by Charles A. Collins, Jr.
Published in the March 2018 issue of the Carolina Compass section of the Charleston Mercury
.“The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty....” – Psalm 90:10 (ESV) In
light of the Psalmist's observation, the death of Billy Graham on the
morning of Wednesday, February 21, was not entirely surprising as he
had attained the age of 99 – a matter of months shy of five score
years – but for those of slightly less than my age and older it
marked the passing from life's stage of someone who had always been
prominent and respected and who had preached the Gospel to more
people than any other individual in the history of the Church.
William Franklin Graham, Jr., was
born on November 7, 1918 in Charlotte, North Carolina. While hard to
imagine in light of Charlotte's present image as a New-South
metropolis, the Queen City in those days was a much smaller city of
some 46,000 in his youth and he grew up on a working dairy farm,
milking his father's cows each morning and evening. The Scotch-Irish
Grahams were members of Chalmers Memorial Associate Reformed
Presbyterian Meeting House (a church to which the mother of Bishop
John Shelby Spong – whose theology markedly differed from Graham –
also had family connections) in his youth and later joined the BiblePresbyterian Church. As a teenager Graham was turned down for
membership in a youth group for being “too worldly,” and at the
behest of one of the workers on his father's farm went to hear
revivalist Mordecai Ham. He underwent a profound conversion at age 16
and sensed a call to preach the Gospel.
After graduation from Sharon High
School Graham first attended Bob Jones College, then located in
Cleveland, Tennessee. He found the college too legalistic and, Bob
Jones, Sr. wasn't terribly impressed with him either, warning him not
to throw his life away and famously telling him “At best, all you
could amount to would be a poor 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.” Graham later transferred to FloridaBible Institute and finally to Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois
where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in anthropology.
Far more significant than the
education that he received at Wheaton was his experience in meeting
the pretty daughter of a Presbyterian medical missionary to China,
Ruth Bell, whom he married in 1943. Upon graduation he served briefly
as Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Western Springs, Illinois
(along with a church that he had served while a student at Wheaton,
the only two pastorates that he ever held), and then became President
of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis – at the age of 30, he
was the youngest college president in the country.
In 1949, while still President of
Northwestern Bible College, Graham conducted a series of revivals in
the circus tent in Los Angeles that attracted national attention,
aided by newspaperman William Randolph Hearst who famously told his
reporters to “puff Graham.” The crusade ran for eight weeks –
five longer than planned – and while not the first of more than 400
that he was to conduct in more than 185 countries on six continents
it attracted national attention. His preaching was simple – he
often stated that he preached the same message over and over again
for 60 years – calling sinners to repent and believe on Jesus
Christ.
In
the Spring of 1954 Billy Graham preached an extended crusade in
London, England. The then-Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher
participated and he attracted the attention of a young Queen
Elizabeth, who met with him and invited him to preach in her private
chapel. The most recent season of The
Crown (an
excellent series, by the way), dramatizes their meeting with Her
Majesty's desire to be “a simple Chrisitian.” Their friendship
lasted for the rest of his life and in 2001 he was made an honourary
Knight of the British Empire. The effects of that crusade were
far-reaching – Michael Baughen, who later became the Bishop of
Chester, described it as “divine adrenalin for a jaded church”
and a number of Evangelical clergy and lay leaders in the Church of
England and other churches noted the profound impact of those
gatherings in their lives.
Billy Graham was also a trendsetter
in civil rights. While not actively participating in marches he
integrated his crusades at a time when doing so was a-typical. He was
also a leader in the Laussanne Covenant, which challenged Christians
to world evangelization. Known as the “Pastor to Presidents,” he
advised every U.S. President from Harry Truman to Barrack Obama.
He lived more than 60 years in the
public eye and managed to avoid personal or financial scandal in
doing so. One of the ways in which he did so was his practice of not
spending time alone with any woman except for his wife, the so-called
“Billy Graham Rule” that was recently in the press when it was
revealed that Vice President Mike Pence follows the same practice.
This writer never had the privilege
of meeting Billy Graham but did spend the first six and a half years
of his life in Black Mountain, North Carolina, near Graham's longtime
residence in Montreat. Ruth Graham occasionally shopped in the
Collins Department Store in Black Mountain, managed by my father, and
Billy Graham came into the store on at least one occasion. In the
autumn of 1994 Billy Graham conducted a crusade in Atlanta and since
the evangelist was then 75 years old I, in my first year at ErskineTheological Seminary, figured that it might be my last chance to see
him so I headed off to Atlanta on a Wednesday afternoon after Greek
class and got to see him in the Georgiadome. He would, of course, go
on to live nearly another quarter century.
I give thanks for the life and
monumental ministry of the Rev'd Dr. Billy Graham, KBE.
The
Rev'd Charles A. Collins, Jr., is an Anglican priest currently
serving as Chaplain for a local hospice. He may be contacted at
drew.collins [at] gmail.com
