A look at the recent pattern of Billy Graham’s evangelistic engagements reveals a marked trend toward shorter crusades.
For instance, Graham has included nine countries in his African campaign, just begun, but in no city is the crusade scheduled to extend beyond 11 days.
The reasoning behind this change of strategy is spelled out in this exclusive interview which the distinguished, 41-year-old evangelist granted toCHRISTIANITY TODAYon the eve of his departure to Africa.
Q: Is your health a factor in the decision to shorten crusades?
A: Yes. The longer crusades were taking too much out of us physically.
Q: Which crusades were the hardest?
A: Something went out of me in London and New York that will never be replaced. We were three months at Harringay Arena and four months at Madison Square Garden.
Q: What does a major crusade entail in addition to nightly addresses?
A: There are assorted other speaking engagements daily, plus ever-present pressures of writing articles, seeing people, and keeping a hand on organization.
Q: How long is your day?
A: In a major crusade, from about seven in the morning until midnight.
Q: How long can you keep this up?
A: I have reached the point that I am now almost exhausted after two weeks. Since passing 40, I find I must go at a much slower pace.
Q: What is the most exhausting aspect of a crusade?
A: The invitation. If there is no invitation, I can give an address and hardly know—physically speaking—that I have ever spoken. It is when you are driving toward a decision that the drainage takes place in preaching. Those who do not do evangelistic preaching have no idea of what is involved.
Q: Besides your health, what else has been considered in shortening crusades?
A: Well, we can only take about three extended crusades a year. If we cut them to one or two weeks each, we will be able to take six or eight.
Q: Are you still getting invitations to hold crusades?
A: Last year we received more invitations to hold crusades than we did in all previous years of my ministry combined.
Q: And with shorter crusades you hope to accept more invitations, is that it?
A: Yes. At the present rate, we could only touch comparatively few cities in the remaining years that in the providence of God may be left to us.
Q: Do you think that the impact of a shorter crusade can be as great?
A: Yes. We are finding that people will put everything they have into a shorter crusade more readily than in a longer one.
Q: What about sites?
A: We are hoping that all future crusades will be out-of-doors. We find we can reach the unchurched out-of-doors far better than by indoor meetings.
Q: Why?
A: I have tried to analyze many times the psychology of this, but as yet I do not have an answer.
Q: Are there not disadvantages to shorter crusades?
A: Definitely. I am convinced that many times it takes two to three weeks for the crusade to get a genuine grip on a city. Many pre-conceived ideas must be overcome. Also, people who responded to the invitation begin going out and getting their friends and bringing them back. The crusade becomes a popular topic of conversation. I am not sure that all of this can be done in a shorter crusade.
Q: Will you no longer hold any extended crusades?
A: No. But I imagine all future crusades will be limited to four weeks.
Q: Are any four-week crusades now planned?
A: Just two, in Philadelphia in 1961 and in Chicago in 1962.
Q: How about one-week campaigns?
A: We plan several of these this year. Following the meetings in Africa, we will hold one-week campaigns in Washington, Essen, Hamburg, Berlin, and among the Spanish-speaking people of New York City.
Q: Is not Washington the first city in which you have made plans for a second major crusade?
A: Yes. We held a crusade in the nation’s capital back in 1952.
Q: Why are you returning?
A: Because the population of Washington today is almost entirely different from what it was eight years ago. Also, we hope to make this second effort a national crusade with extensive use of radio and television.
Q: In what sense have changing times and readjustments of U. S. attitudes demanded shifts in evangelistic strategy?
A: I am not sure. I might cite, however, the greater church support I am finding in our crusades, the greater enthusiasm, larger crowds, and especially: much more interest among young people than there was 10 years ago.
Q: Where is—
A: And I might add that we are getting a tremendous number of invitations to hold crusades on college campuses. This could not have happened 10 years ago. There seems to me to be a definite shift in attitudes on the college campus.
Q: Where is the additional church support coming from?
A: I don’t think we are getting quite as much Presbyterian support, but we are getting more Lutheran, Episcopal, and Methodist support than we did as late as two years ago.
Q: Do you use different approaches in different places?
A: Only to the extent that in America my emphasis in preaching is a great deal on sin and judgment, whereas in foreign countries it is more on forgiveness and love.
Q: Why preach on sin and judgment in America?
A: In a recent poll, 94 per cent of Americans over 14 years of age claimed church identification. Thus, it is quite evident that the depth of commitment on the part of the average church member is very shallow. There seems to be little sensitivity to sin and its dire consequences.
John Wesley once said, “I must preach sin and judgment before I can preach grace and love.”
The professing Christians of America need to be reminded of God’s judgment in this life and the life to come, upon sin. When there is a sense of sin, people are driven to the cross for forgiveness. In most foreign countries outside of Europe there is already a sense of sinfulness and the people seem more ready for a message of love, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation. They seem to be already aware of their need, much more than Americans and northern Europeans. Naturally there are exceptions to this everywhere.
Q: Have you any plans to alter your ministry?
A: I see little adjustment, unless it be that I will shift more and more to college and university campuses. This is where the leadership of tomorrow is being trained, and the Lord seemingly has opened the door and laid the burden on many people for me to spend more time on the campus. In fact, I am preparing myself at this moment for this type of ministry.
Q: What potential does television offer?
A: I am not sure it is a medium that we can use continually.
Q: Why?
A: It seems that we reach a saturation point if we go week after week. I think it is better to come on a few times a year rather than every week.
Q: But does not television present a vast scope of endeavor?
A: Yes, but I am not sure that television holds the interest of the country today as it did even two years ago. I find that people are not such slaves to their sets.
Television is a tremendous medium for reaching people with the gospel, but it also has its peculiar and unique disadvantages and saturation points that even people in the television industry do not quite understand.
New Approaches
New approaches in the scholarly study of the Old and New Testaments were stressed by speakers at the 50th anniversary meeting of the National Association of Biblical Instructors, held in Union Theological Seminary and attended by some 300 seminary, college and university instructors.
Professor George Ernest Wright of Harvard Divinity School said recent philosophical, theological and archaeological developments in the biblical field have changed the way in which the Old Testament is studied and taught.
“The new interest in biblical theology,” he stated, “has meant that we need no longer be defensive about attempts to teach the Old Testament as a religious document of primary importance in the history of civilization.”
In his presidential address, Professor Lauren E. Brubaker, Jr., of the University of South Carolina, evaluated the teaching of religion in colleges and universities. More than 13 per cent of students in a liberal arts program at these institutions of higher learning are enrolled in at least one course on religion, he said.
Professorial Plaques
The Evangelical Theological Society honored two of its first officers last month. At its 11th annual meeting in Wheaton, Illinois, the professorial group presented plaques to Dr. R. Laird Harris of Covenant College and Seminary and Dr. Merrill C. Tenney of Wheaton College.
Tenney was the first vice president of ETS and Harris was its first secretary. The society consists of some 500 members, associates, and student associates, all of whom have subscribed to the doctrinal basis: “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and therefore inerrant in the autographs.”
Missionary Medicine
Some 770 doctors, medical students, missionaries and nurses from 39 states, 4 Canadian provinces and 25 other countries attended the first International Convention on Missionary Medicine in Chicago last month.
The convention was sponsored by the Christian Medical Society, which numbers more than 2,000 doctors, medical and dental students and missionaries of many Protestant denominations. Dr. P. Kenneth Gieser, an ophthalmologist, founded the group 12 years ago and now serves as its president.
Protestant Panorama
• Protestant candidates won two gubernatorial posts and two mayoralty seats in recent elections in the Philippines. Evangelicals viewed the results as highly significant in a country which is 98 per cent Roman Catholic.
• The Evangelical United Brethren Church is launching a world-wide $5,150,000 “Mission Advance Program.” Funds will be channeled into an expansion of the church’s ministry.
• Newly accredited by the American Association of Theological Schools: California Baptist Theological Seminary at Covina, California, and Mennonite Biblical Seminary at Elkhart, Indiana … Northwest Association of Secondary and Higher Schools accredited George Fox College of Newberg, Oregon.
• Methodists in Wales are conducting their first visitation evangelism mission this month, led by 11 U. S. ministers.
• The National Lutheran, “magazine for Lutheran cooperation,” begins monthly publication with its January number. Heretofore the publication, issued by the National Lutheran Council, has appeared five times a year.
• Christian Endeavor Week will be observed from January 31 through February 7. Theme: “Citizenship Unlimited!”
• An unofficial, independent “Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity” was organized by some 100 white and Negro clergymen and laymen from North and South at a three-day meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, last month. The group says it seeks to put into practice on a “grass roots” or diocesan level Episcopal racial policies (which oppose segregation).
• Stanford University is turning over a hospital to the San Francisco Presbytery. Stanford recently moved its medical school to new facilities.
• A giant cross will be fashioned out of the 70-foot Maine spruce which adorned the White House grounds during the Christmas season. The cross will be placed on the lawn of the Bethesda (Maryland) Congregational Church.
• The Methodist Board of Temperance says it is broadening its field of concern to include smoking, in light of mounting evidence that smoking is harmful to health.… “Stop Driving Us Crazy,” new 10-minute color cartoon film produced by the board, plugs traffic safety.
• Washington’s Central Union Mission, located virtually in the shadow of the U. S. Capitol, is observing its 75th anniversary.
• The National Council of Churches is promoting a year-long study of “key problems in the nation’s economic life.” The study is to be launched with observance of “Church and Economic Life Week,” January 17–23.
• American-born Colonel Muriel Booth-Tucker is giving up her charge as the Salvation Army’s Northern Ireland divisional commander to become territorial commander in Belgium. She is the youngest of the 27 grandchildren of General William Booth, who founded the Salvation Army in 1878.
• The Evangelical Free Church of America plans to open a medical missionary center in Hong Kong. In charge of the new center will be two Minneapolis physicians who plan to sail with their families in July, Dr. Robert Chapman and Dr. Gordon Addington.
• The United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. is opening an office of educational loans and scholarships in Philadelphia.
• In Davao City, third largest metropolis in the Philippines, a two-week youth crusade held under auspices of 12 of the city’s 15 Protestant churches produced 273 recorded decisions for Christ. Evangelist for the crusade, which closed last month, was the Rev. Bill McKee of Orient Crusades.
• The United Missionary Church is observing 1960 as a “Year of Evangelism” in its North American congregations and foreign mission posts.
Editorial Resignation
The Rev. J. Marcellus Kik, Associate Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY since the magazine established editorial offices in Washington nearly four years ago, has resigned to devote his immediate future to writing books and to evangelistic preaching missions.
Author of five books, he is soon to issue a revised edition of his volume, Matthew Twenty-four. He is also working on expositions of Genesis and Revelation.
Accepting Reins
Dr. Edwin H. Rian will become president of Biblical Seminary in New York in May, succeeding Dr. Dean G. McKee, who will have served in the post 14 years.
Rian, now president of Jamestown (North Dakota) College, said in accepting the reins at the 60-year-old non-denominational graduate school (enrollment: 169):
“I am honored to be associated with Biblical Seminary, which is known for its ecumenical spirit and emphasis upon the Bible with its testimony to Jesus Christ and his Gospel for the whole man and the whole world.”
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Rian holds the M. A. degree from Princeton University and the Th. B. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He authored The Presbyterian Conflict, A Free World, and Christianity and American Education.
McKee asked to be relieved of the presidency to return to full-time teaching following a year’s sabbatical leave.
An Invitation
Trustees of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, product of the merger of Pittsburgh-Xenia and Western theological seminaries, made public last month their choice for the new school’s president.
Their invitation went to Dr. Clifford Edward Barbour, one-time moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. who has served as president of Western since 1951.
Barbour holds the B. A. degree from the University of Pittsburgh, the B. Th. from Western, and the Ph. D. from the University of Edinburgh.
Clergy Exemption
Ministers of music or religious education are now specifically eligible to exclude from their federal income tax housing allowances paid in lieu of a parsonage, if such ministers are ordained to perform sacerdotal duties customary to their denomination, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Tax returns filed within the last three years may be amended to claim the exemption, the IRS said.
Defining a Jew
Israeli children whose mothers are not Jewish will be required to go through rabbinic conversion if they are to be officially recognized as Jews in Israel.
New government directives state that under rabbinic law children follow the religion of their mothers.
Interior Minister Mose Shapiro subsequently ruled that no one can be officially recognized as a Jew who does not belong to the Jewish faith. He defined a Jew as “a person born of a Jewish mother who does not belong to another religion, or one who was converted in accordance with religious law.”
Gamblers’ Breakthrough
Governor David L. Lawrence signed into law last month a bill which permits betting at harness races in Pennsylvania, subject to county option.
The new law represents the first breakthrough in Pennsylvania’s long ban against legalized gambling.
What to Do?
Back from a world tour, Southern Baptist President Ramsay Pollard said he found Baptist pastors in Japan and Korea who failed to preach with “warmth and conviction.” Some of them, he added, “didn’t have the slightest idea of what to do” when people came forward to receive Christ at meetings he addressed.
Unfulfilled Call
On December 31 the Rev. Cecil R. Thomas wound up 16½ years of faithful service as Western states district superintendent of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
During a trip to the Far East several years ago, Thomas had been impressed with the need for additional missionaries. He subsequently served notice that, at 57, he was giving up his U. S. post to go to the Philippines on his own in an evangelistic and Bible teaching ministry.
Thomas never reached the field. On January 2, while he and his wife were driving home after visiting relatives in Indiana, their car collided head-on with another vehicle on a highway outside Indianapolis. Both were killed.
Religious Giving
An estimated $3.9 billion was given to religious causes in the United States last year, compared with $3.6 billion in 1958, according to the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel.
Refreshing Candor
Hailing 1959 as “a year of refreshing candor in the field of religion and politics,” Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State awarded “top citations” to Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy and U. S. Roman Catholic bishops.
The organization indicated approval of Kennedy’s “forthright statement of March, 1959, in which he characterized as unconstitutional the appropriation of public funds for parochial schools.”
Although disagreeing with the statement issued by the Catholic bishops on birth control, POAU cited it for “refreshing candor.”
Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike also was cited for a “fearless and analytical reply” to the bishops’ statement.
“When such controversial issues can be talked about publicly without charges and countercharges of bigotry, it shows that we have progressed since 1928,” said POAU.
A review of 1959 events in Church-State relations issued early this month observed that “America is becoming more mature in discussing controversial religious issues.”
POAU singled out for additional citations several groups which acted to preserve separation of Church and State.
“Our top citation goes to the Texas state convention of the Southern Baptist denomination which renounced a gift of $3,500,000 tax-financed hospital in Texarkana, Texas, on the grounds that acceptance of government funds by a sectarian institution would violate the spirit of the First Amendment,” POAU said.
Another citation went to the U. S. Department of Justice for “asserting the federal government’s tax claim against the Christian Brothers of California, manufacturers of brandy and wine, involving more than $1,000,000.”
The Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic order, has claimed tax exemption on its business operations.
A third citation was given to the Rev. Earl MacIntyre and “the Protestants of Bremond, Texas” for their legal battle “to recapture the town’s public school from a sectarian religious order which has taken over the school and placed its members on the public payroll.”
