William 'Billy' Graham

Billy Graham (1918-2018), an American Baptist evangelist, became one of the twentieth century's most influential Christian figures, preaching the Gospel to an estimated 215 million people across 185 countries. He founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (1950) and Christianity Today magazine (1956), pioneering the use of radio, television, and crusade campaigns for mass evangelism. Graham served as spiritual counselor to U.S. presidents and was a widely recognized public theologian, though he also faced criticism for his ambiguous stance on racial segregation and his proximity to political power.

Billy Graham is honored in evangelical Christianity as one of the defining figures of twentieth-century Christianity, the archetypal mass evangelist. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association continues his ministry, and Christianity Today remains influential in evangelical circles. He exemplifies American evangelical engagement with mass media and presidential politics. His legacy encompasses both profound evangelical missionary zeal and complex questions about the relationship between evangelical Christianity and political power, racial justice, and theological ecumenism. In the Anglican tradition and global Christianity more broadly, Graham is recognized as a significant figure in modern evangelicalism, though his historical role remains theologically contested.

William Franklin Graham Jr. was born on November 7, 1918, in Charlotte, North Carolina, to a Presbyterian farming family. At age 16, during an evangelistic campaign, he converted to evangelical Christianity, later describing this as his decisive spiritual commitment. After high school, he attended Bob Jones University briefly, then transferred to Wheaton College, where he graduated in 1943 with a degree in anthropology. He was ordained a Baptist minister and began his ministry as pastor and evangelist. His breakthrough came in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1950, he founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), headquartered in Minneapolis, which became the organizational vehicle for his worldwide evangelist campaigns. In 1956, recognizing the need for a theologically serious evangelical publication, he co-founded Christianity Today magazine (with Carl Henry as editor), which became the leading evangelical periodical. His major evangelistic campaigns—held in New York (1957), San Francisco (1960), London (1954), Berlin (1954), and numerous other cities—were marked by careful preparation, professional organization, and extensive media coverage. He pioneered the use of television for mass evangelism, with his TV specials reaching millions. He preached in stadiums and arenas, employing straightforward biblical preaching focused on the themes of sin, salvation, and the necessity of personal conversion. Over his career spanning seven decades, he conducted more than 400 crusades on all continents, preaching to an estimated 215 million people in person. Graham gained access to U.S. presidents (from Eisenhower through George W. Bush), serving as a spiritual counselor and public representative of evangelical Christianity to political leaders. He famously promoted ecumenical cooperation among evangelical and mainline Protestants in his crusades, though his theological boundaries were conservative evangelical Protestantism. He retired from active crusade ministry in 2005 but remained influential in evangelical circles. He died on February 21, 2018, at age 99, leaving behind the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and a legacy as the dominant figure in twentieth-century mass evangelism.

• Evangelist