====================================================================== The Religious Studies Publications Journal - CONTENTS BOOK NOTE #1 Volume 1.031 April 1992 ISSN 1188-5734 ====================================================================== Book Note - Full Text - 197 line long A Prophet With Honor: The Billy Graham Story, by William Martin, William Morrow and Company Inc., New York, 735 pages. Is Elvis in heaven? Billy Graham thinks so, musing that the King of rock 'n roll "was very deeply religious, especially in the last two or three years" of his life. It's a comforting speculation for fans of Elvis Presley, and it's typical of the upbeat nature of Graham's life, world, and ministry as portrayed by William Martin, a sociologist at Rice University and a specialist in popular religion. Graham's kind words for Presley are hardly unexpected in this exhaustive chronicle of the evangelist's career, for Graham seldom has a negative word for anyone -- not even for Richard Nixon, whose private Oval Office language "devastated" Graham. Graham's reputation suffered its most serious blow from his relationship to the disgraced president, but Graham never completely abandoned Nixon. But Nixon proved harder than most to love. Upon reading excerpts of Nixon's private conversations that were published after the Watergate scandal, Graham "wept," "threw up," and "almost lost his innocence about Richard Nixon." Graham declared to Martin, "Those tapes revealed a man I never knew. I never saw that side of him." Some might say the same thing about Graham after reading Martin's book, which presents a detailed look at a man whom many know of but few know well -- this despite the fact that, as the book's jacket says, "Billy Graham has been the dominant figure in the burgeoning worldwide movement of Evangelical Christianity." From his days as a student at the archetypical fundamentalist Bob Jones College to his worldwide travels as the elder evangelist and statesmen of 20th century American religion, Graham's life has encompassed most of the successes, controversies, and contradictions of conservative Protestantism. Along the way, Graham mellowed substantially. The young evangelist who began his career amid the hysterical anticommunism of the late 1940s and early 1950s had turned into a polite, deferential visitor when he finally preached in the Soviet Union in 1982. In 1949, Graham had announced that "Communism is a religion that is inspired, directed, and motivated by the Devil himself who has declared war against Almighty God." But 30 years later, in the heartland of Communism, Graham remarked that it was wrong to suggest "there is no religious freedom ... it seemed to me that the churches that are open, of which there are thousands, seem to have liberty of worship services." Such remarks stirred furor in the United States, which is hardly surprising; Graham's decisions and comments have had a long history of stirring controversy. Back in 1957, the far religious right reviled Graham when he worked with mainline Protestant groups during his New York City crusade. Later on, the religious left came to criticize Graham for his support of Nixon -- and, by extension, Nixon's pursuit of the war in Vietnam. As Martin explains, Graham's "consistent characterization of war protesters as misguided, extremist, or even disloyal and his refusal to criticize American policy in Southeast Asia could easily be interpreted as support for that policy. That is how much of the public and many of his fellow clergy viewed his position, and this is certainly how the White House viewed it." Graham's puzzling loyalty to Nixon stemmed from the fact that their relationship stretched back to Nixon's vice presidency in the 1950s. Graham even wrote a favorable article about Nixon for Life magazine during the 1960 presidential race; the article was scheduled to run a week before the extremely close election. But Graham got cold feet before publication and persuaded Henry Luce, the publisher of Life, to kill the pro-Nixon essay. Kennedy's subsequent win over Nixon in 1960 was by the narrowest of margins. Nixon and Luce are just two of the many conservative political and business leaders who are intertwined with the advancement of Graham's career. In the early 1950s there was substantial support for Graham from Texas oilman Sid Richardson, who introduced Graham to Richardson's personal attorney, John B. Connally. The relationship was to serve Connally well many years later, when the former governor of Texas and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury faced federal bribery charges. At the trial in 1975, Graham became as a valuable character witness, and Connally was acquitted. Sadly, Martin does not discuss the incident in his book. In 1951 Graham also made the acquaintance of millionaire industrialist Russell Maguire, whose fortune came in part from the manufacture of Thompson submachine guns. Maguire, "an ardent anti- Communist" and backer of openly fascist organizations, wanted to give Graham a blank check for anything the evangelist wanted to do. Graham limited his request to $75,000 from Maguire to start a film ministry that produced the movie Oiltown, U.S.A., which was promoted as "the story of the free-enterprise system of America ... of the development and use of God-given natural resources by men who have built a great new empire." But Graham's dealings with the wealthy didn't always end on such a cordial note. When insurance magnate John D. MacArthur offered Graham a thousand prime acres in Florida on which to build a college, Graham considered the offer but then backed out. The abrupt termination of plans for the so-called "Graham University" ended up offending and permanently alienating John MacArthur and the foundation that later controlled his money. The interplay between Graham and money is one of the most fascinating themes of the book, with Graham acknowledging at one point his unsettled views on living well. "When I go to places like India and Bangladesh and Africa, it bothers me to no end that I have three good meals a day. We have never been tempted along the lines of money so much, but we do have money. We have too much. What do you do? I guess it's individual conscience in our culture." Whatever their consciences, Graham and his associates remain well-compensated for their labors. Graham, at age 73, earns nearly $70,000 per year. Many of his living and traveling expenses are picked up by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which itself takes in an estimated $70 million to $100 million in contributions a year. Graham also earns huge publishing royalties from his books and has a home in the North Carolina mountains valued at about a half-million dollars. In the midst of its many successes, Graham's career has had a fair share of problems and peculiarities. In the mid-1970s there were charges of business irregularities, including a curious land deal and a five-year refusal by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to provide an annual financial audit to the Better Business Bureau. Consequently, the bureau refused for a time to consider the Graham organization to be a trustworthy charity. Reflecting on the problems, Martin writes: "It was not a happy time for the Graham organization. Even the most charitable reading of the evidence made it appear that BGEA had not been completely straightforward with either the press or their supporters, and that key leaders in the association had exercised poor business judgment ..." Martin's biography provides a broad overview of Graham and his ministry, but it also provides illuminating details about moments of friction among key leaders in evangelicalism. Particularly noteworthy is a disagreement between writer John Stott and Graham's wife, Ruth, over the subject of materialism and simplicity, and an unrelated decision by Leighton Ford to leave the Graham organization and found his own ministry organization. Observers of evangelicalism no doubt will be intrigued by the assertion that Graham "came close to a public breach" with Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ in 1976. Graham, who told a reporter that he would "stay a million miles away from politics" that year, accused Bright of trying to create "a conservative Christian political bloc" by going after "prayer and Bible-study groups spawned" by Graham's crusades. "Bright has been using me and my name for twenty years," Graham complained. "But now I'm concerned about the political direction he seems to be taking." Graham's charge of being "used" is noteworthy, since he seemed unaware of Nixon's sweeping manipulations of the evangelist during the Republican's presidency. As a close associate of Graham's tells Martin, "Billy still has no idea of how badly Nixon snookered him." Martin did his best to educate the evangelist to get his reaction, relying on papers from the Nixon archives. To help jog the evangelist's memory, Martin let Graham look at a copy of the manuscript prior to publication so that the evangelist could check for errors. Graham, who was given no editorial control over the book, "acknowledged that he had been surprised by much of what he had read." Confronted with Martin's vast research into Nixon's presidential memos about the political uses of the evangelist, Graham appears crestfallen. "I was unaware of all those memos circulating in the background. When I read about that, I felt like a sheep led to the slaughter." A biography so illuminating to its subject doubtlessly will prove revealing to anyone interested in the development of evangelicalism. Several other biographies on Graham provide a more critical review, but Martin's work is the most comprehensive ever done on the remarkable evangelist and Christian statesman. This CONTENTS Book Note was written by: Carl Briggs Director of Public Relations Alderson-Broaddus College in Philippi, W.Va. briggs@ab.wvnet.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT: Unless otherwise noted, copyrights for reviews and book notes that appear in the Religious Studies Publications Journal - CONTENTS are held by their authors. Republication in any medium requires the written consent from the author and advance notification of the CONTENTS project director. Contact 441495@Uottawa (BITNET), 441495@Acadvm1.Uottawa.CA for further information about the CONTENTS project. -------------------------------------------------------------------------