Religious Leaders of the 20th Century
American Experience presents
Billy Graham, a new documentary that explores the life and career of one of the best-known and most influential religious leaders of the 20th century. From modest beginnings on a North Carolina farm, Graham rose to prominence with a fiery preaching style, movie-star good looks and effortless charm. His early fundamentalist sermons harnessed the apocalyptic anxieties of a post-atomic world, exhorting audiences to adopt the only possible solution: devoting one’s life to Christ. Graham became an international celebrity who built a media empire, preached to millions worldwide, and had the ear of tycoons, royalty and presidents. At age 99, he died a national icon, estimated to have preached in person to 210 million people.
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Crowds gather outside Harringay Arena during Billy Graham’s 1954 London crusade. Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
In 1954, the American evangelist Billy Graham held a religious revival in London. Nearly every night for 12 weeks, Harringay Arena’s 12,000 seats were filled, and eventually landline relays also brought Graham’s voice to thousands more at overflow venues, churches and auditoriums throughout the United Kingdom. John Guest went to hear Graham speak at Harringay. Guest was 17 at the time, and what he heard that night changed his life.
At that time I was not a church goer. A girl had dumped me, broken my heart. She mentioned she went to church, and I chased her to church and never caught up with her. That s where I first heard the name, Billy Graham. Walking out of church [once] from an evening service, the minister said to me, Will you come with us to hear Billy Graham?
Billy Graham with his friend and Pastor Don Wilton on the porch at Graham s home in Montreat, North Carolina. The two spent most Saturdays together for the last 20 years of Billy Graham s life. | Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Billy Graham’s friend and pastor reflected on his yearslong friendship with the famed evangelist and shared the lessons and values he believes the Church can glean from the life and ministry of a man he said mirrored the “very heartbeat of God.”
“Mr. Graham s heartbeat and passion and reflection of the very face of God showed deeply, penetrated my own heart and life,” Don Wilton recalled in an interview with The Christian Post. “I ve never been around a man personally like that, who so deeply and genuinely and consistently reflected the face of God s grace. As a pastor myself, one can only imagine the enormous depth of the blessing that God conferred on me every time I was with him every week.”
CBNNews.com If You Wait, It Could be Too Late : Franklin Graham s Plea to Christians to Get COVID Shot
05-14-2021
In this May 7, 2020, file photo, the Rev. Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan s Purse, sits for a portrait at his group s field hospital in New York s Central Park. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)
One of the most well-known evangelists in the world is urging fellow Christians to get a COVID-19 vaccination, and he s taking his plea to the mainstream media.
Franklin Graham, president, and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and Samaritan s Purse told Axios on HBO about what he believes is a pressing need for people to be vaccinated.