Billy Graham’s Heir: The Rebellious Franklin Graham

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on February 25, 2009

A 1996 TIME magazine article explores the passing of the evangelistic baton from Billy Graham to his oldest son, Franklin Graham. It has a number of interesting tidbits about the rebellious Franklin:

• Billy Graham had asked evangelist John Wesley White to encourage Franklin in preaching. In 1983 White gave Franklin a chance to share his testimony in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in front of 1,000 people. Not a single one came forward. Franklin later told White: “Don’t you ever ask me to do that again. I’m not Billy Graham!”
• The article also described Franklin Graham’s rebellious streak growing up and the lengths his mother, Ruth Bell Graham, had to go to keep him in line: “On another occasion the mother, provoked beyond reason during a fast-food jaunt, locked her son in the car trunk. When she opened it again, he cheerily placed his order for ‘a cheeseburger without meat, French fries and a Coke.’”
• Some of the details are a little more frightening: “In 1987 neighbors called the local sheriff when he took on the task of chopping down a neighbor’s tree—with 720 rounds of machine-gun fire from a borrowed weapon.” Later in the article it adds: “His only known explanation was that he hadn’t realized it would require so many rounds.”
• The article primarily covers Franklin’s ascension to the leadership of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which it describes as the “Rolls-Royce of revival ministries.” The article notes that Franklin once said, “I wouldn’t touch BGEA leadership with a 10-foot pole,” though he said he would consider it if Billy Graham asked him. Despite reservations from other board members, that’s eventually what happened.
• There’s also the interesting ‘what if’ that some board members, Billy Graham included, publicly considered the idea of shutting down the BGEA after Billy was gone.

1978 Texas Monthly Feature on Billy Graham

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks on January 9, 2009

Digging into the Internet archives usually produces some interesting fodder, like this 1978 feature on Billy Graham from Texas Monthly (registration required). The headline on the magazine’s colorful cover reads, “Billy Graham: The Most Powerful Evangelist Since Jesus?” The article doesn’t spend much time comparing Billy Graham to 2,000 years worth of preachers but it does give a detailed biography and includes a number of interesting tidbits.

What is the Appeal of Billy Graham?
One section seeks to explain the broad appeal of Billy Graham and bluntly admits how pedestrian Billy Graham can be:

“What does Graham have that makes him so appealing to so many? He is attractive, forceful, and confident, to be sure, but one would hardly describe him as colorful; in fact, he seems almost dynamically bland. He seldom turns a memorable phrase, his mind seems innocent of complexity, and his observations are thoroughly predictable. All of us know several people who are intrinsically more interesting. And yet he is undeniably one of the authentic All-American Heroes.”

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