Britan: BBC’S Billyometer Goes over the Top

A recent installment of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) religious news program, “Sunday,” featured a lively pro-and-con debate on evangelist Billy Graham. Program producer John Newbury gives a first person account of what transpired and of the public reaction that followed.

Next to the Pope, Billy Graham is probably the best known Christian in the world. So when the Manchester Guardian newspaper published an article headlined “Stay Away, Billy Graham, for God’s Sake Stay Away,” I became interested.

The author of the article was Anglican priest Peter Mullen, who is vicar in Tockwith, a village outside York in northern England. I invited Mullen to take part in a discussion on the “Sunday” program with another vicar, Ian Barclay, from Brighton, who is a keen supporter of Graham’s work. It had become known that Billy Graham was due to lead a Cambridge University mission in February 1980, and rumblings had begun among some people who felt that Graham ought to be invited to stay on to conduct a national crusade.

Peter Mullen’s objection to Billy Graham’s return was based upon both the style and the content of Graham’s message: “In my experience Billy Graham frightens people.… He’s a very frightening man.” Mullen claimed that the “frightening things” that Graham said were derived from Graham’s “fundamentalism”—a “silly” word, said Mullen.

Mullen quoted from a passage that he claimed was written by Graham: “[Jesus] said, ‘I thirst’: the blood was being extracted. God demands death either for a sinner or for a substitute.” This, said Mullen, “is not the loving father of our Lord Jesus Christ so far as I’m concerned. It’s a savage beast of a God.”

In reply, Barclay accused Mullen of being “superficial” in his criticisms of Graham. Barclay said that Graham was a respected evangelist and senior church statesman. He said Graham was “Bible-believing,” and that he had never heard him present a savage God. Barclay then asserted that no other person could attract people outside the church to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ in the same way that Graham can.

Asked what good would come from another Graham crusade, Barclay claimed that England was seeing a spiritual decline not present in the rest of the world. “I would have thought that a new evangelistic initiative in our country is very necessary just watch your television news programs,” he said.

Asked what harm a Graham crusade might cause, Mullen said, “My hope in suggesting that he [Graham] not come to this country again—at least not until 1984—is that I shall have fewer people to console after they have been through this awful fundamentalist savage mill.”

It seemed to me that following on what was a politely aggressive discussion there would be a climate of opinion among my listeners concerning the return—or otherwise—of Billy Graham to Britain. I launched a national poll on the simple question, “Do you want Billy Graham to return to conduct a national crusade?” Listeners were invited to put the answer yes or no on a postcard and send it to “Sunday.” I thought I might get 1,000 cards at most, but in just four weeks I received a staggering 15,000!

Overwhelmingly, the votes were in favor of another Graham crusade: 13,825 people voted yes and 1,166 voted no. Some persons even went around with petitions. One we received had 165 signatures. A minister was heard to announce the poll and then tell his congregation to go out and get people to vote, “And tell ‘em to vote yes.”

We were getting so many votes that we made a “Billyometer” for our office to let visitors know how the voting was going. Some questioned the accuracy of a yes/no poll. One gentleman—a leading evangelical who shall remain nameless—explained the shortcomings of the poll at great length, but ended by saying, “Perhaps you’d put me down for a Billy Graham yes.” On the other side, a Baptist minister wrote, “No, no, a thousand times no.” Some let their opinions on other matters show: one voted, “No to Britain, yes to Rome.”

We put the results directly to Graham in an interview on the March 11 “Sunday” program. When asked to react to the massive vote in favor of his return to Britain, Graham predictably said that he would not think of coming back to Britain on the basis of a poll. In keeping with normal practice, he would have to receive an invitation from a “responsible group of Christian clergy and laymen.”

Graham lived in Britain in 1946 and 1947, and he told “Sunday” listeners that “so much of my ministry has been based on what I learned from the British.” He disclosed that he had received invitations from Manchester and the Midlands but that he did not feel it was right to accept them. Besides going to Cambridge next year, Graham said he was hoping to go to Oxford. He would wait until after those visits to make a decision.

Many persons who were not in favor of another Graham crusade said their reason was the cost involved. One listener asked, “At a time when Christians in the West are increasingly called upon to examine their own lifestyles, how can we possibly justify spending the vast sums of money involved in a nationwide crusade?”

Graham countered by saying, “It seems to me rather strange that we can spend money on everything else, such as a Muhammed Ali title fight, but if we spend money to try to win people to Christ, that seems to be what bothers people.”

Graham concluded the interview, which received considerable print media publicity, by saying that he would certainly not be conducting a crusade in Britain next year and “perhaps never.” He would have to assess developments and with “a lot of prayer and soul-searching … see if the Lord wants me to come.” Back in the “Sunday” office, we continue to recover from the mammoth task of counting nearly 15,000 votes.

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