Just as I Am

Christian Century, Oct 8, 1997 by Joanne C. Beckman

By Billy Graham. Harper San Francisco/Zondervan, 760 pp., $28.50.

Since 1950, some 50 books have been written about Billy Graham and his crusades--roughly one for every year Graham has been on the national scene. Add to this the thousands of articles featuring Graham in the popular and religious press and one wonders what more can be said. Perhaps the only book left to read is this autobiography, which has been on the New York Times best-seller list since its publication. For many, Graham's autobiography is long overdue. For years he has been urged to tell his own story to temper the commentary of critic and hagiographer alike. Others will consider the book well timed, since Graham turns 80 next year and is battling Parkinson's disease.

The hefty autobiography (Graham rejected the idea of a three-volume work) is equal parts anecdotal adventure and spiritual testimony. It features the standard fare of contemporary religious biography: pious upbringing, personal conversion, love and marriage, call to ministry, organization building, growing fame, globe-trotting, VIP contacts, lessons learned, and a final word to the unsaved. What sets Graham's story apart is that his world travels, famous friends, institutional legacy and international impact are among the most impressive ever documented. But much of this account is old news.

Though there are few surprises, the book does offer a more personal encounter with the Billy Graham we have known only through headlines or under spotlights. Folksy, upbeat, plain-speaking and often moving, the story is quintessential Graham. Those who have followed his ministry over the years will meet the man they have always known--a "simple preacher," as Graham likes to say, whom God chose to use "just as I am."

Readers looking for personal confessions or profound reflection will be disappointed. Graham is not interested in intellectual or emotional dissection. But in an age when many a "personal testimony" includes accounts of abusive childhoods, paralyzing insecurities, titillating escapades or scandalous moral failings, the fact that the private and public Billy Graham turn out to be pretty much alike may itself be impressive. Reviewed by Joanne C. Beckman, a graduate student in religion at Duke University.

But the book offers other rewards for students of American evangelicalism. Both his biographers and Graham himself have chronicled the intersection between his life and ministry and the "new evangelicals" who emerged in post-World War II America. Graham either spearheaded or lent an important hand to the development of many of the influential expressions of modern evangelicalism, including popular publications (Christianity Today, Decision); educational and training institutions (Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Wheaton College and Graduate School, the Billy Graham Training Center); world conferences on evangelism (Berlin 1966, Lausanne 1974, Amsterdam 1983 and 1986); and, of course, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

We also see here how Graham's personal development reflected many of the qualities that have contributed to the complexity, if not the vibrancy, of the movement itself. Consider, for example, Graham's staunchly ecumenical posture. In the 1950s and early '60s, when Catholics and Protestants--and liberal and conservative Protestants--were seen as opposing forces, Graham emphasized an irenic and inclusive stance. He insisted that every denomination, conservative or liberal, be allowed a place in his crusades if it wished to have one. Predictably, both fundamentalists and liberal mainliners attacked Graham for fraternizing with the enemy, but he maintained that as long as any Christian group supported his efforts to preach the gospel, he would welcome their participation in his ministry. Graham was also one of the first conservative Protestants to embrace Catholics as fellow believers and co-laborers.

While evangelicals continued to identify theologically with the conservative fundamentalist tradition, they also sought to bridge the gap between themselves and more liberal mainline denominations by addressing social needs, promoting the arts, engaging in scholarship, and even making room for certain insights from higher criticism. While theologically conservative, they sought to distance themselves from the harsher, intolerant and exclusivist stands of their fundamentalist kin. Both in Graham's own ministry and in the evangelical movement as a whole a more expansive posture toward other sections of the church has proved fruitful for spreading the gospel.

Another theme in Graham's life has been his ambivalence about the intellectual world. Like many evangelicals, Graham both reveres intellectual gifts and tends to denigrate their status. For evangelicals, feelings of intimidation and inferiority in the presence of intellectuals often exist alongside a steady conviction that the worldly wisdom of educated people leaves them spiritually bankrupt.

Graham wrote repeatedly of his desire to pursue graduate studies (he never advanced beyond a B.A. from Wheaton College) and the vulnerability he felt because he had not done so. In his early days especially, Graham often felt "a deep sense of failure, inadequacy, and helplessness" when preaching to an academic audience. At the same time, he always noted that in these encounters "there was absolutely no need to apologize for the Gospel" because he knew that the most cynical intellectual had as great a need for Christ as anyone else. He always "felt the power of the Holy Spirit in those . . . meetings" and knew that those with the spirit of God could shatter the veneer of sophistication and skepticism so prevalent in the academy.