did not fall on deaf ears. More than 350 people made commitments to Christ and close to 2,000 New Testaments were distributed that weekend – all because of Billy’s curiosity and temerity. 10. Billy Graham predicted the Digital Age and new world order. After the new millennium dawned, the world seemed a darker and more dangerous place. The formerly carefree pleasure of getting on an airplane changed dramatically after 9/11. Large metal or concrete barriers appeared in front of government buildings to prevent car bombs. Office buildings now had large security details and check-in processes. A whole list of exotic countries suddenly became too dangerous to visit. Technology advanced inexorably, either leaving people behind or pulling them faster than they ever expected, making it harder for them to get off the merry-go- round. What’s even more mind-boggling is that Billy Graham spoke of this decades ago: "Before He comes again the world is going to go through many convulsions, the Bible teaches," he said in 1971. "There will be worldwide lawlessness, there will be an overemphasis on sex, there will be an acceleration of technology." More than just a preacher, Billy Graham was a committed husband and father, a lover of sports and music and a very down-to-earth man with a keen sense of humor. Billy Graham faced all the challenges and joys typical of his time. Like all of us, he was a complex person with varying skills, emotions and passions. Because of his love for Jesus Christ and his unwavering faithfulness to the gospel, God used Billy Graham’s unique personality and interests to change the world. God will do the same with you and me if we let him. This excerpt is adapted from Greg Laurie’s book "Billy Graham: The Man I Knew", releasing April 13, 2021, via Salem Books.