Billy Graham: a Parable of American Equality in Society Have Actually Been

interventions may have been excessive, the inroads made on poverty and in- Billy Graham: A Parable of American equality in society have actually been . very minor. We should expect more, not Righteousness less, from public policy to redress social by Marshall Frady ills. As to the international scene, the (Little, Brown; xi 4- 546 pp.; $12.95) new attitudes toward other countries that have resulted from the Indochina debacle, far from being a “failure of Billy Graham: Evangelist to the World nerve,” are, Steinfels believes, to be welcomed as a new sanity in the conduct by John Pollock of American foreign policy. (Harper & Row; x f 324 pp.; SlO.00) What is finally at issue in all of this is more than one’s attitude toward this or that particular domestic or foreign policy. What is rather at issue is one’s over- Tracy Early all perspective on American society and, indeed, on the contemporary world. Frady had better walk cautiously. overwrites with a purplish passion, nev- Negatively, the neoconservative pcr- Though Graham himself prefers to er stopping at one superfluous adjective spective has been shaped by a profound shower critics with buckets of warm when the dictionary will yield four oth- recoil from the realities of contempo- syrup, some fiercer disciples may dis- ers as silvering, shimmerous, scintillant, rary totalitarianism and by the insight cover the love of Christ impelling them and sockdolagizing. He also detours that American power is legitimated by to boil Frady’s head in a washpot. But rather much, delivering the deep things the fact that it is the main bulwark he has written a useful book, the first of Calvinism, his tracings of American against the inhumanities of this totali- attempt by a writer with stature outside culture, and other fancy goods. Though tarianism. Positively, the neoconserva- the religion camp to give Graham the all that may come chockablock with tives do indeed have a more benign view full treatment. import, the redder will skip over patches of American society than Steinfels Also useful, in a quite different way of it. More pertinent are the pages would allow, but this view results pre- of course, is the work of Graham’s offi- showing Graham’s connections with the cisely from looking at the world in cial biographer, John Pollock, a Church American power structure in the cold comparative terms and thereby discov- of England minister. In Billy Graham: war years, and how he won the backing ering the (so to speak) relative frequen- The Authorized Biography he took the of big men who did not necessarily cy of the distribution of the human story up to 1966. and then updated it in share his piety or his views on fornica- decencies. Perhaps central to the diver- 1969. NOW,in Billy Graharn: Evange- tion. gence of perspectives is the issue of the list to the World, he covers the past The lineup of important figures in capitalist’ economy, about which one decade. Pollock provides not only data Graham’s career makes a sobering spec- gathers Steinfels has very serious mis- but also the tint of lens for viewing trum-from conservative to ultracon- givings. None of the neoconservatives, Graham as Graham would wish, espe- servative to wacky. One starts with his as far as I know, has the quasi-theologi- cially in scenes dealing with his relation- forward-walk as a high school junior cal faith in the market that character- ship with Nixon. But for analysis, Fra- under the exhorting of the anti-Semitic izes, for instance, Chicago School econ- dy’s the one. By showing himself great- tub-thumper Mordecai Ham. Then, via omists. But most of them have come to ly enthused, Frady got several hours Bob Jones, a Florida Bible institute, and the conclusion that in an imperfect with Graham plus interviews with fami- Wheaton. on to anointment by the world, a society with a sizable market ly and associates. They are likely not dying warhorse William Bell Riley. sector in its economy gives a much pleased by his interpretations of Gra- Next to Hearst, whose 1949 order to better chance for democratic gover- ham as one who happily took the king- “puff Graham” put him in orbit-like nance and humane social policies than doms of this world and obligingly Nixon, from Southern California. Lat- any of its empirically available alterna- served the devil. er, he accumulated plutocrats such as tives. This conclusion, and not the de- Himself the son of a Southern Baptist Sid Richardson, politicians such as sire to hobnob with affluent business preacher, Frady feels the awkwardness. Strom Thurmond, and panjandrums types, explains the affinity of neocon- Many Baptists will anathematize him, such as Henry Luce. L. Nelson Bell, servatives with the socio-economic 6lite he knows, as a scalawag who smiled his pure Goldwater. became not only Gra- that Steinfels dislikes so strongly. It is way in for dinner and then dirtied on ham’s father-in-law but also an influen- possible, of course, that Steinfels is the rug. So he sprays a magnolia scent tial advisor. right and the neoconservatives wrong in around: “The difficulty is that, when And there are some that Frady skips. their respective assessments of contem- one arrives at the point where one has to He bypasses Graham’s decision to iden- porary world realities. This book is begin the actual writing of it, one neces- tify with the First Baptist Church of unlikely to persuade anyone who was sarily must withdraw ....” And so on, Dallas and its ranting pastor, W.A. not so persuaded before reading it. At which won’t pacify them a whit. Criswell-a notable decision because best, therefore, it makes a very modest The rest of us, however, can feel Graham had no personal or organim- contribution to the urgently needcd dis- grateful for the book, though it turned tional reason for putting his member- cussion of these matters. wl out to be less than it might have. Frady ship in a Texas church except to show where his heart and treasure lay. Nor does Frady mention the late oil baron J. Howard Pew, once introduced by Gra- ham to a Madison Square Garden crowd as “a man I go to for advice as much as any layman in America.’’ Thus oriented, Graham naturally ~ took such stands as knocking the Senate ’ for its censure of McCarthy. But like Nixon, Graham promotes the idea that his stature has increased a cubit or two, that a new Graham comes broadened by experience and chagrined by youthful excess. Frady and Pollock show that this has about as much validity in Graham’s case as in Nixon’s. If some numbers of the McCarthy era dropped from the Graham repertoire, the reason lay more in the shifting tastes of the fans than any change in the stars. So Graham can still perform to the satisfaction of Park in Korea and the generals in Brazil. Religious News ServiEc The banality of Graham’s intellect can take one’s breath away. Frady got HOW WELL I KNOW HIM his cool analysis of Nixon’s fall: “I think there was definitely demon power in- 1955: “I disagree with those who say Mr. Nixon is not sincere. I believe volved. He took all those sleeping pills him to be most sincere, and like President Eisenhower, he is a splendid that would give, him a low in the morn- church man .” ing and a high in the evening, you know. 1959: “Mr.Nixon is probably the best-trained man for President in Amer- And all through history, drugs and ican history. and he is certainly every inch a Christian gentleman.” demons have gone together ....” 1964: “I know that he is a devout person and a man of high principles, with Maybe a bit gullible at times, Frady a profound philosophy of government.” holds a straight face as Graham reports 1968: “He has a great sense of moral integrity. I have never seen any that he cried on reading Nixon’s profan- indication of, or agreed with, the label that his enemies have given him of ities in the transcripts. If Graham in- ‘Tricky Dick.’ In the years I’ve known him, he’s never given any indication of being tricky.” deed shed tears, they may have been 1969: “I have known him for many years and, after many conversations, I tears of joy for such a godsend. At a am convinced his greatest concern is that America have a moral and spiritual time when he desperately needed to say renewal.” something, the expletives gave him a 1971: “I remember once I made a suggestion to him. He looked me in the heavenly chance to moralize without eye and said, ‘Billy, that wouldn’t be moral.’ At that moment, he was the confronting anything substantive. preacher and I was the sinner.” Sympathizers indulgently suppose 1972: “I know the President as well as anyone outside his immediate that Graham is naive and lets himself be family. I have known him since nineteen-fifty, and I have great confidence in used. Frady shows us how Graham his personal honesty. I voted for him because I know what he’s made of. yearns to be used, and how his deliber- “Kennedy was no intellectual-I mean, he was written up by the Eastern press as an intellectual because he agreed with the Eastern Establishment. ately willed naivete makes him “a para- But Nixon is a true intellectual. and he is a student, particularly a student of ble of American righteousness.” Cold to history.

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