Billy Graham by Lon Allison

Author:Lon Allison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paraclete Press
Published: 2018-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

Join me now on a whirlwind tour of the last six decades of Billy Graham’s work spreading the evangelistic message of Jesus Christ. You are in for a ride.

Our first stop, Boston. A large church in Boston invited Billy to speak over New Year’s, 1950. The invitation had been made and accepted long before the Los Angeles campaign and its breakthrough. Neither Graham nor the church led by the well-known Pastor Harold John Ockenga thought the pandemonium that erupted in Los Angeles would happen in Boston as well.

Boston was the recognized center of education in the United States, home to legendary schools such as Harvard, MIT, Tufts, and Boston Latin. US presidents, Supreme Court justices, and Nobel Prize winners were graduates of schools such as these. It was also a place steeped in history—the New England heritage of Puritans, but also sophisticated Boston Brahmins. Surely evangelical Christian displays of revival and emotionalism would never happen in Boston. Both men were wrong. The church was overwhelmed with people, so much so that Pastor Ockenga had to quickly secure Mechanics Hall in the center of Boston’s historic district in order to accommodate the crowds. Surely its several-thousand-person capacity would be more than adequate. But it wasn’t. Finally, they secured the even larger Boston Garden, home of the Boston Celtics of Bob Cousy and Red Auerbach. What was intended to be a set of meetings in a local church was suddenly Boston and New England–wide.

One reason for the expansion was the media. The media swarm in Los Angeles was duplicated in New England. They had begun to attach themselves to what was happening. There was a story to tell. For his part, Billy was concerned that the sophisticated reporters and journalists would be less friendly in Boston than they had been in California. New England was not then, and I suppose is still not often considered an area where Christian spirituality is robust. But God took care of that too.

I remember hearing a wonderful story about this from Allan Emery, a successful businessman and one of Graham’s strongest, early supporters. We were together at a board meeting in 1999 when Emery told me how just before Billy was scheduled to address the New England press and respond to their questions, a telegram arrived from Los Angeles. Emery took the telegram as Graham was preparing for the press. The telegram, he said, was from a Hollywood producer offering Billy the starring role in two movies with a guaranteed contract of two million dollars. Allan felt he should give the telegram to Billy before the press conference just in case he wanted to send a response. Billy read it. His response was to immediately wad it into a ball to throw away, but since he had to get to the reporters he put the wad in his suit pocket and stepped into the media lights to face the cameras and questioners.

I wish I remembered more of the story, but I do recall that at some point in the press conference one of the reporters asked a rather denigrating question.

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