Just as I Am
By Billy Graham
Book Review By Darold H. Morgan
[Dr. Morgan is the immediate past President of the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Before that he was Pastor of the Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas.]
[Editor`s Note: In 1983 just prior to a service of the Central Florida Billy Graham Crusade at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida, the Executive Committee of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and I, as the Commission`s Executive Director, met with Billy Graham and presented to him the Commission`s Distinguished Service Award for Leadership in Christian Social Ethics. "In recognition of unique and outstanding contributions in applied Christianity," the subject of the accompanying book review that follows, Billy Graham, was cited at that time as:
"Faithful preacher of the whole gospel of God in Christ,
"Authentic advocate of personal morality,
"Mighty voice for public righteousness,
"Consistent proponent of Christian family life,
"Prophetic spokesman for the Christian way in race relations,
"Courageous crusader for peace with justice,
"Sensitive world citizen and Christian statesman, and
"Powerful champion of total evangelism."
For those reasons, and others, it has seemed appropriate to carry below Dr. Darold Morgan`s review of Billy Graham`s new autobiography Just As I Am. Harper, San Francisco, Zondervan, 1997, $27.50.]
The most difficult literary genre to review is an autobiography. The reasons are plain. Many of these personal volumes are far from objective, and the writing styles are often uneven. Billy Graham`s 740-page life story is an exception because of his genuine humility as well as his acknowledged dependence on a corps of experienced journalists who have helped him.
Few Americans in the twentieth century are more widely known than this North Carolina Baptist evangelist who has preached to more people than anyone else in Christian history. The mere listing of his worldwide crusades is phenomenal. Add to this chapter after chapter of references to world leaders he has met; and he is elevated to a rare and heady category. "Why did You choose a farmboy from North Carolina to preach to so many people?" This is the quote on the jacket which sets the tone of the volume all the way through. A major strength of the book is his in-depth relating of his life and work to his background on that dairy farm near Charlotte. His deeply religious parents, the fervently religious environment of the deep South, and the earliest developments in his Christian experience preparing him for the work of an evangelist are all documented with authentic spiritual insights.
One keeps asking, how could an aggressive and personable young man, called of God to the gospel ministry of evangelism, come through a typical, narrow-gauged fundamentalist education to the levels of international acceptance and effectiveness that have marked his ministry? He writes with genuine gratitude and without rancor about Bob Jones University, the Florida Bible Institute, and Wheaton College. The names he mentions in his painfully limited educational background are the major ultraconservative leaders of the 1930`s and 1940`s. One of the men he met while at the Florida school was W.B. Riley, the well-known pastor of the extremely conservative First Baptist Church of Minneapolis. Riley`s influence had been extended across the mid-west through his Northwestern Schools. His tapping of Graham, to be his successor at Northwestern, despite Graham`s youth and lack of graduate study, led to quandaries of gargantuan proportions. Often in his unfolding life, Graham seemed to be at just the right place and at just the right time! The Minneapolis story is only one of dozens of such seeming coincidences. The Christian has no problem in seeing the hand of God in all of these.
In considering Graham`s ministry, one must conclude that its timing is a major factor. He burst on the scene first in the "Youth For Christ" – Youth Revival movement which was related to the ending years of the second World War. In the peculiar prosperity of the late twentieth century, it is very difficult or even impossible for some to realize how hungry the world was for spiritual purpose and spiritual reality and spiritual substance. Gathering thousands of service men and women and youth together for great evangelistic rallies in the heart of major cities in America and Europe sounds unheard of now, but more than a half century back it was a real and remarkable chapter in the history of Christian evangelism. Graham cut his teeth in this environment with skill and effectiveness. Youth for Christ, conclaves, European rallies, and the Northwestern Bible Schools in Minneapolis all contributed to Graham`s burgeoning city-wide crusades…and the rest is Christian history.
One of the major weaknesses of the book comes in the unfolding of the story related to the people Graham met and worked with. There is not a critical or an unkind word about anyone in these pages. The firebrand fundamentalist, Bob Jones, head of the Bible college where Graham first went away to school, lashed out at him with fury because he "consorted with the liberals." Graham simply mentions this as a fact and moves on. One relationship that was gravely misunderstood in his career was that with Richard Nixon, the only president of the United States ever to resign in disgrace. Graham has an entire chapter about "My Quaker Friend." He recounts what turned out to be an extremely awkward situation related to the Watergate experience. It was probably the most embarrassing quandary imaginable because the inevitable conclusion was that Graham was being manipulated and shamelessly used by a very clever politician. Graham was badly burned but not consumed; he fell but subsequently scrambled to his feet.
Much of the value of Graham`s book comes from the thorough reporting of his early years in the Chicago area. Wheaton College has always been a center of vital importance for him. He became the pastor of a Baptist church while he was a student there. His contacts with "Youth for Christ" began in this timeframe. He met and married his wife, Ruth, during these years. Of unmeasurable importance to Graham is his wife and family. Ruth Graham shines through these pages as a woman, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother of great talent and spiritual depth. The demands upon Graham`s time made for unusual difficulties in the family, but the resiliency and dedication of this couple to each other and to the primacy of his call from God to be an evangelist were somehow used by the Lord to maintain a measure of balance in the home.
Ethical sensitivity to the problems which have dethroned many powerful evangelists is one of the major accomplishments of Billy Graham and his team. They have kept intact for decades their reputation. And that says a lot when one considers the highly publicized self-destruction of many well known figures, particularly in television evangelism. The infamous trio of specific moral problems for religious leaders-pride, money, sex-have never been pinned on Graham and his associates. Their diligent cultivation of spiritual values and vigorous practices to avoid these difficulties has paid lasting dividends of respect in an area where human frailties and greed have often wreaked awful havoc. Graham`s leadership in the field of financial accountability for not-for-profit organizations has been exemplary.
Another dimension of Graham`s ministry of particular interest to the ethicist is his position in racial matters. Obviously a product of the deep South, sadly characterized by slavery`s tragic residue, racial segregation and racism, he determined early on in his crusade ministry that his crusades would be racially integrated. This was not a popular stance at that time, but it points to Graham`s strong sense of what is morally right. This, coupled with a determination that local support of these crusades should cut across all denominational lines, was a fresh approach to evangelism which proved to be the right thing. Again and again in the book his unambiguous and rigorously upright stance goes back to his belief in the Bible as the guide for dealing with these great moral issues.
It is worth while to check the index of names and places at the back of the book. The list of people Graham has met with and come to know is astounding. The places where he has preached likewise is astonishing. Trips to servicemen in war zones rivals the travels of Bob Hope. The succession of American presidents who have known Graham is amazing. Seemingly only fellow Baptists and fellow Democrats Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter resisted the politician`s inclination to ride on Graham`s bandwagon for their own political advantage.
Before one concludes that our day will not see a ministry again like that of Billy Graham, we need to go back to his enduring surprise that God could use a North Carolina farm boy, and be reminded that God can do it again.
