Of all the tributes following the news of Billy Graham’s death last week, one stands out to me more than all the others. The great evangelist, says Rick Warren, never lost sight of Jesus.
Let me tell you about Jesus
I remember when Graham received the Congressional Gold Medal in the rotunda of the US Capitol in 1996. There were about 400 chairs, packed with VIPs. President Clinton and leaders of the House and Senate addressed the crowd, honoring Graham’s life and achievements. What do you think Graham did when it came time for him to get up to speak? He spent maybe three minutes acknowledging the honor and how little he deserved it. Then he said, “Let me tell you about Jesus.” Even though the entire event was about him, he turned the meeting toward his lifetime central focus: Jesus.
Graham was arguably the most effective evangelist in the church’s history. During his lifetime he preached 400 crusades, reached over 2 billion people and saw 3.2 million direct conversions. His authentic faith, natural preaching gifts and compelling personality gave his gospel appeals a power that drew people down the aisles of his crusades like a magnet.
But Graham was much more than an evangelist. He was also a best-selling author, with thirty-three books to his credit. He was at one point a college president and never lost his passion for education. He integrated his ministry early on, blazing a path for other evangelical leaders. He led the way in adopting new technology for ministry. As an entrepreneur he was responsible for “Christianity Today,” the main printed voice for evangelicals. He took up the cause of social justice. He was an advisor to Presidents both Republican and Democrat. Indeed, it’s hard to tell the story of America in the last seventy years without referencing Billy Graham because he was in the middle of it all.
Billy Graham was the most trusted figure on the national stage for most of his ministry. Through the course of the disruptions and changes that have defined American life in the last decades, his reassuring voice brought the unchanging truth of God’s love in Jesus. For that reason Graham earned his title of “America’s pastor.”
Underlying it all—and in large measure responsible for his unique influence—was Graham’s personal integrity. Unlike many modern evangelists and church celebrities, there was never any doubt about his finances or his morality. In his personal life he was as pure as driven snow. He was no different in the pulpit than he was at home. That’s the lesson his grandson Boz Tchividjian remembers:
I am forever humbled to have known and loved a man who was the real deal — who was same person whether he was in front of thousands or whether we were walking alone through the woods. In an era when many evangelical leaders were exposed for deep moral and financial failings, I am grateful that my experience was much different. I could have easily grown to become cynical about Jesus and those who claim to follow him, but I knew and loved a man who made Jesus that much more beautiful to me.
Who will be the next Billy Graham?
Over the last couple of decades as Graham’s declining age forced him from the national stage the question of his successor has been the center of conversation for most evangelicals, not because of nostalgia for a bygone era so much as the desire for a fresh era of evangelism. In America’s present moment of spiritual need, is there anyone who like Graham can speak with a single voice and lead us into the revival so many of us yearn for?
I’m not sure there is. While there are many effective evangelists today, none has the universal appeal of Billy Graham. He had the capacity of crossing over denominational, racial and political boundaries to speak to the broad center of American religious sensibilities. Graham’s message touched people from every social strata. Rich and poor, black and white, Episcopalian and Pentecostal, drop-out and college educated, he reached people no other evangelist would dream of.
He would have been the first to say the reason for his effectiveness had nothing to do with his own gifts but everything to do with the Holy Spirit and the power of the Word of God. But it’s also true that Graham’s message and ministry took root at the moment in history when his personality and gifts perfectly aligned with the American character.
The America that produced Billy Graham doesn’t exist anymore
It’s no accident that Graham’s ministry took flight in the aftermath of World War II when America possessed a cohesive religious vision that allowed his preaching to connect with so many. When he spoke about God, he was speaking a common language. When he appealed to the Bible as his source of authority, his audiences nodded their agreement. When he used biblical categories like “sin,” “grace” and “forgiveness” to describe the experience of most of his listeners, they understood. Jesus was a name almost universally respected.
That’s no longer the case. The fragmenting of American life along political, racial and economic lines along with the deconstruction of the former religious consensus has left the country not only in its current despairing state but also rendered the possibility of a single uniting voice almost impossible. The reason there won’t be another Billy Graham is that the America that produced him doesn’t exist anymore.
But his example may well accomplish what a single successor won’t. While in all likelihood there will never be another Billy Graham, there may well be revival through the foundation on which his own ministry was built: the authority of Scripture, the power of prayer, the simple truth of the gospel, the impact of a sanctified life. If the modern American church takes his legacy to heart, the revival his ministry pointed toward may well come to pass.