Billy Graham William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist, a prominent evangelical Christian figure, and an The Reverend ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally in the late 1940s. One of his biographers has placed him "among the most Billy Graham influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.[2] As a preacher, he held large indoor and outdoor rallies with sermons that were broadcast on radio and television; some were still being re-broadcast into the 21st century.[3] In his six decades on television, Graham hosted annual "Crusades", evangelistic campaigns that ran from 1947 until his retirement in 2005. He also hosted the radio show Hour of Decision from 1950 to 1954. He repudiated racial segregation[4] and insisted on racial integration for his revivals and crusades, starting in 1953; he also invited Martin Luther King Jr. to preach jointly at a revival in New York City in 1957. In addition to his religious aims, he helped shape the worldview of a huge number of people who came from different backgrounds, leading them to find a relationship between the Bible and contemporary secular viewpoints. According to his website, Graham preached to live audiences of 210 million people in more than 185 countries and territories through various meetings, including BMS World Mission and Global Mission.[5] Graham was a spiritual adviser to U.S. presidents, and he provided spiritual Graham in 1966 counsel for every president from Harry S. Truman (33rd) to Barack Obama Personal (44th).[6] He was particularly close to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson (one of Graham's closest friends),[7] and Richard Nixon.[8] He was also Born William Franklin lifelong friends with another televangelist, the founding pastor of the Crystal Graham Jr. Cathedral, Robert Schuller, whom Graham talked into starting his own television ministry.[9] November 7, 1918 Charlotte, North Graham operated a variety of media and publishing outlets.[10] According to his staff, more than 3.2 million people have responded to the invitation at Billy Carolina, U.S. Graham Crusades to "accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior". Graham's evangelism was appreciated by mainline Protestant denominations, as he Died February 21, 2018 encouraged those mainline Protestants who were converted to his evangelical (aged 99) [11][12] message to remain within or return to their mainline churches. Despite Montreat, North his early suspicions and apprehension, common among contemporaneous evangelical Protestants, towards Roman Catholicism, Graham eventually Carolina, U.S. developed amicable ties with many American Catholic Church figures and later encouraged unity between Roman Catholics and Protestants.[13] As of 2008, Resting place Billy Graham Library Graham's estimated lifetime audience, including radio and television broadcasts, Religion Christianity topped 2.2 billion. One special televised broadcast in 1996 alone may have reached a television audience of as many as 2.5 billion people worldwide.[14] (evangelical Because of his crusades, Graham preached the gospel to more people in person Protestantism) than anyone in the history of Christianity.[10] Graham was on Gallup's list of most admired men and women a record 61 times.[15] Grant Wacker writes that Spouse Ruth Bell by the mid-1960s, he had become the "Great Legitimator": "By then his presence (m. 1943; died 2007) conferred status on presidents, acceptability on wars, shame on racial prejudice, desirability on decency, dishonor on indecency, and prestige on civic events".[16] Children 5, including Anne and Franklin Denomination Baptist Contents Education Florida Bible Early life Institute Ministry career Crusades Wheaton College Student ministry Profession Evangelist Evangelistic association Civil rights movement Signature Lausanne Movement Multiple roles Later life Church Southern Baptist Politics Convention[1] Pastor to presidents Relationship with Queen Elizabeth II Senior posting Foreign policy views Profession Evangelist Controversial views Discussion of Jews with President Nixon Website billygraham.org (htt Ecumenism p://billygraham.org/) Views on women Views on homosexuality President of Northwestern College Awards and honors In office Other honors 1948–1952 Media portrayals Works Preceded by William Bell Riley Books Succeeded by Richard Elvee Personal life President of Billy Graham Death Evangelistic Association References In office Literature 1950–2001 Further reading External links Preceded by Post established Succeeded by Franklin Graham Early life William Franklin Graham Jr. was born on November 7, 1918, in the downstairs bedroom of a farmhouse near Charlotte, North Carolina.[17] He was of Scots-Irish descent and was the eldest of four children born to Morrow (née Coffey) and William Franklin Graham Sr., a dairy farmer.[17] Graham was raised on a family dairy farm with his two younger sisters, Catherine Morrow and Jean and a younger brother, Melvin Thomas.[18] When he was eight years old in 1927, the family moved about 75 yards (69 m) from their white frame house to a newly built red brick home.[19] He was raised by his parents in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.[20][21] Graham attended the Sharon Grammar School.[22] He started to read books from an early age and loved to read novels for boys, especially Tarzan. Like Tarzan, he would hang on the trees and gave the popular Tarzan yell, scaring both horses and drivers. According to his father, that yelling had led him to become a minister.[23] Graham was 15 when Prohibition ended in December 1933, and his father forced him and his sister Katherine to drink beer until they became sick. This created such an aversion that Graham and his sister avoided alcohol and drugs for the rest of their lives.[24] Graham had been turned down for membership in a local youth group for being "too worldly"[24] when Albert McMakin, who worked on the Graham farm, persuaded him to go and see the evangelist Mordecai Ham.[10] According to his autobiography, Graham was 16 in 1934 when he was converted during a series of revival meetings that Ham led in Charlotte.[25][26] After graduating from Sharon High School in May 1936, Graham attended Bob Jones College. After one semester, he found that the coursework and rules were too legalistic .[24] At this time he was influenced and inspired by Pastor Charley Young from Eastport Bible Church. He was almost expelled, but Bob Jones Sr. warned him not to throw his life away: "At best, all you could amount to would be a poor country Baptist preacher somewhere out in the sticks ... You have a voice that pulls. God can use that voice of yours. He can use it mightily."[24] In 1937 Graham transferred to the Florida Bible Institute in Temple Terrace, Florida.[27] He preached his first sermon that year at Bostwick Baptist Church near Palatka, Florida, while still a student.[28] In his autobiography, Graham wrote of receiving his "calling on the 18th green of the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club", which was adjacent to the institute's campus. Reverend Billy Graham Memorial Park was later established on the Hillsborough River, directly east of the 18th green and across from where Graham often paddled a canoe to a small island in the river, where he would practice preaching to the birds, alligators, and cypress stumps. In 1939, Graham was ordained by a group of Southern Baptist clergy at Peniel Baptist Church in Palatka, Florida.[29] In 1943, Graham graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, with a degree in anthropology.[30] During his time at Wheaton, Graham decided to accept the Bible as the infallible word of God. Henrietta Mears of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood in California was instrumental in helping Graham wrestle with the issue. He settled it at Forest Home Christian Camp (now called Forest Home Ministries) southeast of the Big Bear Lake area in southern California.[31][32] A memorial there marks the site where Graham made his decision. Ministry career While attending college, Graham became pastor of the United Gospel Tabernacle and also had other preaching engagements. From 1943 to 1944, Graham briefly served as pastor of the First Baptist Church in Western Springs, Illinois, which was not far from Wheaton. While there, his friend Torrey Johnson, pastor of the Midwest Bible Church in Chicago, told Graham that his radio program, Songs in the Night, was about to be canceled due to lack of funding. Consulting with the members of his church in Western Springs, Graham decided to take over Johnson's program with financial support from his congregation. Launching the new radio program on January 2, 1944, still called Songs in the Night, Graham recruited the bass-baritone George Beverly Shea as his director of radio ministry. While the radio ministry continued for many years, Graham decided to move on in early 1945. In 1948, in a hotel room in Modesto, California, Graham and his evangelistic team established the Modesto Manifesto, a code of ethics life and work to protect against accusations of financial, sexual and power abuse. [33] This code includes rules for collecting offerings in churches, working only with churches supportive of cooperative evangelism, using official crowd estimates at outdoor events, and a commitment to never be alone with a woman other than his wife (which become known as the "Billy Graham rule").[34][35] Graham was 29 in 1948 when he became president of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis; he was the youngest president of a college or university in the country and held the position for four years before he resigned in 1952.[36] Graham initially intended to become a chaplain in the Armed Forces, but he contracted mumps shortly after applying for a commission. After a period of recuperation in Florida, he was hired as the first full-time evangelist of the new Youth for Christ (YFC), co-founded by Torrey Johnson and the Canadian evangelist Charles Templeton.