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This article originally appeared in the August 11, 1997 issue of Christianity Today.

Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham
by Billy Graham
HarperOne, April 1997
800 pp. $14.99

Billy: A Personal Look at the World's Best-Loved Evangelist
by Sherwood Eliot Wirt
Crossway Books, March 1997
217 pp. $13.25

Well," said the best-selling author on the other end of the line, "They're calling it 'the book of the century.' " Unlike the news-magazines, talk-show hosts, and, it would seem, most other Americans, I hadn't yet seen Billy's autobiography, and my friend was trying to sum up the matter for me. Book of the century? I mused. A few decades early for such a judgment,isn't it? I had known Billy Graham from his youth and had no doubt he was the man of the century for evangelicals, probably for Protestants,perhaps for Christendom; but book of the century? Then I read it.

While it is not the literary masterpiece of the century—though in general it's well written—I read the book with a sense of awe, as if standing in the presence of a person who, without trying, towers over the century. Who else could give us a view of our presidency from inside the White House,uninterrupted for more than a half-century? And never once was he even tempted to seek residence in that house, though often urged to do so. No one in church history could compare to Billy Graham in the numbers of people personally introduced to Jesus. And the understated report of it here is stunning. To this day, I weep whenever I watch those final moments of the TV specials,multitudes streaming down from the stands, not to Billy, but to Jesus. Yet,in this book, the magnitude of that phenomenon overwhelmed me.

Just As I Am is not just a chronology of crusades and of personal friendships with people in high places. Billy tells us details of fascinating stories I've never heard. From the text, some enterprising author could call a book on Near Death in the Air, or Interrupted Sermons, or Close Encounters with Bullets and Bombs.And those would represent only a few of the astounding tales that crowd in, one on top of the next. Events in a single year in the life of Billy would make ample biographical material for a lesser mortal's entire life!As readers, it is as if Billy had welcomed us to spend a week or so in his log home, hidden away on the side of a mountain in Appalachia, where we can sit by the fireplace as the patriarch reminisces.

This reviewer may be forgiven, I hope, for fast-forwarding over those endless lists of unknown people who are important in Billy's mind—a tendency that highlights another of the author's excellencies: genuine appreciation of people, worthy or not, and loyalty to a fault. At the end of the book, the author clues us in on the secret of recalling minute and colorful details from a half-century past: diaries, letters, news reports, biographers—and a team of research assistants. Even so, future historians should note that,though this is no doubt the most authentic history of its subject we shall ever get, it is not infallible. Soon after publication, I was talking by phone with the son-in-law of Billy's sister Catherine, who interrupted the conversation to say, "Mom is sitting over here laughing as she reads Just As I Am. She's sure enjoying herself. Says she's going to tell Billy Frank he should remember there were other people present at some of those events who don't recall everything just the way he does." Others of us may feel a kinship with little sister Catherine!

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August 11 1997, Vol. 41, No. 9