Toks David, Lagos
There are few names more iconic and instantly recognizable than ‘Billy Graham’. For both religious and non-religious alike, Christian or non-Christian, American and Non-American, Graham bestrode the world like a colossus as few other men in history have.
By raw numbers alone, he was a man apart: he is estimated to have preached the Gospel live to nearly 215 million people in over 185 countries, with all his media audiences reaching 2.2 billion (with a world population of 7.6 billion, that’s about 25% of humanity); he put God squarely at the centre of American life and global affairs in a way usually reserved for Popes, that he was often called America’s Pastor – having served as spiritual adviser to every U.S. president, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama.
Few spoke like he did, in that distinctive stentorian voice he was known for – the voice of a Man advocating for God, who eloquently spoke on His behalf as Christians believe the Son of God speaks on Man’s behalf. That ring of conviction and authority, of certainty and reverence, few men have been able to match.
He spoke of Sin, of Righteousness, and of Judgement, speaking to the soul of his country and through it, to the soul of 20th century Man.
As evangelist, Graham was as much a product of the last century as he was a rebel against it. He honed his old-fashioned message to a new medium – TV, movies, mass market publications – that equally fed and corrupted a post World War II public alternately seeking and rejecting moral certainties.
He also represented that fading but authentic American archetype: bold, tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed – the type firmly rooted in his country’s tradition that produced men as varied as a John Wayne, a Charleton Heston, a Jonathan Edwards, and a Donald Trump: towering, rugged, straight-talking and charismatic men.
When in 1949 publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst told his newspaper editors to “Pump Graham”, who at the time was a little known preacher holding a tent revival meeting in Los Angeles, few would have imagined that the gangly North Carolinian would go on to become among the “Greatest Living Americans” and most admired persons in the world – with Gallup polling him a consecutive 49 times (since 1955) – the most for any single person ever recorded.
Graham belonged not just to a people but to a civilization and empire that came to greatness in a world radically transformed by war and social convulsions. Born at the conclusion of the First World War in 1918, William Franklin Graham Jr. came to prominence in 1949 just as the Soviets tested their first Atomic Bomb, four years after the Americans leveled two Japanese cities with the world’s first atomic bomb; he became an American institution in the 1950s with a popular radio show Hour of Decision at the height of the nuclear age, a time when Man had developed weaponry powerful enough to destroy the world. He spoke to the anxieties of that age with an urgency and grasp of the issues at stake: offering a simple (yet not so easy) answer to profound yet not so simple questions. Graham bore the hallmark of the total believer who inspired others to believe, or simply want to believe.
Decade after decade, Graham stood at the crossroads of contemporary change, from the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, to the hedonistic and self-indulgent 70s; the AIDs and drug crisis of the 80s, to the nihilism of the 90s and beyond – taking Man’s existential crisis apart by aiming the light of the Christian Gospel on them from large stadium pulpits around the world where he commanded the attention of millions of listeners. His stage presence and pioneering crusade format had many imitators, with prominent Nigerian preacher William F. Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Bible Church as just one of the thousands of televangelists around the world he influenced as orator.
Say what you will about his views on certain unspeakable influences in American culture (as revealed by the secret taped conversations he had with then U.S. President Richard Nixon), Billy Graham set himself apart from the fray of everyday politics and activism that had frequently sunk his contemporaries, including Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker; there was nary a scandal or misconduct (sexual or otherwise) attributed to him. He maintained the posture in both public and private life of a respected and distinguished gentleman of a bygone era when his country produced godly men of deep consequence; and as such represented the last of a dying breed of great American originals and historic figures the world may likely ever see for years, or indeed, centuries to come.
____________
Billy Graham died February 21, 2018, at age 99. He is survived by children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.