How meaningful is it to see this giant of evangelical Christianity still going strong at age 86, still doing these crusades that he's been doing for almost 60 years?
Billy Graham is doing a remarkable thing, going back into the pulpit at this stage of his career. He's aging, as we all know, and there is some bittersweet aspect to watching this one-time towering giant more enfeebled. His message is still as robust as always, but it's very obvious that his physical disposition and state is much diminished from the young man who used to prance around on stage and wave his finger and wave his Bible.Evangelicalism is at a very critical juncture right now. Billy Graham is one of the towering figures that forged a new definition of what evangelicalism is. That definition is changing even so. Perhaps his presence can lend a sense of stability not only to those who consider themselves evangelicals but also to those who are outside that community and are questioning and, in some cases, feeling some fear about the presence of evangelicals on the cultural landscape. So this is a very timely crusade. I'm not quite sure how people will respond to seeing an older man who's struggling on so many levels in a physical way. As I said, it could be very poignant, bittersweet. But we all love Billy Graham. He's an institution, not just for the evangelical community but for all of us as a nation. We kind of look to him as our nation's pastor, in a way.
Speaking of changing views and definitions, there was a time when he created fear in some quarters because of his preaching in the early days. How has he himself evolved?
He did start out with a very flamboyant, zealous, kind of in-your-face approach. It didn't take long to mellow him. For one thing, he's married to Ruth Bell Graham, and she kind of let him know when he was doing a little too much prancing around up there. Billy Graham is a man with a very clear vision and a very decisive direction in terms of what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. He did start out with the white shoes and the fancy pants and all of that and did kind of evoke some strange reactions from people. But he quickly understood his role in a more circumspect way. He mellowed his approach to his public persona, and he truly became a unifier. He's very much wanting to break down walls, did break down walls and, at the same time, forged a new definition of what it means to be a believing person who trusts in the authority of the Bible without necessarily having to abdicate character and having to abdicate intellectualism and abdicate a sound and gracious spirit. Billy Graham has encapsulated all of that, and he has evolved as a preacher, but his message has stayed the same. He's learned some hard lessons in terms of the way he might relate to those, for example, in the political sphere. He has been friends with many presidents through many terms and has adapted accordingly. He made a little bit of a mistake in the coziness he reached with Richard Nixon, but he learned from that, and he's very malleable in that way and that evokes, I think, a sense of confidence in people. They trust him.
Was it his style that changed and mellowed, or his beliefs, or just how he was portraying and speaking about those beliefs?
His style mellowed over the years. He was quite animated at the beginning. It's the zealousness of youth, I believe. He recognized his gift as a young man and immediately started to exercise it. It started to be off-putting in some ways, the way that he would wave his Bible around. And his wife enabled him to understand that he would serve the ministry and serve himself to slow down and to be more measured and more mellow in the way that he gave his presentation.
His message hasn't changed. That's the wonderful thing about Billy Graham. It's as clear as poetry, and it is a kind of poetry. And his spirit has only expanded and become more gracious, and he's willing to invite anyone to have a discussion or conversation with him. No one feels threatened doing so with him because his spirit has always been very gracious and unifying. So whereas his presentation has mellowed and matured, which is really the natural course for any ministry leader, his message has remained largely the same. It's very clear, it's very simple, and it's very to the point, and he delivers it in a way that people can receive. Not everyone believes it but, in any case, people can receive it in large part because they trust the integrity of the man behind the message.
Where does Billy Graham fit into the changing definitions of evangelicalism?
Billy Graham took the movement to where it is today. Billy Graham is one of the shapers of the evangelical movement as we know it today, although evangelicalism as it is currently being perceived and understood is a different kind of evangelicalism than Billy Graham himself was shaping. He came of age during the time when there was a lot of uncertainty on the cultural and religious landscape about the place of the Bible and the role of Bible-believing Christians. Billy Graham, along with other strong and visionary leaders of his generation, felt it was very important that Christians who believed in the authority of the Bible continue to engage culture, continue to be part of the landscape and the cultural conversation. This is where he and several other leaders of that era -- I'm thinking of the 1940s and the 1950s -- seized upon the opportunity to take the message forward in a new and dynamic way.
