Hello and welcome to Giants of the Faith episode 69. My name is Robert Daniels and I'm the host of this podcast where we look at the lives influential Christians from the past 2000 plus years. We do this for a few reasons - chief among them is so that we can be inspired to fully serve the Kingdom of God. We've been following the chain of faith from Edward Kimball to DL Moody, then from Moody to Wilbur Chapman and on through Billy Sunday and Mordecai Ham until we've finally reach the man himself, William Franklin Graham. Graham needs little introduction so we'll just jump right into the story.
Billy Graham was born on November 7, 1918, in Charlotte, North Carolina, to a dairy farming family. His father was William Sr and his mother was Morrow and Billy was the oldest of four children. Billy's parents were devout Christians and did their best to raise Billy in the faith. As a young boy, however, he was interested in almost anything other than church - especially if that anything was baseball or music. Billy detested church. He did develop a strong work ethic, though, and that served him well throughout his life.
When Billy was 16 years old he had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ at a Charlotte revival meeting led by Mordecai Ham. Ham was in town because Billy Sunday had a scheduling conflict and God used Ham's preaching to call and convict young Billy. He gave his life to Christ in a tent. He later said, “I did not have any tears; I did not have any emotion; I did not hear any thunder; there was no lightning. But right there I made my decision for Christ.”
Thereafter Billy began to pray and study the Bible for the first time. He thought he might be called to become a preacher and enrolled at Bob Jones College in Cleveland, Tennessee.
Bob Jones was himself an American evangelist who, in 1927, founded Bob Jones College in Panama City, Florida. He wanted to give Christian students somewhere to go for higher education that was free from the atheistic, evolutionary teaching that they were receiving in secular schools. He wanted a fundamentalist higher-learning institution. Jones himself was something of a cross between hard-line fundamentalist and intellectual Calvinist and I'm sure we'll cover him in more detail at some point.
Anyway, Bob Jones College was forced to move to Tennessee from Florida in 1933 after financial difficulties and that's where Graham briefly attended. Just to close the loop, enrollment surged after World War II due to the GI Bill and BJC became BJU and moved to Greenville, South Carolina in 1947. Graham and Bob Jones had something of a feud that led to a rift in the evangelical movement in the US. I plan to cover that in more detail in an upcoming bonus episode.
Billy Graham quickly decided that Bob Jones wasn't for him and he left for the Florida Bible Institute, in Temple Terrace, Florida. The Florida Bible Institute, which is now known as Florida College, had purchased the Temple Terrace Golf Club for back taxes. Temple Terrace is a small city on the outskirts of Tampa. Actually, it's pretty much surrounded by Tampa now, but in Graham's day it was separate.
While Graham was studying at Florida Bible, he'd often go for long walks on the golf course. Sometimes he'd play, too. It was on one of these long walks that Graham felt God's final call to preach. He sank to his knees on the edge of the 18th green and gave in. He later wrote, “The moonlight, the moss, the breeze, the green golf course – all the surroundings stayed the same. No sign in the heavens. No voice from above. But in my spirit I knew I had been called to the ministry. And I knew my answer was yes.”
Graham began to practice his preaching. But he was shy. Very shy. So often his classmates would see him, having rowed over, on one of the small islands in the middle of the Hillsborough River. Graham was preaching to the birds and the alligators.
He'd also take trips into downtown Tampa to evangelize the drunks all along Franklin Street. He also got the chance to preach in churches and tent meetings. It was in Tampa and Temple Terrace that he really began to hone his craft.
Graham graduated from Florida Bible in 1940 and moved on to Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He was a student there until 1943 when he graduated with a degree in anthropology. He also met his future wife, Ruth Bell, at Wheaton. Ruth was the daughter of medical missionaries to China, where she was born.
It was at Wheaton that Graham felt called to become an evangelist. He would later serve as a trustee of the college and he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1956. He often spoke at the school and even donated his papers to it upon his death.
Graham began his ministry as a pastor in two small Southern Baptist churches in Illinois - The Village Church of Western Springs and Wheaton Gospel Tabernacle. But he soon felt the urge to reach out to more people with the message of salvation. He joined Youth for Christ, an organization that held rallies for young people across the country. He also started his own radio program, Hour of Decision, which broadcasted his sermons to a wider audience.
In 1949, Graham held his first major crusade in Los Angeles, which lasted for eight weeks and attracted hundreds of thousands of people. The event received national attention and launched Graham's career as a mass evangelist. It was organized by the Christian group Christ for Greater Los Angeles, which invited Graham to be the preacher.
It started on September 25, 1949, and was planned to last for three weeks, but it was extended to eight weeks due to the overwhelming response. It took place in a large circus tent, nicknamed the Canvas Cathedral, that could hold 6,000 people, but it was later enlarged to 9,000 and still proved too small. During the crusade, Graham spoke to 350,000 people, and more than 3,000 of them converted to Christianity. He preached about the need for repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation.
The crusade attracted the attention of the media, especially after William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper tycoon, sent a telegram to his editors: "Puff Graham". This resulted in nationwide coverage of Graham and his message and contributed to the success of Graham's career.
The crusade also drew some famous personalities, such as Stuart Hamblen, a popular radio host who announced his conversion on air; Louis Zamperini, a former Olympian and prisoner of war who found peace in Christ; and Jim Vaus, a wiretapper who worked for the mobster Mickey Cohen and later became a Christian missionary.
The crusade was considered the greatest revival since the time of Billy Sunday, another famous evangelist. It also introduced evangelicalism as an influential force in American culture. It marked the beginning of Graham's long and fruitful ministry that spanned six decades and reached millions of people around the world.
And that's where will stop this episode, with Billy Graham having just preached the first of his many evangelical crusades. In the next episode we'll finish out Graham's story and wrap up this chain we've been following for the last few episodes.
I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If you are so inclined, please drop by Apple's Podcast App and rate the show. I appreciate every rating and review I've received and would love to have a few more 5-star ratings. Until next time, God bless.
RESOURCES
The Billy Graham Library: https://billygrahamlibrary.org/blog-billy-graham-and-the-florida-bible-institute/
iDisciple: https://www.idisciple.org/post/the-impact-of-one
Christian History Institute: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/issue/billy-graham
Billygraham.org: https://billygraham.org/about/biographies/billy-graham/
The Billy Graham Library: https://billygrahamlibrary.org/billy-graham/
Christianity Today: https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/evangelistsandapologists/billy-graham.html
My Hero: https://myhero.com/billy-graham
The Gospel Coalition: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/interview-billy-grahams-best-biographer/
Inspirational Christians: https://www.inspirationalchristians.org/evangelists/reverend-billy-graham-ordinary-man-extraordinary-call/
Christianity.com: https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/mordecai-ham-outspoken-evangelist-11630588.html
Aunty Faith: https://auntyfaith.com/2020/09/01/the-biography-of-mordecai-ham-the-southern-revivalist/
Florida Backroads Travel: https://www.florida-backroads-travel.com/temple-terrace-florida.html
WUSF: https://www.wusf.org/news/2018-02-21/rev-billy-graham-found-evangelical-voice-in-temple-terrace-tampa