An Episcopal rector of Hollywood was quoted by Time (September 6, 1963) concerning Billy Graham’s Los Angeles crusade, “I believe he’s putting the Church back fifty years.” At the ministers’ breakfast during the closing week of the crusade, Dr. Graham referred to the remark with kindness and humor: “I’m afraid I have failed. I had hoped to put the Church back 2,000 years.”
Actually, this is what the discerning observer noticed about the crusade. There was something of Acts 2 about it: prophetic preaching of the Lordship of Christ, the coming of the day of judgment, conviction of sin, repentance and faith, and an invitation to “save yourselves from this crooked age.”
Homiletically, some seminary senior might have preached a better sermon than Peter’s, but the powerful plus is that God used it. Billy Graham’s homiletics could be criticized; as someone on the sponsoring committee remarked, “Whatever his text, he really has only one sermon.” But it is a sermon plus God. Its content is simple, its application direct, and the amazing thing is that people of all classes, races, and educational backgrounds are moved to Christ.
I saw this in 1957 at Cambridge, where undergraduates, graduates, and professors alike were crowded into Great St. Mary’s 3,000-capacity church and hundreds of them made commitments to Christ. At a luncheon in Dr. Graham’s honor given by the faculty, I talked with men whose names were world-famous in their various disciplines. At first they were curious, then interested; then as I watched their heads nodded unconsciously in agreement with Billy’s simple message of sin, judgment, grace, and salvation.
At Yale in 1957 I was eating with some students in one of the colleges before the first meeting of a week’s preaching mission by Dr. Graham. A rather flip senior, who was proud of his agnosticism, said to all of us at the table that he knew what Billy’s secrets were—his good looks and his magical speaking ability. I suggested that we go to the meeting and that he give me his opinion afterward. When the message was finished and scores of his peer group had remained to make commitments to Christ, the young man turned to me quietly and said, “I was wrong. This must be God speaking through him.”
This was true again in the Los Angeles crusade. People from all walks of life became inquirers and, we trust, converts—among them five psychiatrists, a number of motion picture and television personalities, society notables, and many young people. Well dressed and poorly dressed, educated and uneducated, all colors and backgrounds responded.
Personally, my one disappointment was with his sermon on the eve of the March on Washington. Although it is true that his calling is to preach the “Good News” and invite people to believe in Jesus Christ for salvation, an announced sermon on the “Race Issue” could, in my opinion, have applied the Gospel specifically in this area, as he did in his sermon on the Christian home. But here I remember that for years his crusades, in both organization and attendance, have been integrated in every section of the country. From a pastor’s desk or a theologian’s classroom it is easy to criticize, whereas Dr. Graham has continued to have a hearing on the basic evangel and at the same time has put Christian love into practice in the social dimension. It should also be noted that he does not claim to give the complete answer, nor does he make any claim to be a theologian; his charismatic gift is to be an evangelist. A specialist in obstetrics does not try to be a pediatrician or a surgeon.
In the crusade in Seattle in 1951, one who refused support and urged the ministers responsible to him to do the same was Bishop Gerald Kennedy. He sincerely felt that the crusade would set the Church back. Later, he heard Dr. Graham preach, and then met him personally. When the organizing group looked for someone to head the general committee in charge of the Los Angeles crusade in 1963, they asked Bishop Kennedy, now in charge of the Los Angeles Area of The Methodist Church, and he was glad to accept. Before 1,500 ministers at the close of the crusade he said he had learned three things:
“First, if we are going to be successful evangelists (a great word—says more than any other word to me) it involves preparation. When 10,000 or more are praying, something has to give. Some of our young ministers want to be free, but it is often an excuse to do nothing. As Augustine said, ‘Without Him we cannot, but without us He will not.’
“Second, the great expectancy there is in these meetings. I have sat out in the audience and have sensed this expectancy, and it is because of the great expectancy of the preacher. People come to our churches not expecting much and are not disappointed. We need a re-creation of expectancy.
“Third, we had a preacher who believes something. We need to find this again in the Word of God. This is not the end of a crusade, but the beginning, because we believe something. My life has been enriched, and I am grateful.”
Seventeen Years Ago In Kansas City
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum meetings are now history. As I saw the vast throngs of a total of 930,340 people, or an average of more than 44,000 per service, with almost 40,000 inquirers, my mind went back to our Kansas City, Missouri, Linwood Presbyterian Church, and a “Youth Nite” service on Sunday, February 3, 1946. The speaker was not important enough for the morning service, so about 300 turned out in the evening to hear Billy Graham. Our church bulletin said, “Around Charlotte, North Carolina, his home, and throughout the South, he is known as the Boy Preacher, because he started preaching shortly after his conversion at the age of 17. He is the director of ‘songs in the Night,’ one of Chicago’s most popular radio broadcasts and also the director of West Suburban Men’s Fellowship, a most unique gathering of business men from all over the western suburbs of Chicago, featuring outstanding speakers, and drawing large crowds. Billy Graham is one of the few evangelists who possesses a message for today’s youth. He was the first speaker at the rally of ‘Chicagoland Youth For Christ.’ He is immensely popular among the young people wherever he goes, and has spoken to audiences numbering upwards of five thousand in many of our large cities. Linwood will be indeed privileged to have this inspirational speaker.”
Since that time over 33 million people have heard him personally, plus uncounted millions over radio and television. His clothes are now more conservative, his poise more pronounced; but basically he is the same Billy: a simple, direct, genuinely sincere person dedicated to God in the closest thing to true humility I have ever encountered. I have seen him, through the years, damned by fundamentalists, stabbed in the back by liberals, mocked by ministers, harried by the press, heckled by students, yet maintaining a calm and loving attitude which became irresistible as a vehicle of God’s grace and which changed attitudes simply because his ego never became the issue.
One Of The Critics
One who was sincerely critical of him because of honest differences was Dr. Helmut Thielicke, professor of systematic theology and social ethics of the Theology Faculty of the University of Hamburg, Germany. At Dr. Graham’s invitation, he attended the Los Angeles crusade and sat on the platform one evening. As a result, he wrote the following letter, which he graciously gave me permission to quote, and I do so in full:
“August 23, 1963
“Dear Dr. Graham:
Now that I am back at Forest Home again, I feel myself warmly constrained to thank you very much for your friendly invitation and for the warmth and sincerity of your greeting. Even though the pedestal upon which you elevated me is certainly not appropriate, I have sensed your very friendly intention, and I should like to thank you for that.
“How different it is when men encounter each other face to face, rather than just hearing about each other! I am ashamed that we Christians—including myself—are always susceptible to the preconceived opinions, which belong to the precursors of death and murder, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. It is indeed a part of the style of the fellowship willed by God that it not be mediated by printer’s ink, but rather requires physical nearness and directness. Even the Kingdom of God has its laws of style. You have another form of proclamation than I do; Tillich and Bonhoeffer have others again. The evening beneath (or better, behind!) your pulpit was a profound ‘penance’ experience (poenitentia) for me in this and in another respect:
“We German theologians are in our tendency to criticism truly charismatic, and it has always been very easy for me to determine what was wrong or lacking in the other person. When I have been asked now and again about your preaching (which I of course know from the literature written about it), I have certainly not been too modest to make one or two more or less profound theological observations. My evening with you made clear to me (and the Holy Spirit will have helped in doing so!) that the question should be asked in the reverse form: What is lacking in me and in my theological colleagues in the pulpit and at the university lectern, that makes Billy Graham so necessary? And it became suddenly clear to me that this question is much more correct and corresponds much more to the pleroma of the Body of Christ and its gifts. For in the light of this question we learn to understand our mutual relationship as that of a complementary or mutually expanding relationship; we learn to see ourselves as various dabs of paint upon the incredibly vivid and colorful palette of God; we are led to humility and to gratitude that everything is not required of us, but that there is another one with his gifts at our side.
“Of course, this can only be said, when the other one is not a teacher of error. But it became unforgettably clear to me on this memorable evening that you, my dear Dr. Graham, are passing out Biblical bread and not intellectual delicacies and refined propaganda. I wish to thank you for that.
“The second offensive aspect which I had always noted as far as your ministry was concerned was also removed. I am speaking of the way in which you call people to come forward and to confirm their decision. It all happened without pressure and emotionalism (contrary to the reports which I received up until now). It was far more the shepherd’s voice, calling out in love and sorrow for the wandering ones. And it was in this respect that the undeserved place of honor I had, became truly meaningful, the place which you assigned me in your great kindness.
“Now I saw them all coming towards us, I saw there their assembled, moved and honestly decided faces, I saw their searching and their meditativeness. I confess that this moved me to the very limits. Above all there were two young men—a white and a Negro—who stood at the front and about whom one felt that they were standing at that moment on Mount Horeb and looking from afar into a land they had longed for. I shall never forget those faces. It became lightning clear that men want to make a decision, and that the meditative conversation, which we have cultivated in Germany since the war, is only a poor fragment. I shall have to draw from all this certain consequences in my own preaching, even though the outward form will of course look somewhat different.
“The consideration that many do not remain true to their hour of decision can contain no truly serious objection: the salt of this hour will be something they will taste in every loaf of bread and cake which they are to bake in their later life. Once in their life they have perceived what it is like to enter the realm of discipleship. And if only this memory accompanies them, then that is already a great deal. But it would certainly be more than a mere memory. It will remain an appeal to them, and in this sense it will maintain its character indelibilis.
“And so I am deeply indebted to you for this evening, and owe you great thanks.
“I cannot be thankful enough for this my second visit to America. It is the source of great joy to see how the books translated into English have not been limited to certain denominations, but they do their service in the most varied of church areas and theological directions. This was especially demonstrated for me in Los Angeles where I was together for two days with a large gathering of pastors from all confessions.
“God bless you and keep you, my dear Dr. Graham!
“With hearty greetings, Yours,
Helmut Thielicke”
Today I talked for forty-five minutes with the Episcopal rector who felt the crusade had put the Church back fifty years. How different it is, as Dr. Thielicke says, when men encounter each other face to face! I think the friendly conversation today has helped me to understand this brother in the ministry. He has never met Billy Graham, nor heard him except over radio or television. He came from a hyper-fundamentalistic background, and held two unhappy campaigns as an evangelist himself. His experience caused him to turn to liberalism, then, unsatisfied, to the theology and liturgy of the Episcopal Church. “I was looking for something that had its roots in the early Church,” he told me.
He laughed with real appreciation when we talked about Dr. Graham’s good-natured reply in wishing he had been able to put the Church back 2,000 years. “I’m not fighting him—I’ve always admired him,” he said. “But my early experience of people making new decisions every year makes me feel that is not the way to grow.” Yet two of the nine persons in his church who went forward in the crusade are for the first time teaching in his church school. I suggested that personality is not like a city hall, dedicated once for all, but is a living thing that could use periodic rededication.
I believe this, for I was one of the 40,000 who went forward during the crusade. I now believe that I find my roots more firmly planted in the early Church—and in Christ.
Spiritual Riddle
Not according to the deeds
that I have done,
but according to
the mercy more abundant
of my God.
This is the message
that my life must show
in gift conferred
by His own power on those
from sin’s destruction saved.
In mundane view,
prosaically involved
with things called
everyday,
I have been born to show—
not for some distant scene
but now—
just as I am
and where,
a wonder all improbable
of weaknesses and sin,
that in things so despised
God never hides from view
what He by grace can do!
RUTHE T. SPINNANGER
Dr. L. David Cowie, pastor of the Brentwood Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles, is a member of the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church. He was formerly the pastor of the University Presbyterian Church of Seattle.
