In 1934, a few days shy of his 16th birthday, William Franklin Graham Jr. sat in the choral section of a Mordecai Ham revival meeting being held in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. Young Graham and a school mate, Grady Wilson, weren’t part of the church choir, but because every stinging indictment that would flow from Dr. Mordecai Ham’s mouth seemed directly aimed at the two high school boys, they decided to sit directly behind the preacher in the hopes of escaping his accusation-filled finger pointing.
It was during that series of revival meetings that the teen-aged Billy Graham gave his life to Jesus. The impact of that conversion still reverberates to this day.
Graham Begins Ministry
After graduating from the Florida Bible Institute in 1940, Billy Graham was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister. In 1945, Graham began working full-time as an evangelist with Youth for Christ.
Los Angeles Crusades 1949
It was during his time working with the Youth for Christ Evangelical Organization that 31 year old Graham achieved national notoriety. During the 1949 Los Angeles Crusade, Billy Graham was catapulted to national attention thanks in large part to newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst.
Though the two men hadn’t met, it is said that Hearst admired the young preacher’s fervor, appeal to American youth and anti-communist rhetoric so much so that he sent out notice to the editors of his numerous newspapers to promote Billy Graham. Though only three weeks of revival meetings had originally been schedule for the Los Angeles Crusades, all the extra publicity surrounding Graham served to extend the L.A. revival from a three week long affair to eight weeks.
Billy Graham Reached Millions
Dr. Graham has been the spiritual face of the United States for decades. Since becoming a world-renown evangelist in the 1950s, Graham has preached to more men, women and children than any other person in history. Thanks in part to his weekly radio program Hour of Decision and his globally televised crusades; Graham has been able to take his message of salvation and redemption to millions world wide.
When it came to his influence in the U.S., Graham’s straight-forward, non-denominational approach to evangelism welcomed Protestant and Catholic alike. It was perhaps that ability to bridge even the widest of ideological chasms that made Graham a friend and often times advisor to every sitting president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Bill Clinton.
Billy Graham’s Legacy
In a testimony to the type of life and career that Graham has led, he – unlike many once prominent evangelists and preachers – has never found himself embroiled in any type of sordid scandal: neither financial nor sexual. The level of beyond reproach integrity has spanned the breadth of Graham's adult life.
The principles of Graham’s message of love, hope and redemption are ones that he has always believed and ever since that evening revival under Dr. Mordecai Ham, held onto firmly.
Whether Billy Graham’s ideology and beliefs are agreed with or not, the one thing that both his proponents and detractors alike can say with certainty is that Billy Graham is one of those rare individuals that actually practiced what he preached.
Sources:
- "Graham, Billy" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Ed. E. A. Livingstone. Oxford University Press, 2006. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Apollo Group. Retrieved 2 November 2009.
- Hall, Timothy L. "Graham, Billy." American Religious Leaders, American Biographies. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2002.
- Ham, Edward E. “The Day Billy Graham Found Christ”. Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Online. Retrieved 1 November 2009.
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