'PUFF GRAHAM' AND THE REST IS HISTORY

Billy Graham was part of the conservative movement in 20th Century Protestantism as 'fundamentalist' and 'modernist' divisions split up the major denominations and led to independent churches and para-church organizations sprouting up across the country.

Dr. Graham spent the 1940's as a touring evangelist for Youth for Christ.

Graham preached from town to town.  Tents were erected for evangelistic meetings and he went here, there and everywhere from coast to coast.   A series of meetings were held in my area (York,PA) in 1948.

Then one day a famous man, a wealthy man and a man with a media empire walked into Billy  Graham's preaching in a tent in Southern California.

William Randolph Hearst was near the end of his tumultuous life but gave one more order to those who worked for him.

"Puff Graham"

The power of that publicity allowed Billy Graham to build his own evangelistic organization and move forward reaching out in all directions to all churches while maintaining his commitment to a simple evangelistic preaching of Christ with an altar call.

But the meetings would be in large arenas and stadiums now and involve even celebrities.    In  his 1957 New York crusade Dr. Graham had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as song leader.

Dr. King and his associates worked with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to learn how to organize as King began to build his own movement.

Radio and television were used by Graham, with a weekly "Hour of Decision" radio program first broadcast on the ABC Radio Network in the 1950's.  Evangelistic meetings were recorded for broadcast on television stations in the USA and around the world.

The Billy Graham efforts also included the use of music recordings and motion pictures, produced under the banner of "World Wide Pictures".

"Decision" magazine was published based on the message that Dr. Graham preached to his audiences challenging them to make a "decision" for Jesus Christ.

The liberal forces in Protestantism were none too pleased with Billy Graham and neither were the more conservative elements I associated with in my youth.

The more "fundamentalist" forces saw him as too liberal, working with liberal churches in his evangelistic activities.    I recall broadcasting against Dr. Graham's visits to Communist countries under the auspices of government run churches in the early 1980's.   Those meetings probably drew some of the largest crowds ever when he visited Eastern Europe, in the hundreds of thousands of people.

The "liberal" elements just didn't like evangelism.    The liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America even published a tract for the vestibules of its churches that I saw in the 1970's lumping Bill Graham's evangelism with those of the more conservative elements and denouncing it as incompatible with authentic Christian belief as they saw it.

Dr. Graham's ministry brought him close to world leaders, to the Presidents of the United States in his lifetime including Richard Nixon most prominently at a time of deep trouble and division within the nation as a whole.

In closing, I am reminded of Dr. Graham's call for a turning to Christ, of his remarks that the problems of the world cannot be be resolved 'apart from the person of Jesus Christ'.

The 'decision' to follow Christ as I see it is one in the moment and of the moment, every moment of every day.   Millions came forward at meetings, but it's what happened after the evangelistic meetings that made the difference in lives then and makes the difference in my life and the life of others today.

There is fear, there is lying, there is stealing, there is hatred, there is lust, there is greed and there is murder and the list goes on and on.

The decisions I make and you make in the moments of our lives and making the decisions that Christ would have made himself are the best way I see to remember the life and work of Dr. Billy Graham.

RIP...............


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