The death of an evangelical titan

I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Billy Graham preach about 20 years ago in Cincinnati. At the time, Graham was around 80 years old and clearly in frail health. He came to the podium and commenced to speak, but the crowd of young people, stirred up by the Christian rock bands who had performed earlier, was restive and inattentive. Graham paused, folded his hands, and quietly said, “Let us pray.” With that, a stadium of 50,000 people fell silent. Once a spirit of reverence held sway, the preacher resumed. I remember thinking, “What an old pro!”

That old pro, arguably the greatest Christian evangelist of the past 100 years, died Feb. 21 at 99, and it’s difficult to overstate his impact and importance. It is said that he directly addressed 215 million people in 185 countries over the course of his ministry. No other preacher, in the entire history of Christianity, has had such a range. At the height of his powers, he filled arenas and stadiums, for weeks at a time, in some of the most jaded, materialistic and skeptical cities in the world. And when preachers and other religious celebrities all around him were falling into scandal and corruption, Billy Graham stood tall, a man of integrity. His moral heroism was on particularly clear display in the early years of the civil rights movement. Especially in his native South, it was the unquestioned practice to seat black people in segregated sections of churches and arenas. Though it cost him quite a few of his traditional supporters, Graham insisted that his crusades should be racially integrated. Impressed by this show of courage, Martin Luther King Jr. became a friend and appeared with Graham at a crusade in 1957.

What was it about his preaching that was so compelling? I suppose in his early years, he demonstrated a fair amount of “flash,” prowling the stage, waving his arms and moving dramatically from whispering to shouting. But as he matured, a fair amount of that theatricality faded away. What remained was a gentle sense of humor (usually self-deprecating), an obvious sincerity, a keen intelligence and above all, a clarity in regard to the essentials of the Gospel. Practically every Billy Graham sermon had the same basic structure: you have sought happiness in wealth, pleasure, material things, fame, etc., and you’ve never been satisfied; I want to tell you about what will make you happy. At this point, he would speak of Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Now please don’t get me wrong. As a Catholic, I affirm that there is more to salvation than accepting Jesus Christ in faith; there is the full integration into the life of Christ that happens through the instrumentality of the Church and her sacraments. Nevertheless, Catholics and Protestants come together in asserting — as Billy Graham consistently did — that we are sinners who stand in need of Christ’s saving grace. In point of fact, a generous ecumenism was one of the marks of Billy Graham’s approach. It didn’t bother him in the least if someone whose religious journey commenced at one of his crusades continued and came to fulfillment in the Catholic Church.

Much has been made of his relationship with presidents, monarchs and prime ministers. He did indeed minister personally to 12 U.S. presidents, and the wonderful Netflix series “The Crown” shows something of the impact he had on Queen Elizabeth II. But I’ve never been particularly taken with this dimension of Graham’s life, which seemed, to me anyway, more sizzle than steak. In fact, one of the low points of his career had to have been his meek acquiescence to Richard Nixon’s anti-Semitic musings, captured on White House tapes. To his credit, Graham repeatedly apologized for that lapse. He was far more powerful and spiritually efficacious when he prayed over the thousands of ordinary people who had responded to an altar call at the close of a crusade.

I love the story of Billy Graham’s first encounter with my evangelical hero, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. These two titans of preaching were on the same train from Washington to New York. Archbishop Sheen found out about Graham’s presence, and he knocked on the door of the Protestant’s berth and said, “Billy, I wonder whether we might have a chat and a prayer?” Though he was preparing for bed, Billy Graham acquiesced and the two of them spent several hours in spiritual conversation — the beginning of a friendship that endured until Sheen’s death. I’ve always taken great pleasure in that image of brotherhood across denominational lines. 

I believe that anyone who reverences the Christian Gospel owes Billy Graham a debt of gratitude. Requiescat in pace.