Billy Graham at 93: Still funny
Billy Graham, the grand old man if American (global?) evangelicalism turns 93 today. A few days ago he met with the current editors of Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical magazine, as I always call it, the magazine he founded — no small contribution to the expansion of the evangelical mind.
Graham’s sense of humor and humility about himself and things intellectual were also evident at the meeting, CT editor David Neff writes:
When [Graham] spoke of the [CT] board’s first chair, Harold John Ockenga, he remembered the prominent Boston pastor introducing him when he was to speak to students at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. Afraid that he didn’t have the educational credentials to be convincing to these students, Graham told Ockenga to use lots of big words in his introduction. Not only did Ockenga use big words, Graham remembers, but he used so many words Graham didn’t understand that when Ockenga sat down, he wasn’t sure that he had actually been introduced.
In an e-mail, current board chair John Huffman told me that he had been present for this event as a 10-year-old and remembered it just the same way. That Graham told the story to CT’s board of directors demonstrates that he has retained his humility and self-deprecating sense of humor.
My first or second visit to Madison Square Garden was to see Billy Graham, in the 1960s, when midtown Manhattan wasn’t as Disneyfied as today. It was a carnival of another sort. Then again, the “crusade,” as Graham rallies were called then, was difficult to distinguish in my mind from my other early MSG experience, the circus. Wonderful stuff. “How Great Thou Art” was the top track on the soundtrack of my youth, and if you want a real evangelical oldster story, George Beverly Shea is still robust at 102.
Rock on.
Crossposted at S&P.
I remember hearing a funny story about someone asking Billy Graham for his opinion on the best Biblical translation and he replied, “the one you actually read.”
GBS’s rendering of “How Great Thou Art” still sends shivers up and down my spine!
My mother would never allow us to watch Billy Graham, the Three Stooges, or Big Time Wrestling. This, of course, made him forbidden fruit, and we, along with our Catholic friends, who were also not allowed to watch Billy Graham or “Divorce Court,” used to sneak over to the Baptist family’s house to tune in.
I never found him funny. Scary, pompous, and full of hellfire, yes, especially with the Baptist kids and their parents giving color commentary throughout.
Then again, if you’re not mellow at 93, you probably threw a clot about something long ago and died.
Ah, Billy Graham. Funny stuff . . . .
Nixon And Billy Graham
Anti-Semitism Caught On Tape
By James Warren
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
3-1-02
Rev. Billy Graham openly voiced a belief that Jews control the American media, calling it a “stranglehold” during a 1972 conversation with President Richard Nixon, according to a tape of the Oval Office meeting released Thursday by the National Archives.
“This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain,” the nation’s best-known preacher declared as he agreed with a stream of bigoted Nixon comments about Jews and their perceived influence in American life.
“You believe that?” Nixon says after the “stranglehold” comment.
“Yes, sir,” Graham says.
“Oh, boy,” replies Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that but I believe it.”
“No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something,” Graham replies.
Later, Graham mentions that he has friends in the media who are Jewish, saying they “swarm around me and are friendly to me.” But, he confides to Nixon, “They don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country.”
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Have his views changed? Perhaps. But it is worthwhile to remember the private face of the man when he was at his most charming in public.