The Power And The Glory of Billy Graham
How a towheaded kid from North Carolina became God’s best salesman.
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In June 1977, however, the Observer broke a story that delighted skeptics and caused millions of true believers to wonder if even Billy Graham had gone the way of so many of his predecessors and colleagues, The paper revealed the existence of the World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund (WECEF), incorporated in Dallas and worth $22.9 million. Most of the holdings of the seven-year-old fund, which the paper said had been “carefully shielded from public view,” were in blue-chip stocks and bonds, but assets also included a 2600-acre tract of prime land in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, purchased by Dallas attorney Jerry John Crawford in 1973 and held in his name until 1975. Though he used WECEF money, the Observer reported, Crawford did not mention Graham or any of his organizations while making the purchase. Further , when owners of land next to the tract asked if Graham or any of his people owned the land, they were told no as recently as the spring of 1977. That WECEF was a Graham organization is beyond question. Almost all of its funds have been funneled into it from BGEA. The board of directors is elected by the board of BGEA and the only two directors not also on the BGEA board are Graham’s wife and her brother.
The charges stung Graham and, in contrast to his long-standing policy of turning the other cheek to his critics, he characterized the Observer article as “grossly misleading” and set out to explain. WECEF, he insisted, had been established for three purposes: to provide support for such student-oriented programs as Campus Crusade, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Young Life; to establish an evangelism institute on the campus of Wheaton College; and to develop a layman’s training center in Asheville, North Carolina. The fund’s very low profile, he said, had been seen as desirable, to avoid giving the impression that the ministry was so rich that it did not need small contributions, and also to avoid a flood of requests from needy projects. He also pointed out that the fund had not been kept a complete secret. Its creation in 1970 was announced at a news conference in Minneapolis. The Religious News Service and several religious journals mentioned the fund in the first year or two of its existence, and Peter Geiger, a respected religion reporter, interviewed Graham and mentioned the fund in a 1972 story in the Akron Beacon-Journal, a paper in the same chain as the Charlotte Observer. Furthermore, Graham claimed he had given the story to the Asheville Citizen just a few weeks before the Observer printed its account.
The WECEF flap was unfortunate and embarrassing, but not the debacle some anticipated. The legality of WECEF has never been questioned and there is no evidence whatever that any of its holdings have ever been misused or turned to anyone’s personal profit. Wheaton College, for example, has already received $8 million of the $15.5 million slated for the evangelism institute.
Graham seems to have absorbed the lesson that, despite Jesus’ instruction to his disciples to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” folks are still apt to be wary of said serpents. To avoid similar complications in the future, he has pledged to publish an annual financial statement and, in the interim, has given the press a 1976 statement that shows income of $28.7 million, over 90 per cent of which comes through the mail, and expenditures of $27.7 million, divided between evangelism and ministry, including WECEF (38 per cent); radio, television, and films (32 per cent); Decision magazine (10 per cent); foreign ministries and world emergencies (9 per cent); mailing and postage (6 per cent); and administrative expenses (5 per cent).
The recent controversies, added to the strains of dueling with the devil for decades, have wearied Billy just a bit. He admits he is sometimes tired and lonely and, exhibiting clear confidence in the message he brings, claims that the prospect of death sometimes seems welcome. “I would be very happy,” he told one interviewer, “if the Lord would say it’s time to go home. I’m looking forward to it because the pressures of my particular life are very heavy and I get very homesick for heaven . . . But I don’t want to be a cop-out either. I want to stay and do what he wants me to do.”
Obviously, he does not think the Lord is ready for him to lay his Bible on the shelf just yet. In the last six months he has held gatherings in Cincinnati, Manila, Calcutta, Hyderabad, and Madras, in addition to his widely publicized visit to Hungary. He admits he has made some inquiries about a crusade in the Soviet Union and says he might even accept an invitation to preach in Rome if the Colosseum could be fixed up and made safer for Christians than it was the last time they used it extensively. If his health holds and the Lord tarries, we can reasonably expect Billy Graham to remain active for at least another ten years. There are plenty of willing candidates around, but I see no one likely to step into Graham’s pulpit when he retires.
My personal prediction is that the current evangelical revival will level off by the end of the seventies, then enter a gradual decline, at least in this country, for several decades. Eventually, some young man or woman with just the right combination, a combination easy to describe but apparently harder to embody, will arise to join the elite ranks of world-class heavyweight evangelists. It may be that developments in communication and transportation will enable the new light to shine more brightly than Billy ever could, just as radio and television and jet power have enabled him to reach more people than any of his predecessors could have dreamed possible. But unless and until that happens, Billy Graham, whatever we may think of evangelists and the gospel they preach, has to be regarded as the best who ever lived at what he does—”a workman,” as the Scripture says, “that needeth not to be ashamed.”
Homegrown Holiness
For those few Texans who occasionally sin, these evangelists may have the answer.
David Terrell
Brother David Terrell is one of the last of the full-fledged, fire-breathing fanatics—he would not think the term uncomplimentary—on the revival circuit. Terrell’s services often last four or five hours and feature his audience shaking, screaming, dancing, swooning, and running wildly around the perimeter of his six-pole tent. Terrell’s preaching is short on good news and long on drought and famine. For years he has been urging people to leave the corrupt cities and settle in rural areas, where they can raise their own food when the famine comes. In 1974, several hundred took him at his word and moved to tiny Bangs, Texas, just outside Brownwood, creating considerable consternation among the townspeople and a bit of a strain on the area’s welfare rolls.
Terrell has offices in Fort Worth, but he is hard to pin down anywhere and is usually uncooperative with representatives of the media. His descriptions of world conditions—sample: “Caterpillars are five inches deep in Canada, eating up everything”—and his prophecies of imminent doom have, thus far, been so wide of the mark as to cast doubt on his claim of having a direct line to God. Though he presses his disciples to turn over most of their possessions to his ministry, he does not make a heavy push for funds either through the mail or at his meetings. Most observers think him extreme but sincere. The easiest way to sample his preaching is to tune him in at 9:45 a.m. on KCTA, “the Gospel Giant of the Southwest,” near Corpus Christi, at the 1030 spot on your radio dial; at 2:15 p.m. on KSKY (660) in Dallas; or at 10:15 p.m. on XERF (1560) from Del Rio.
James Robison
A conservative Baptist, James Robison operates a flourishing independent ministry out of Hurst, Texas. Abandoned by his mother as an infant, Robison led a tough, transient childhood that left its mark on him. He professes to be shy outside the pulpit and talks of salvation with the relief and gratitude of a man who has just escaped a galloping terror. Young, athletic, and attractive, and with an appealing sense of humor, Robison enjoys great popularity. Real or imagined, his shyness disappears when he hits the pulpit. His blunt, forthright way of saying exactly what he believes, a trademark of his preaching, will probably prevent him from building a following comparable to Billy Graham’s, but those who support him regard this directness as his greatest asset.
In addition to a crowded schedule of one-night rallies and full-scale, stadium-packing crusades, Robinson produces a weekly television program that is seen on about fifty stations across the country. He is clearly on the way up.
Charles and Frances Hunter
Charles and Frances Hunter describe themselves and their ministry as “delightfully charismatic.” From their headquarters in Houston—the switch-board operator answers with “Hallelujah!” or “God is fabulous!”—they tour almost constantly, preaching to packed houses, conducting healing services, and administering the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, the primary manifestation of which is speaking in tongues. Frances, who is a natural storyteller, spices up their informal, sometimes rambling discourses with her humor, while Charles radiates an intense sincerity. Both smile so much and so broadly during meetings that one’s jaws ache sympathetically.
Charles is a Houston CPA who has long been involved in church work, but, before Frances’ conversion, she was a hard-driving businesswoman with a five-pack-a-day cigarette habit and a fondness for martinis. Since she found the Lord and then Charles, she has not only conquered these vices, but also has managed in recent years to shed fifty pounds from her formidable frame, a struggle she details in God’s Answer to Fat—Lose It, one of fourteen books she and Charles have written, with total sales of over four million copies. Their weekly television program, The Happy Hunters, can be seen in most Texas cities, and they appear at Houston’s Evangelistic Temple on the third Thursday evening of each month. Come early to get a seat; stay late to get the Spirit.
Chris Panos
Chris Panos of Houston characterizes himself as “God’s spy—a real-life Christian version of James Bond [who] dashes in and out of iron and bamboo curtain countries, passing through customs with impunity, and smuggling Bibles, Gospels, and New Testaments into various communist countries.” A successful businessman turned evangelist, Panos concentrates most of his activities overseas. He has held crusades in over fifty countries and has been particularly successful in India, where he has drawn crowds of over 100,000. Panos has added a new twist to evangelistic fund raising by selling jewelry his followers have donated to his ministry. His newspaper, the Far East Reporter, offers such consecrated bargains as an antique diamond necklace, “given to win souls,” for $10,000. Panos also markets a book and a set of tapes explaining how anyone can hold evangelistic crusades, “complete with miracles.”
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