Featured Billy Graham

I just found this in my files. My parents went to Wheaton in 1943, right after Billy graduated that same Spring. Here is the statement of standards they all (Billy and my parents) were required to sign that year:

"All are required to abstain from alcoholic liquors and tobacco, card playing, dancing, attendance at theaters (including moving picture theaters), and meetings of secret societies. Students who are not willing to cooperate in maintaining the Wheaton ideals of college work and life will be invited to withdraw whenever the general welfare demands it, even though there be no special breach of conduct calling for suspension."

 

Maybe.

The issue never was about Billy's message. No fundamentalist ever said his message was wrong. On the other hand, it was exactly this defense that Billy and his defenders made: the message is right, so who cooperates with them does not matter.

Lest you object, that is exactly what Billy said in a letter to John R. Rice in 1956, I believe. I have a jpeg of it in my files, and may be able to quote from it so that we all get the history right. I have done research in this very subject at the Billy Graham archives at Wheaton and the John R. Rice papers at Southwestern in Fort Worth.

And I thank God for that, as John R. Rice and many others did. I was just talking with my aunt (one of JRR's daughters), and she told me how thrilled JRR was and excited at all the souls being saved all throughout the 1940's and 1950's.

Actually, Bob Jones Sr. loved Billy, as did John R. Rice, and he loved them. I could quote from letters proving this. What he and the other fundamentalists objected to was not his message, not him personally, but his associations with men like John Bonnell. I have a sweet letter from 1956 from Billy to JRR explaining exactly his position about that and why he did it. Maybe I can share it later.

When Bob Jones Sr. died, I have been told that Billy attended the funeral.

At the JRR funeral, Billy and his wife sent a huge wreath of roses, apologizing that they were in Europe and could not attend. The BG Evangelistic Association sent a separate flower arrangement. (I was there and saw them.)

Happy 4th!

 

Yes we can thank England ... BUT more importantly, we owe our way of life to a group of men who were not only BRAVE, but wise and apparently in the case of some, Godly!

 

For what it's worth, this video on Graham's view on abortion was posted at Pulpit and Pen. Looks like an older video, so Graham may have changed his view at some point afterward.
http://pulpitandpen.org/2018/07/16/...ham-was-for-abortion-in-cases-of-rape-incest/

 

The foul squawkers over at the Pullet and Hen blog have given just a snippet from a William F. Buckley interview with Graham from the 1960s.

Here is the nearly hour long program from the Firing Line youtube channel:

 

So does that whole hour translate into their statement being wrong about Graham's view on abortion at that time?

I wouldn't expect it to be wrong, considering the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1971 passed a resolution that included calling "upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."

 

I've loved watching re-runs of his older crusades on TV and hearing them on radio. He preached Christ crucified very intensely back in the 50's and 60's, in my opinion. In the late 70's, the "fire" started to fade, it seems. Getting older will do that, I suppose.

I have disagreed with his theology, though, the older I have become.
Other than that, I would prefer not to say.

 

Related to Jerome's post #29 and my posts #28 and #30, I started a thread in the Baptist History section on Baptist History and Abortion Views.