Grant Wacker - One Soul at a Time: The Story of Billy Graham

When I hear the word evangelist, the first face I imagine is always that of Billy Graham. And when I think of careful analysis of Grahams monumental reshaping of the world religious landscape, the only name I can imagine is that of renowned historian Grant Wacker. In this illuminating book, Wacker demonstrates why Graham was a distinctive voice at a determinative time. This book steers away from both sentimentality and cynicism in ways that can equip generations to come to learn from one who was, arguably, the most significant Christian evangelist since the Apostle Paul.

RUSSELL MOORE, author of The Storm-Tossed Family:
How the Cross Reshapes the Home

This fast-paced biography cuts through Billy Graham mythology to reveal who the great evangelist really was as a human individual. Wacker guides us behind the banner headlines, blockbuster revivals, and White House visits to explore the psychological depth, historical contingency, and internal contradictions that made Billy Graham one of the twentieth centurys most effective preacherswith a complex legacy that his fans and his critics still debate today.

MOLLY WORTHEN, author of Apostles of Reason:
The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism

Wackers portrait of Graham is as warm and engaging as his subject, but it holds Graham to account for his mistakes and misjudgments. Easily the best short biography of Billy we are likely to get.

KENNETH L. WOODWARD, author of Getting Religion:
Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age
of Eisenhower to the Ascent of Trump

This is a beautifully crafted, eloquent, and deeply illuminating account of Billy Grahams unparalleled evangelistic career, penned by one of the most eminent American religious historians of our time. Structured as historical scenes interspersed with lively and insightful interludes about the man himself, this is the best single overview of Grahams ministry to date. Highly recommended for general readers and scholars alike.

R. MARIE GRIFFITH, John C. Danforth Center
on Religion and Politics

Grant Wacker is the finest Billy Graham scholar in the world today. The writing is vintage Wacker: clear, concise, and brilliantly articulated. Wacker makes Graham and his remarkable career in the pulpit come alive for readers at all levels. It is a must read for anyone interested in the amazing story of evangelical revivals in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

HARRY S. STOUT, Yale University

LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY

Mark A. Noll and Heath W. Carter, series editors

Religion shapes every story. Regardless of our beliefs, the cultural influences and religious commitments that surround us help forge our deepest convictions. And in religious biographies, we see these dynamics at work in the lives of influential people throughout history.

The Library of Religious Biography is a series of original biographies that bring to life important figures in American history and beyond, showing the sometimes surprising influence of religion on these subjects and the world they inhabited. Grounded in solid research, these volumes link the lives of their subjects to the broader cultural contexts and religious issues that surrounded them. The authors are respected historians, each a recognized authority in the period of religious history in which his or her subject lived and worked.

Marked by careful scholarship yet free of academic jargon, the books in this series are well-written narratives meant to be read and enjoyed as well as studied.

Titles include:

A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards
by George M. Marsden

Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson
by Edwin S. Gaustad

The Miracle Lady: Katherine Kuhlman
and the Transformation of Charismatic Christianity
by Amy Collier Artman

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President
by Allen C. Guelzo

Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybodys Sister
by Edith L. Blumhofer

George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire
by Peter Y. Choi

For a complete list of published volumes, see the back of this volume.

ONE SOUL AT A TIME

The Story of Billy Graham

Grant Wacker

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2019 Grant Wacker

All rights reserved

Published 2019

252423222120191234567

ISBN 978-0-8028-7472-6

eISBN 978-1-4674-5736-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

For Nathan Hatch, Laurie Maffly-Kipp,
George Marsden, Mark Noll, and Skip Stout.
God is everywhere, soulmates arent.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost,
something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

BILLY GRAHAM

Contents

When I entered my small Methodist church one Sunday morning last winter, Bob Maddry, a retired truck driver and old chum, walked over. I lost a dear friend this week, he said. Billy Graham brought me to Jesus. He saved my life. Bob paused, then added, I never shook his hand.

A couple of weeks later I asked Bob if he remembered where and when his conversion had taken place. He answered immediately and precisely. Raleigh. Wednesday night, September 26, 1973. At that moment I knew that Bob spoke for countless others, salt-of-the-earth folk, everywhere. They never personally met Graham, but his ministry had remade their lives.

Graham had died quietly in his sleep in his home in Montreat, North Carolina, on Wednesday, February 21, 2018, four days before I talked with Bob. The preacher was ninety-nine. On Saturday the hearse bearing his body motored the 130 miles from Montreat to Charlotte. Along the way the highway patrol blocked the on-ramps with wooden barricades and yellow tape. Fire trucks parked on overpasses, and cars in the oncoming lane pulled over. Officers saluted, grievers dabbed their eyes, and simple well-wishers quietly waved handkerchiefs.

The following week Grahams body would rest in three places. First up was Grahams childhood home, rebuilt on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte. On Monday former president and first lady George W. and Laura Bush visited. On Tuesday former president Bill Clinton paid his respects. On Wednesday the body was moved to the Rotunda of the United States Capitol, where it would lie in honor for two days. Graham was the fourth civilian and first religious leader in American history to be honored this way. On Thursday the body was moved back to the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte for the funeral and interment the next day.

The service was an evangelical version of a state funeral. It unfolded under a 28,000-square-foot tent reminiscent of the one that had sheltered Grahams breakout revival in Los Angeles in 1949. The event attracted President and First Lady Donald and Melania Trump; Vice President and Second Lady Mike and Karen Pence; North Carolina governor Roy Cooper; former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory; both North Carolina senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis; the Gaithers; Christian singer Michael W. Smith; five hundred members of the media; representatives from fifty countries; and 1,800 ticketed friends from the political, business, government, entertainment, and religious worlds. Former president Barack Obama did not attend but said that Graham gave hope and guidance to generations of Americans. Former presidents George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter sent regrets, unable to come because of age.