I can scarcely remember a time when revivals and revivalists did not fascinate me. As a small boy in Devine, Texas, in the late 1940s, I relished having the visiting evangelist over to our house for dinner during the annual “gospel meeting.” When the Baptists held a revival down the street, I often dropped in for a sermon or two, and numerous times I stood at the edge of a Pentecostal tent wondering what might be going on inside the minds and bodies of folk being whipped into a holy-rolling frenzy by the sweating, shouting, shirt-sleeved man striding back and forth on the flimsy little stage.
I didn’t hold any revivals myself until I was fourteen, but they were authentic for their time and place—held in the open air, illuminated by yellow bulbs, with the crowd seated on wooden-slatted church pews and singing from tattered softback songbooks. Not all of my outings were a success. One dismal, week-long revival seldom brought more than a dozen people out to sit in the oppressive August heat, and it was hard to be confident I had the full attention even of that faithful remnant, since the bare, unfrosted floodlight directly over my head not only drew hundreds of night bugs but, with the intense glow of its high wattage, fairly baked my crew-cut scalp and forced my auditors to look off to one side to avoid permanent damage to their stricken eyes.
Still, I was a pretty good speaker, and my sermons were of sufficient quality to have merited previous publication—one of my favorites featured a stinging attack on the Bolsheviks—and when kindly church ladies said, “I’d sure love to hear you preach twenty years from now,” I never doubted they would have the chance. As it happens, I don’t preach much anymore—haven’t for over twenty years—but I am still intrigued by those who do and are really good at it. Thus, when the opportunity came to chronicle and assess the life and ministry of the world’s best-known and, arguably, most successful preacher, I saw it immediately as the remarkable pleasure and privilege it has turned out to be. Some explanation of how this happened and what followed seems in order.
Throughout the 1970s, after joining the sociology department at Rice University in Houston, I wrote a series of magazine articles about popular religion, my primary academic specialty. Several of these appeared in Texas Monthly. In 1978 William Broyles, Jr., then editor of that excellent magazine, asked me to consider writing a profile of Billy Graham, whose Texas connections were numerous and strong. I already knew a fair amount about Graham and had even spent several days interviewing members of his staff and meeting briefly with him during a crusade in Jackson, Mississippi, so the assignment was a relatively easy one. The article, which appeared in the March 1978 issue of Texas Monthly, was generally favorable toward the evangelist, but it was by no means a puff piece, and because I had liked and been treated graciously by every member of Graham’s staff whom I met, I had some apprehensions about how it would be received. When the time comes to write, I have no conscious hesitation about trying to say exactly what I believe and feel about people and organizations I have studied, but I do not enjoy hurting people’s feelings, and because I consider it of paramount importance to be fair in what I write, I like to be perceived as fair. On occasion, I have written things that ruptured or forever precluded the possibility of friendship. I will doubtless do so again. I can live with that, but it brings me scant satisfaction. I do not write as a means of venting repressed anger. When Graham and his chief lieutenant, T. W. Wilson, both wrote notes expressing appreciation for the article, and particularly for its fairness, I was pleased. Still, I knew enough about the evangelist’s legendary graciousness toward the press not to imagine that the article had actually made any lasting impression on him. And I expected that my study of Billy Graham had ended.
Three years later Graham held a crusade in the football stadium at Rice University. I urged my students to attend and attended several services myself but made no attempt to make contact with Graham or any of the staff members I had met several years earlier. I was quite surprised, therefore, to receive a letter from him several weeks after the crusade stating that one of the biggest disappointments of his stay in Houston was not getting to see me and expressing a hope that we might be able to sit down together for lunch sometime. I responded, letting him know that I felt sure I could work him into my schedule, but, quite frankly, I assumed that his staff had prepared a list of people he might meet while in Houston, and that he was dispatching brief courtesy notes to those he had missed lest someone be unnecessarily offended.
Thus, despite these expressions of appreciation for my acumen and literary style, I was somewhat astonished when in November 1985 I received a letter from Mr. Graham in which he asked if I would be interested in writing “a book concerning my life, ministry, and any niche in history our work may have.” Several scholars and journalists had approached him about such a book, he said, but he had decided not to offer his cooperation to anyone else until checking with me about my interest and availability. As it happened, I was due for a sabbatical the following academic year and had not yet fully decided on a primary project. To be sure, I was interested, but I was also uncertain as to what Graham would expect of me and whether I would feel comfortable under conditions he might set. I let him know that I continued to think well of him but would feel obliged to tell the story as accurately as I could, whatever that might entail. A few weeks later, we met for several hours in a New York hotel room. I thought it possible he might ask me to produce an in-house, “authorized” account of his ministry, one guaranteed to view him favorably. I would have regretted turning down the chance to look at him and his organization carefully, but I was prepared to do so if those were the conditions. I also wondered, though I considered it less likely, if he might expect me to pledge some portion of whatever income I derived from the book to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. To my pleasant but perplexed surprise, we talked about our children and our wives, about what directions his ministry had taken lately and where he thought it might go in the future, and about why it would be simpler just to order sandwiches from room service than to go into a restaurant where people would almost certainly interrupt our conversation. Finally, when I knew we had to start talking about the ostensible reason for our visit, he asked, “Well, do you want to do the book?” I told him of course I did but would need to find out what the conditions might be. He said, “There are no conditions. It’s your book. I don’t even have to read it. I want you to be critical. There are some things that need criticizing.” He asked if I had an agent. I told him I did, and he correctly suggested that I should find a publisher. “We don’t want any part of the income from the book,” he said, “but you’ll have a lot of expenses. How do you think that ought to be handled?” He indicated that friends of his organization could provide expense money if that were necessary, but he clearly had reservations, even about an arms-length arrangement. I told him I thought it would be best if I took care of my own expenses. He readily agreed. “That’s great,” he said. “If we gave you money, I think you would know there were no strings attached, but others might not believe it, and I don’t want anyone to think this is a ‘kept’ book.” He then gave me the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of people who held the keys to various treasure-houses of information, assured me he would tell them I’d be in touch, and invited me to attend his upcoming crusade in Washington, D.C. Shortly afterward, he gave me a letter to present to publishers confirming his willingness to cooperate with me and assuring them that neither he nor any person associated with him reserved any right of approval or editorial control over anything I might write.
Mr. Graham proved true to his word. Over the next five years—two or three longer than either of us had imagined at the outset—I enjoyed cooperation of the sort that scholars and journalists dream about but seldom experience. Long interviews with Graham himself had to be scheduled during down times between crusades and major conferences, but he was always generous with his time on those occasions, spending most of several days with me at his home or office in Montreat, North Carolina, over three years, and making himself available for long telephone conversations on other occasions. In addition, he sent word up and down the line of his organization that his friends and colleagues should feel free to speak openly with me, which more than a hundred did. At the several crusades I attended (Washington, D.C.; Paris; Denver, Colorado; and Columbia, South Carolina), at the mammoth International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists, held in Amsterdam in 1986 (See Chapter 32), and at a Team and Staff Conference at the Homestead in 1987, I was given the opportunity to visit with scores of key personnel and access to any aspect of the operation I had sense enough to inquire about. On rare occasion Graham chose not to respond to a question, usually indicating that he had pledged not to discuss the topic (for example, private conversations with presidents or other world leaders), that he preferred not to discuss the topic while other parties to an incident were still alive, or that he did not wish to cause undue pain to some person. In most cases, he was willing to answer the same or a similar question a year or two later. The few instances in which I felt he was less than fully forthcoming are noted in the text. This same generally open atmosphere prevailed at Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) offices in Minneapolis, London, and Montreat, where I received warm and extremely helpful assistance virtually every time I requested it. Also of inestimable value was the assistance I received from Dr. Lois Ferm, who serves as BGEA’s liaison with the Billy Graham Center Archives at Wheaton College. Certain materials in the archives, particularly oral histories, were donated with the understanding that they would be sealed until a certain date. Others were available only with express permission from Dr. Ferm. The wish of donors was always correctly observed, of course, but in no case was I ever denied permission to examine any archival file over which BGEA held sole control. Dr. Ferm expressed her conviction that early acquisitions by the archives had been placed under unnecessary restrictions; later additions have seldom been subject to such stringent regulations. As the person who conducted virtually all the oral-history interviews, Dr. Ferm assured me that those still closed to inspection held no dark secrets. Given my experience with several dozen such interviews whose time limitations ran out during the course of my research, I have no reason to doubt her word. Finally, various personnel at Walter Bennett Communications, BGEA’s media representative and public relations agency, as well as people holding similar positions within BGEA itself, have repeatedly furnished me with books, magazines, videotapes, transcripts, photocopies, and incidental bits of information that have proved invaluable in my research.
As agreed in my early discussions with Billy Graham, I attempted to pay virtually all of the considerable expenses involved in preparing this book. On two occasions, when BGEA’s large-scale dealings with its travel agent made it sensible and economical for the organization to furnish me with tickets for last-minute flights to major conferences, I accepted the tickets and soon afterward made contributions to the association in excess of what I believe the actual costs to have been. On numerous occasions I was able to take advantage of special hotel rates negotiated by BGEA on behalf of its members. And though I always offered to pick up the check, some members of the Graham “team” paid for various meals during my visits to crusades or BGEA offices. In similar fashion, I have tried to make contributions to BGEA or Samaritan’s Purse (an Evangelical social service organization headed by Graham’s eldest son, Franklin) in excess of any financial expense directly incurred by BGEA on my behalf.
To imagine, however, that writing a few checks cancels any debt I might owe to Billy Graham and his organization would be legalistic and naive. I would not try, or even begin to know how, to pay for the favors, assistance, goodwill, and gracious treatment I have received from numerous individuals, only some of whom are named below. They knew, of course, that I would write about Mr. Graham and his organization and that treating me kindly and well would enhance the likelihood that I would speak of them favorably. But I want to believe and do believe that they treated me kindly and well because they tend to be, as a group, remarkably kind and well-meaning people. As I have written this book, I have constantly examined what I have said in an effort to make sure that I was neither shading the truth in Graham’s or his associates’ favor out of gratitude for their helpfulness, nor taking an inappropriately negative slant as a way of emphasizing that I had not been taken in by slick manipulation. Admittedly, I enjoyed writing about their strengths more than about their weaknesses. But since Billy Graham and his associates, like all humankind, have weaknesses, I determined not to gloss these over. I have tried to be scrupulously fair, not only because I do not wish the taint of unfairness to mar the most notable scholarly enterprise in which I have engaged to date but also because I regard fairness as a cardinal virtue. I do not imagine, of course, that my judgment is flawless. I am certain it is not. But the account and the assessments I have rendered here have been given with great care.
My debts, as I have indicated, are many and substantial. I owe early and long appreciation to Dr. Kenneth Chafin, former pastor of Houston’s South Main Baptist Church and former dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism. At our first meeting in 1974, when I was interviewing him about a different subject, Dr. Chafin half-seriously suggested that I consider writing a biography of Billy Graham. A year later, he invited me to spend several days at a crusade in Jackson, Mississippi. That visit led to the Texas Monthly article, which led to the invitation to write this book. I haven’t talked to Ken Chafin much since he moved to Louisville, Kentucky, but I haven’t forgotten him.
T. W. Wilson, Graham’s personal assistant and traveling companion, repeatedly went to extra lengths to help coordinate my visits with Graham, to provide entree to interviewees and access to materials, and to supply me with various other kinds of information. It was easy to understand why Billy Graham has come to rely upon him so heavily and to relish his company.
Cliff Barrows, even while recovering from a life-threatening illness, spent several days reviewing films of Graham’s early ministry and sharing observations and insights gleaned during an adult lifetime spent at Billy Graham’s side as his music director and vice-chairman of BGEA.
George Wilson and John Corts, former and present chief of operations of BGEA, gave me broad access to the association’s facilities and staff, and graciously met any need I expressed.
Sterling Huston, director of North American Crusades, saw to it that I got every piece of information I requested about Graham’s crusade operations and enabled me to get a worm’s-eye view of crusades in progress.
Maurice Rowlandson, director of BGEA’s London office, shared his extensive knowledge of Graham’s ministry in Great Britain, arranged interviews with key church leaders in England, and, with his wife, Marilyn, offered gracious personal hospitality and other kind assistance on several occasions.
Dr. Alexander S. Haraszti was a meticulously inventoried storehouse of detailed information about Graham’s visits to the Soviet bloc countries. Dr. John Akers and Edward E. Plowman supplemented his accounts with their own observations and insights. Both these men also offered candid and astute reflections on other aspects of Graham’s organization and ministry.
Bob Williams gave hours of his time, even when swamped with responsibility, to help me gain a better understanding of the International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists and the saturation evangelism effort known as Mission World.
Russ Busby, BGEA’s photographer, recorded hundreds of scenes that enabled me to picture exactly how an event looked, recommended several photos for use in this book, and furnished a stack of verbal snapshots that no camera could capture.
I am indebted, of course, to every person I interviewed. I hope each of them, including those not mentioned in the footnotes, will accept as sufficient my blanket expression of gratitude. Some, however, stand out for their willingness to engage in repeated conversations, for their assistance in providing access to other people, and for myriad other thoughtful deeds. I think especially of Dr. Akbar Abdul-Haqq, Gerald Beavan, Ralph Bell, Bill Brown, Dr. David Bruce, Blair Carlson, Elwyn Cutler, J. D. Douglas, Fred Durston, Allan Emery, Jr., Colleen Townsend Evans, Dr. Robert Evans, Roger Flessing, Leighton Ford, Ernest Gibson, Melvin Graham, Roy Gustafson, Henry Holley, Mike Hooser, Dr. Arthur P. Johnston, Howard Jones, Johnny Lenning, Dr. Robert L. Maddox, Dr. Victor Nelson, Roger Palms, Dr. Tom Phillips, Texas E. Reardon, Charles Riggs, Tedd Smith, Walter Smyth, Charles Templeton, Dr. Calvin Thielman, Bill Weldon, Dr. John Wesley White, Ralph Williams, and Grady Wilson.
My research efforts were wonderfully extended by a competent corps of co-workers. None was more valuable than my prize daughter, Dale Martin Thomas, who worked at my side for two summers and made further valuable contributions by writing her senior thesis at Yale on the conflict between Billy Graham and the Fundamentalists, and whose research for that project is reflected in Chapter 13. She also enlisted her friend and classmate, Jim Ford, who provided me with information about Graham’s visits to Yale in 1957 and 1982. Alongside her in importance is Jane Washburn Robinson, whose enterprising, painstakingly thorough, and expertly organized and documented research provided the basis for the chapters on the relationship between Graham and Richard Nixon. Though she was able to assist me for only one summer, and most of that via computer modem, Christiane Pratsch also proved to be as able a second set of hands, eyes, and mind as one could hope for. And during the final push to get all the footnotes correct, Shay Gregory displayed remarkable diligence, ingenuity and cheerfulness as she hunted down every straggler who lacked a proper name or identifying mark.
The bulk of my archival research was done at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. The extensive and well-ordered collection at the center’s archives is a priceless resource for students not only of Billy Graham’s ministry but also of other facets of Evangelical Christianity. Archives Director Robert Shuster and his associates, Lannae Graham, Frances Brocker, Paul Ericksen, and Jan Nasgowitz could not have been more helpful or gracious during the several weeks I spent in their midst. I received similar assistance from the center’s library director, Feme Weimer, and her co-worker, Judy Franzke. As already noted, my work at the archives was greatly facilitated by the good offices of Dr. Lois Ferm, who was at pains to see to it that I had access to every piece of material that was legally possible for me to see. She was also helpful in suggesting places to look. In addition, my candid conversations with her and her husband, Dr. Robert Ferm, associated with Billy Graham for over forty years, provided many valuable insights.
One of the most valuable sources of assistance was the staff of Walter Bennett Communications, which has long handled public relations and media operations for the Graham ministry. Fred and Ted Dienert gave me open access to backstage operations of the television productions. Larry Ross repeatedly shared his time and insights into Billy Graham’s phenomenal success in gaining the confidence of the world’s media. And Noel Wilkerson Lee, again and again and again, found and sent videotapes, transcripts, press releases, and whatever other materials I requested, all in good time and good humor.
Sarah Clemmer of the Charlotte Observer also smoothed my way to effective research in that newspaper’s extensive files on Graham.
As with virtually any historical project, I have depended upon the work of those who have plowed the ground before me. Earlier biographies, particularly those by John Pollock, William McLoughlin, Marshall Frady, and Patricia Daniels Cornwell, have been helpful for their insights and for guiding me to materials I might otherwise have found less easily or missed altogether. In addition, I have benefited from the work of numerous journalists who have written books and thousands of articles about Billy Graham. I have given credit for every known debt in the footnotes, but I take this opportunity to pay additional thanks to them all.
From the beginning, secretaries have played crucial roles. Billy Graham and his colleagues are blessed—I have no more hesitation to use the word than they—with a phalanx of extraordinarily able and unfailingly helpful assistants. Stephanie Wills served as lifeline to Billy Graham himself, relaying queries accurately, dispatching all sorts of materials immediately, and giving information and advice that was invariably on target and often delivered with a wry sense of humor. Cathy Wood, secretary to Sterling Huston, not only provided me with abundant assistance at and regarding crusades and other aspects of the ministry but repeatedly did so in the midst of hectic workdays that lasted at least fifteen hours. During the several weeks I spent in Amsterdam in 1986, Susan Cherian, Bob Williams’s secretary, offered similar help with equal good cheer. Belma Reimers was especially helpful in arranging my meetings with Cliff Barrows and Johnny Lenning. Ruth Graham’s secretary, Maury Scobee, helped me several times with appointments and travel arrangements and proved to be a delightful friend as well. I had only limited personal contact with Mary Becker in BGEA’s Minneapolis office, but I was regularly grateful to her for faithfully sending me a full set of newly updated statistics every few weeks during the entire five years. And George Wilson’s longtime assistant, Esther LaDow, managed to find copies of almost any obscure publication or document I felt I needed. In addition, and absolutely without exception, numerous other secretaries at various levels within BGEA, in both the Montreat and Minneapolis offices, rendered friendly and competent assistance whenever they had opportunity. I am deeply grateful.
On the home front, my several computers, whose value has been incalculable, made it unnecessary for me to rely heavily on the official skills of university secretaries in the actual research and preparation of the manuscript. Still, the friendship, forbearance, load-lifting good humor, and able assistance on other fronts consistently furnished by Kathy Koch, Crystalyn Williams, Nancy Dahlberg, and Rita Loucks during years of single-minded pursuit of a goal and absentminded loss (usually temporary) of essential items have been a source of comfort.
I can scarcely imagine how I could have written this book had I not been able to spend eighteen months in practical isolation in comfortable dwellings graciously made available to me by thoughtful and generous people. Loise H. Wessendorff’s picturesque and peaceful retreat center, Wellspring, not only provided much-needed solitude during the early stages of the writing but rekindled a deep affection for the Texas Hill Country. The roar of the ocean at Lamar and Penny Vieau’s Seabean helped drown my inner moanings during the wintriest period of the entire project. The delightful nineteenth-century farmhouse at Pecan Mill, from whose windows I could watch champion cutting horses grazing in the fields, gave me a marvelous place to work and, just as important, enabled me to renew my ties with my cousins, Mike, Jerry, and Bill McLennan. And the magnificent view of the mountains from the window of the study in Steven and Sandra Rudy’s charming cottage in Crested Butte, Colorado, made it easy to get through the final revisions and copyediting. I expect to write my next book at a place called Canaan, not far from Wellspring. All these will be welcome there.
My several visits to Wheaton were made immeasurably more pleasant by Bill, Donna, Bruce, and Vicky Bond, who welcomed a stranger into their home and made him feel a part of their family. And my sojourn in Paris, a delightful assignment in itself, was enhanced by the hospitality and companionship of Spencer and Marlene Hays and Herve Odermatt.
For more than twenty years, I have enjoyed an unusual degree of support and encouragement from my colleagues on the faculty and in the administration of Rice University. With scarcely a murmur of discontent, my dear friends in the Department of Sociology—Chandler Davidson, Chad Gordon, Stephen Klineberg, Elizabeth Long, and Angela Valenzuela—my two deans, Joseph Cooper and James Pomerantz, and George Rupp, president of Rice University, agreed to my taking a two-and-a-half-year leave to work on this book. I do not take such an environment for granted.
The folks at William Morrow showed great confidence in this book, making it possible for me both to take time away from my teaching and to afford the research I needed to perform. I commend them for their generosity, thank them for their patience, and hope their judgment will be vindicated. I am also grateful to their counterparts at other publishing houses, particularly at Macmillan/Free Press and Houghton Mifflin/Ticknor and Fields, who helped convince them that a book about Billy Graham would have wide appeal.
Many people at a publishing house are involved in the production of a book, but none more intimately than the editor. My editor, Maria Guarnaschelli, is a remarkable woman. When we first met, I was overwhelmed by her enthusiasm for the book. In the intervening years, I have been repeatedly overwhelmed by her capacity to demonstrate a range and intensity of emotion that exceed my own to a noticeable degree. Maria not only possesses superb technical skills as an editor; she also has two other gifts that make her a valuable collaborator: the ability to teach and the ability to learn, gifts that enabled me to find and to write the book I wanted to write. Two freelance editors also gave good assistance. After reading the first version of the manuscript, Joy Parker furnished thirty pages of thoughtful analysis and encouragement that proved extremely helpful, and Ellen Joseph helped pare that first version to a more manageable size. And finally, copy editor Michael Goodman patiently checked facts, spotted typographical errors and inconsistencies, and brought the manuscript into line with William Morrow’s stylistic conventions.
Gerry McCauley has been my literary agent for twenty years. We have been friends throughout that period, but never have I valued the friendship so highly as during these past five years. From his wise and effective assistance in helping arrange for the original contract, through regular telephone calls to calm my fears and assure me that all books were difficult and that many authors actually finish them, to reading and commenting on various drafts of the manuscript itself, he demonstrated a care and concern that went far beyond a mere professional relationship. And now, perhaps, we can talk about baseball without being distracted.
My wife, Patricia, has been her dependably wonderful self throughout this long process. When it became clear that the only way to get the book written was to retreat from the city, she bore my long absences with un complaining grace, brightened my weekends with her warm and cheerful presence, gave and resisted giving criticism in just the proper proportion, and appeared never to doubt that I could and would eventually finish. My sons, Rex and Jeff, their wives, Mary and Suzanne, and my son-in-law, Rupert Thomas, were less directly involved, but they supported me with their encouragement and love, as did my longtime friends David Berg, John Boles, Sidney and Mary Lee Burrus, Allen Matusow, and Richard and Michael Parten.
I understand that I am a fortunate man.
WILLIAM MARTIN