Opened the mailbox today and found the @CTMagazine edition devoted solely to Billy Graham. Choked up just flipping through it. Graham’s life makes me want to dig deeper into the Word so when I speak, I’m always saying through the power of the Spirit: “The Bible says.”
@TrevinWax Managing editor of The Gospel Project
In my view, Dr. Graham’s greatest legacy is the large number of organizations he was able to found and support. They will impact many more people than his preaching, and that is saying a lot. It shows that he was able to communicate with widely divergent people from widely different social, cultural, and theological backgrounds. That takes an enormous amount of the fruit of the Spirit, especially self-control.
Gary Sweeten
The coverage of Billy Graham’s death by Christianity Today is insiderish, yes, but in-depth and very useful.
@MelaniMcA Author of The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: A Global History of American Evangelicals
We on the left and the right could learn a lot from Billy Graham. The left can’t claim him and the right surely can’t claim him, and he wanted it that way. How else could he reach the lost?
@BradyMayo7
How a Humble Evangelist Changed Christianity As We Know It
A comprehensive and balanced article: (1) It explores the difficulties of Graham balancing his personal humility with the demands of advertising and promotion, a tension which still beguiles evangelicalism. (2) It is frank about Graham’s early problematic Americanism and political entanglements, but how he grew out of that, learning to major on the majors (e.g., the gospel). (3) It delves into arguably Graham’s greatest legacy, his catholicity: how he reached out to mainline churches and helped build interdenominational parachurch ministries that became the definition of neo-evangelicalism. (4) Finally, it celebrates his international influence for the gospel, particularly in South Korea (which I did not know about), a legacy still benefiting us all, as these nations now send missionaries of their own.
@RediscHumility
Oval Office Confidant
Wish the article explained the distance between Graham and [President Jimmy] Carter, who, curiously, is deeply religious himself. Seems strange that they weren’t very chummy.
William White
Graham and the Jews
An insight that is tragic but also helps explain his son Franklin’s current political views. I appreciate CT’s publication of his problems, which are helpful for current pastors and church leaders to avoid and model his humility to own up to his failings.
Eli Garza
Not the Stuff of Romance Novels
What a heart-touching tribute to the strength of the Grahams’ marriage . . . devoted service to God and to each other. Absolutely beautiful story!
@SheilaHolman
‘Little Girls Need Their Daddy’
Thank you for your honest but sympathetic coverage of Graham’s life, both good and bad. I never knew him personally, but something tells me he wouldn’t have wanted his failures glossed over and ignored as part of his legacy.
Joshua Sharp
I suggest that the notoriously compassionate Graham’s callousness toward his wife during her 1973 injury and her mother’s dying days has a straightforward explanation. The root is most likely not celebrity fever or cold-heartedness; the fault is the obverse of his equally notorious humility and deference to others. When the Norfolk crusade staff said, “The crusade needs you,” it just was not in Graham to say, “You need me, but my family needs me more.” Our faults are often the flip side of our virtues.
Monty Ledford Aberdeen, Idaho
Uncountable Moments of Decision
Though my heart didn’t respond in conversion until the age of 19, Billy Graham’s ministry most assuredly played a part in my accepting Christ. I watched him for many years on the TV annually. “Won’tcha come?” he would say. So much love. I was drawn to it.
@hisbridealone
Correction: The article “British Breakthrough” gave the incorrect affiliation for J. I. Packer. He is professor emeritus of theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.
