Grant Wacker. America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2014. 448 pp. $27.95.
Review by Collin Hansen, The Gospel Coalition
For two of the three most influential Christian ministers of the 20th century, manner of death became central to their legacy. Felled by an assassin’s bullet in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. (b. 1929) became a martyr to the cause of civil rights. Pope John Paul II (b. 1920) suffered publicly through various ailments until death ended his tenure in 2005. We cannot underestimate such open agony at the end of life, considering that his successor opted to retire in 2013.
The oldest of the trio, Billy Graham (b. 1918), recently turned 96. Unlike King, he will not likely die a martyr as he lives out his days in the family cabin near Montreat, North Carolina. Unlike John Paul II, he retains only nominal leadership responsibilities. Since the end of his public ministry in 2005, Graham’s influence has waned to the point where many 20-something evangelicals can’t identify him or else view him solely as a figure of distant history.
I don’t know how many of these young believers will pick up Grant Wacker’s new book, America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. But I highly recommend they do so.
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Sorry, but I am unable to accept Billy Graham as anything but a flawed human being, very opportunistic, and quick to affiliate with the right wing of the Republican Party. I will not say that he does not know the Lord, but I feel that he knows the GOP far better.
Well, he preached Lyndon Johnson’s funeral.
I will take Billy Graham as a presidential adviser over Jim Wallis any day of the week.
**Graham’s influence has waned to the point where many 20-something evangelicals can’t identify him or else view him solely as a figure of distant history.***
The 20 something crowd can be viewed as the, “Low Informational” crowd wanting to transform the church of Christ LIKE the world. Romans 12:1-2 gives us the proper instruction how we should think, feel and behave as Believers in Christ, redeemed by His blood.