Billy Graham was a renowned evangelist who took the message of Christ to the world, literally interpreting Mark 16:15. He preached to an astounding number of people – nearly 215 million – in live audiences across 185 countries. His ministry extended far beyond these gatherings, reaching millions more through television, radio, films, and online media.
Graham's journey began in 1934 at a young age when he committed his life to Christ. Ordained in 1939, he pastored a church before joining Youth for Christ. His rise to prominence came in 1949 with the Los Angeles Crusade, which captivated audiences for weeks longer than planned. This became a pattern for his crusades, including a groundbreaking 16-week run at Madison Square Garden.
Graham's ministry transcended geographical and cultural boundaries. He preached in remote villages and bustling cities, to leaders and ordinary people alike. Following the Cold War, he was granted access to countries in the former Eastern Bloc, sharing his message there as well.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), founded in 1950, became the cornerstone of his outreach. Through BGEA, he launched the long-running "Hour of Decision" radio program, television broadcasts, a syndicated newspaper column, a magazine, and authored numerous bestselling books.
Graham's influence extended beyond religious circles. He was sought after by presidents and received numerous honors, including the Congressional Gold Medal and a knighthood from Britain. He was consistently recognized for his contributions to race relations and interfaith understanding.
Born November 7, 1918, four days before the Armistice ended World War I, Mr. Graham was reared on a dairy farm in Charlotte, N.C. Growing up during the Depression, he learned the value of hard work on the family farm, but he also found time to spend many hours in the hayloft reading books on a wide variety of subjects.
In the fall of 1934, at age 15, Mr. Graham made a personal commitment to Christ through the ministry of Mordecai Ham, a traveling evangelist, who visited Charlotte for a series of revival meetings.
Ordained in 1939 by Peniel Baptist Church in Palatka, Fla. (a church in the Southern Baptist Convention), Mr. Graham received a solid foundation in the Scriptures at Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College of Florida). In 1943 he graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois and married fellow student Ruth McCue Bell, daughter of a missionary surgeon, who spent the first 17 years of her life in China.
After graduating from college, Mr. Graham pastored The Village Church of Western Springs (now Western Springs Baptist Church) in Western Springs, Ill., before joining Youth for Christ, an organization founded for ministry to youth and servicemen during World War II. He preached throughout the United States and in Europe in the immediate post war era, emerging as a rising young evangelist.
The Los Angeles Crusade in 1949 launched Mr. Graham into international prominence. Scheduled for three weeks, the meetings were extended to more than eight weeks, with overflow crowds filling a tent erected downtown each night.
Many of his subsequent early Crusades were similarly extended, including one in London that lasted 12 weeks, and a New York City Crusade in Madison Square Garden in 1957 that ran nightly for 16 weeks.
Today, Mr. Graham’s ministry is known around the globe. He preached in remote African villages and in the heart of New York City, and those to whom he ministered have ranged from heads of state to the simple living bushmen of Australia and the wandering tribes of Africa and the Middle East. Beginning in 1977, Mr. Graham was given the opportunity to conduct preaching missions in virtually every country of the former Eastern bloc, including the former Soviet Union.
In 2013, Mr. Graham had the vision for proclaiming the Gospel across the United States and Canada, prompting the implementation of My Hope with Billy Graham, a grassroots evangelism outreach combining personal relationships with the power of modern media. Based upon a pioneering outreach that had already resulted in millions of decisions for Christ around the world since 2002, churches and individual Christians across the two countries were encouraged and equipped to pray and reach out to friends, family and neighbors using a powerful new film from BGEA. Approaching 95 years of age, Mr. Graham recorded a new video message, called “The Cross,” for the project, which was made available for use in homes and churches as a tool for sharing the Gospel.
Mr. Graham founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in 1950, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., until relocating to Charlotte, N.C., in 2003. Through BGEA’s ministry, Mr. Graham started:
- the weekly “Hour of Decision” radio program, which was heard around the world for more than 60 years;
- television programs that are still broadcast today on national Christian networks.
- a syndicated newspaper column, “My Answer,” which is carried by newspapers both nationally and internationally; and
- “Decision” magazine, the official publication of the Association, which has a circulation of more than 425,000, making it one of the most widely circulated religious periodicals in the world;
Mr. Graham wrote 33 books, many which became top sellers. His autobiography “Just As I Am,” published in 1997, achieved a “triple crown,” appearing simultaneously on the three top best-seller lists in one week. In it, Mr. Graham reflected on his life, and decades of ministry around the world. From humble beginnings as the son of a dairy farmer in North Carolina, he shared how his unwavering faith in Christ formed and shaped his career.
Mr. Graham’s most recent works included “Where I Am: Heaven, Eternity, and Our Life Beyond” (2015), “The Reason for My Hope: Salvation” (2013), “The Heaven Answer Book” (2012), “Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well” (2011) and “Storm Warning” (2010). “Nearing Home” was selected as the 2012 Christian Book of the Year by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. Of his other books, “Approaching Hoofbeats: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (1983) was listed for several weeks on The New York Times best seller list; “How to Be Born Again” (1977) had the largest first printing in publishing history at the time with 800,000 copies; “Angels: God’s Secret Agents” (1975) sold one million copies within 90 days; and “The Jesus Generation” (1971) sold 200,000 copies in the first two weeks.
Mr. Graham’s counsel was sought by presidents, and his appeal in both the secular and religious arenas is evidenced by the wide range of groups that have honored him, including numerous honorary doctorates from many institutions in the U.S. and abroad.
Recognitions include the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Freedom Award (2000) for contributions to the cause of freedom; the Congressional Gold Medal (1996); the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion (1982); and the Big Brother Award for his work on behalf of the welfare of children (1966). In 1964 he received the Speaker of the Year Award and was cited by the George Washington Carver Memorial Institute for his contributions to race relations. He was recognized by the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith in 1969 and the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1971 for his efforts to foster a better understanding among all faiths. In December 2001 he was presented with an honorary knighthood, Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), for his international contribution to civic and religious life over 60 years.
Mr. Graham was listed by the Gallup organization as one of the “Ten Most Admired Men in the World” whom it described as the dominant figure in that poll since 1948—making an unparalleled 61st appearance and 55th consecutive appearance in 2017. He also appeared on the covers of Time, Newsweek, Life, U.S. News and World Report, Parade and numerous other magazines and was the subject of many newspaper and magazine feature articles and books.
Mr. Graham lost his wife of nearly 64 years, Ruth Bell Graham, in June of 2007. Together they had three daughters, two sons, 19 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren and 9 great-great-grandchildren. Mr. Graham lived in their home in the mountains of North Carolina until his death on Feb. 21, 2018.
In 1896 Billy Sunday began to lead revivals and in 1908, the Federal Council of Churches was formed. In 1910, The Fundamentals begin to be published and in 1912, Social Creed of the Churches adopted
Evangelist Billy Graham was born near Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1918, Billy Graham first attended Bob Jones College, but he found both the climate and Dr. Bob's strict rule intolerable. He then followed a friend to Florida Bible Institute, where he began preaching and changed his denominational affiliation from Associate Reformed Presbyterian to Southern Baptist. To round out his intensive but academically narrow education, he moved north to Wheaton College, where he met and married Ruth Bell, the daughter of a medical missionary, and undertook his first and only stint as a local pastor.
In 1945 Graham became the field representative of a dynamic evangelistic movement known as Youth for Christ International. In this role, he toured the United States and much of Great Britain and Europe, teaching local church leaders how to organize youth rallies. He also forged friendships with scores of Christian leaders who would later join his organization or provide critical assistance to his crusades when he visited their cities throughout the world.
Graham gained further exposure and stature through nationally publicized crusades in Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, and other major cities from 1949 to 1952, and through his Hour of Decision radio program, begun in 1950. Stunningly successful months-long revivals in London (1954) and New York (1957), triumphant tours of the Continent and the Far East, the founding of Christianity Today magazine (1956), the launching of nationwide television broadcasts on ABC (1957), and a public friendship with President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice-President Richard Nixon firmly established him as the acknowledged standard-bearer for evangelical Christianity.
As Graham's prestige and influence grew, particularly among "mainline" (non-evangelical) Christians, he drew criticism from fundamentalists who felt his cooperation with churches affiliated with the National and World Council of Churches signaled a compromise with the corrupting forces of modernism. Bob Jones accused him of peddling a "discount type of religion" and "sacrificing the cause of evangelism on the altar of temporary convenience." The enduring break with hard-line fundamentalism came in 1957, when, after accepting an invitation from the Protestant Council of New York to hold a crusade in Madison Square Garden, Graham announced, "I intend to go anywhere, sponsored by anybody, to preach the gospel of Christ, if there are no strings attached to my message. ... The one badge of Christian discipleship is not orthodoxy but love. Christians are not limited to any church. The only question is: are you committed to Christ?"
The New York Crusade marked another significant development in Graham's ministry. At a time when sit-ins and boycotts were stirring racial tensions in the South, Graham invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to discuss the racial situation with him and his colleagues and to lead the Garden congregation in prayer. The implication was unmistakable: Graham was letting both whites and blacks know that he was willing to be identified with the civil rights movement and its foremost leader, and King was telling blacks that Billy Graham was their ally. Graham would never feel comfortable with King's confrontational tactics; still, his voice was important in declaring that a Christian racist was an oxymoron.
During the decade that spanned the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, to whom he had close and frequent access, Graham often drew fire from critics who felt he ought to be bolder in supporting the civil rights movement and, later, in opposing the war in Vietnam. The normally complimentary Charlotte Observer noted in 1971 that even some of Graham's fellow Southern Baptists felt he was "too close to the powerful and too fond of the things of the world, [and] have likened him to the prophets of old who told the kings of Israel what they wanted to hear."
The evangelist enjoyed his association with presidents and the prestige it conferred on his ministry. At the same time, presidents and other political luminaries clearly regarded their friendship with Graham as a valuable political asset. During his re-election campaign, for example, Nixon instructed his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to call Graham about once every two weeks, "so that he doesn't feel that we are not interested in the support of his group in those key states where they can be helpful." After the Watergate scandal, Graham drew back a bit and began to warn against the temptations and pitfalls that lie in wait for religious leaders who enter the political arena.
When the movement known as the Religious Right surfaced in the late 1970s, he declined to participate in it, warning fellow Christian leaders to "be wary of exercising political influence" lest they lose their spiritual impact.
Global vision
As Graham came to sense the breadth of his influence, he grew ever more determined not only to help evangelicalism become increasingly dynamic and self-confident, but also to shape the direction of contemporary Christianity. That determination manifested itself in several major international conferences sponsored or largely underwritten by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
In particular, the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin, attended by 1,200 evangelical leaders from 104 nations, and the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, attended by 2,400 delegates from 150 countries, helped evangelicals to see themselves as a worldwide Christian force, alongside Vatican II and the World Council of Churches, an international movement capable of accomplishing more than its constituents had dreamed possible.
Few, if any, developments in Billy Graham's ministry have been more surprising or controversial than his success in penetrating the Iron Curtain. Beginning in 1978, virtually every Soviet-controlled country progressively gave him privileges that no other churchman, including the most prominent and politically docile native religious leaders, had ever received. Graham used these visits to preach, to encourage Christian believers, and to explain to Communist leaders that their restriction of religious freedom was counterproductive, hampering diplomatic relations with America.
Graham's proudest achievements may be two BGEA-sponsored conferences in Amsterdam in 1983 and 1986, with a third scheduled for the year 2000. These gatherings, attended by a total of 13,000 on-the-job itinerant evangelists from 174 countries, provided basic instruction in such matters as sermon composition, fundraising, and effective use of films and videotapes. As a sign of Billy Graham's change-embracing spirit, approximately 500 attendees at the 1986 meeting were women, and Pentecostals outnumbered non-Pentecostals. Subsequent smaller gatherings throughout the world have afforded similar training to additional thousands of evangelists.
Billy Graham preached the gospel of Christ in person to over 80 million people and to countless millions more over the airwaves and in films. Nearly 3 million have responded to the invitation he offers at the end of his sermons. When America needs a chaplain or pastor to help inaugurate or bury a president or to bring comfort in times of terrible tragedy, it turns, more often than not, to him.
For virtually every year since the 1950s, he has been a fixture on lists of the ten most admired people in America or the world. Thus, it is hardly surprising that a Ladies Home Journal survey once ranked the famed evangelist second only to God in the category "achievements in religion."
Age and Parkinson's Disease have taken their toll, but they have not quenched Billy Graham's spirit. "My mind tells me I ought to get out there and go," he said, as he was beginning to feel the effects of his disease, "but I just can't do it. But I'll preach until there is no breath left in my body. I was called by God, and until God tells me to retire, I cannot. Whatever strength I have, whatever time God lets me have, is going to be dedicated to doing the work of an evangelist, as long as I live."
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