Podcast

The Calling

How Billy Graham Built Christianity Today

CT’s former president, Harold Myra, on the time he was grilled by Billy Graham, and what he learned from working with him.

Billy Graham is known as an evangelist, a preacher, a media personality, and even an advisor to presidents. But few are aware of just how influential he has been as an entrepreneur.

Of course, Christianity Today is one of the most apparent examples of his work as an instigator and arranger of people and resources. Most of what CT would become flowed from his singular vision, and its evolution would be carefully and lightly stewarded by Graham himself.

Graham’s humility, coupled with a decisive vision for a magazine for evangelical Christians, made Christianity Today the publication it is today. It also helped to popularize a movement that would change the course of Christianity.

As The Calling host Richard Clark learned talking to Harold Myra, CT’s former president and co-author of The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham, Graham embraced his role as a bridge: between academics and the popular audience, between denominations, even between vast resources and those who might best put them to use.

And that’s just one example of the many ways Graham’s leadership demonstrated the humble decisiveness that made him such a remarkably influential figure.

On this week’s episode of The Calling, they discuss Myra’s relationship with Billy Graham, and in particular, what it was like to watch Graham work from within an institution he founded.

This episode of The Calling was brought to you by the Christian Standard Bible. To learn more about the Christian Standard Bible, visit CSBible.com/CT.

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The Calling is produced by Richard Clark and Morgan Lee and edited by Jonathan Clauson.

Theme music by Lee Rosevere, used under Creative Commons 4.0.

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