Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 22, 2009
Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the ground-breaking Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Throughout his career Billy Graham has taken a stand against abortion, but what is perhaps worth noting is his gentle and loving stance.
While his son Franklin Graham makes headlines for calling abortion murder, Billy Graham has a gentler, more understanding tone. There are four separate My Answer columns in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s spiritual help section addressing abortion, and each one, though firm, still drips with grace.
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Take a retro ride into Christianity circa 1971 with your favorite crusading hipster, Billy Graham. That’s the basic feel of The Jesus Generation by Billy Graham.
In a book that’s understandably out-of-print, Graham tries to “rap” with the youth of America and get them to “turn on” to Jesus. Graham often borrows campy ’60s and ’70s expressions in an attempt to connect with the younger generation, and 30 years later it’s kind of funny.
As a challenging and encouraging devotional book it falls a little short. As a retro ride it’s very insightful and entertaining.
The book is very telling of the times (there’s a lot of environmental doom and gloom), and you even learn that on a few occasions Billy Graham himself visited various rock festivals, protests and love-ins in an attempt to understand the masses. Of course he attended “incognito” (meaning he donned a hat, sun glasses, and a big sweater).
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 21, 2009
Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster is an infamous fake video game that appears in an episode of The Simpsons from the 11th season that originally aired in 2000. In the episode, “Alone Again, Natura-Diddly,” longtime character and Simpsons neighbor Maude Flanders dies. Marge Simpson encourages Bart to cheer up Rod and Todd and he discovers one of their video games, Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster.
A few pixelated screen shots of the game play show a first-person shooter style game where you shoot Bibles at heathens to turn them into conservatively dressed fellows with halos.
It actually has very little to do with Billy Graham, but he does get the name recognition and shout out. You can play a simplified version of Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster on the Simpsons web site (alas, close shots don’t result in Unitarians).
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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 20, 2009
As Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, we present a few more inaugural prayers from Billy Graham:
“Help them always to see the office to which they’ve been elected as a sacred trust from you. We pray that you will bless their wives who will share so much of the responsibility and burdens. Make President-elect Clinton know that he is never really alone but that the eternal God can he his refuge and he can turn to you in every circumstance. Give him the wisdom you’ve promised to whose who ask and the strength that you alone can give.”(1993 Inaugural Invocation for Bill Clinton)
“We recall that the Bible says, ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it’ (Psalm 127: 1). You also said that to whom much has been given, much shall be required.
“We look gratefully to the past, and thank You that from the very foundations of America You granted our forefathers courage and wisdom, as they trusted in You. So we ask today that You would inspire us by their example; where there has been failure, forgive us; where there has been progress, confirm; where there has been success, give us humility; and teach us to follow Your instructions more closely as we enter the next century.” (1997 Inaugural Prayer for Bill Clinton
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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 19, 2009
An assassin’s bullet killed the radical civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Billy Graham heard the news on a golf course in Australia where he was holding a series of crusades. Journalists approached him with the news and asked for a comment:
“I was almost in a state of shock,” Graham wrote in his autobiography. “Not only was I losing a friend through a vicious and senseless killing, but America was losing a social leader and a prophet, and I felt his death would be one of the greatest tragedies in our history.”
Graham prayed there on the golf course with the journalists for King’s family and the healing of racial divisions. He tried to cancel his schedule and return for the funeral, but it wasn’t possible.
Billy Graham with Martin Luther King Sr. at the grave of Martin Luther King Jr.
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Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. have a storied history, at times partners and at times at odds. But despite their disagreements they were united on the issue of civil rights for all people. Graham insisted on integrating his crusades in the early 1950s. In 1957 Graham told Ebony magazine:
“Our concern since God laid the matter on our hearts some year ago has been not so much to talk as to act, to set an example which might open new paths and stir the consciences of many. There is no segregation in our Crusades, even in the South.”
At a conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1960, Martin Luther King Jr. commented:
“Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend, Dr. Billy Graham, my own work in the civil rights movement would not have been successful as it has been.”
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 17, 2009
Billy Graham has offered many inaugural prayers and sermons for incoming presidents. He won’t be doing so this year, though his name still comes up, but we can look to one of his past prayers, the 1969 inaugural prayer for Richard Nixon:
“We beseech Thee that he will have Thy divine guidance and power daily. Help him as Thou didst help Thy servants of old. Our Father, we know his burdens and responsibilities will be overwhelming. He will hold in his hands the destiny of more people than any man in history. O God, our new President needs Thee as no man ever needed Thee in leading a people! There will be times when he will be overwhelmed by the problems at home and abroad that have been building up to the breaking point for many years. Protect him from physical danger. And in the lonely moments of decision grant him an uncompromising courage to do what is morally right. Give him a cool head and a warm heart. Give him a compassion for those in physical, moral, and spiritual need. We pray that Thou wilt so guide Richard Nixon in handling the affairs of state that the whole world will marvel and glorify Thee.
Those “lonely moments of decision” didn’t turn out so well for Nixon (or Graham, for that matter), but hindsight is 20/20. These same words could be said for Barack Obama today, as Graham has reminded people time and time again to pray for presidents no matter their political party.
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 16, 2009
There are plenty of stories about Billy Graham interacting with presidents. He’s had personal encounters with every president going back to Harry Truman, detailed in the book The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House. But two of my favorite details involve Graham going for a swim. The first, and best, has to be the minor mention that Billy Graham went skinny-dipping with President Lyndon Johnson:
“After a visit in the Oval Office, Johnson proposed a swim in the White House pool. That no one had brought a bathing suit was no deterrent; in years to come the president would often interrupt meetings to suggest and swim and needle anyone who was reluctant to strip naked and dive in a baptism in intimacy.”
A TIME magazine article described it as “an encounter that included both prayer and skinny-dipping in the White House pool.”
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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 15, 2009
The Graham family spent the Christmas of 1936 at a relative’s boarding house in Orlando. Billy’s father encouraged four-year-old Jean Graham to get up on the table and “preach” to the gathered guests.
“She was so cute, with her beautiful blond hair, that they stopped to pay attention,” Graham wrote in his autobiography. “I don’t know why Daddy put her up to it, but Jean was serious about her message and told the guests that they needed to come to Jesus. I guess you could say she was the first preacher in our family.”
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 14, 2009
“The great crowds themselves are meaningless. The thing that counts is what happens in the hearts of the people. The evangelist sows the seed, and much inevitably falls upon stony ground and bears no fruit. But if only a few seeds flourish, the results are manifold. After three and a half years of preaching to the thousands of people, Christ could number only 120 followers at Pentecost. But those 120 changed the world.”
-Billy Graham
(Billy Graham: God’s Ambassador)
