Billy Graham

Whatever your view of Billy Graham and/or Christian evangelism, if you have an open mind I think you'll find this biographical documentary informative and worthwhile.

Graham became an evangelist in the 1940s, capitalizing on his own charisma and power of persuasion, combined with his Christian upbringing and his Bible Institute training. His success in the endeavor surprised even him.

When faced with the crossroads between fundamentalism and modern Christianity, he felt guided to retain the former, and that marked his career for the next many decades.

He began actively associating with the powerful and the influential, seeing them as further gateways to his own personal and spiritual ambitions. But he abandoned Martin Luther King by denouncing civil protests, and his long-term joining of forces with Richard Nixon blew up in his face after Nixon resigned in disgrace following the Watergate trials.

Late in life, after travelling the world, Graham renounced fundamentalism and decried the "Moral Majority" movement. But his own decades of massively popular fundamentalist crusades had paved the way for the politically active "Christian right" to blossom.

I think this documentary and its assorted commentators strike just the right and equitable balance in presenting and reviewing the life of this undeniably influential (both nationally and internationally) man.

One good lesson here is that televangelists predated television. Another takeaway is that charisma is by nature a two-edged sword. This documentary presents a solid range of perspectives from serious historians of religion. It misses some things though.

As a young evangelical in NC Graham sold prayer healings for $15 per person -- a considerable sum late 1930's Appalachia. More coverage of Reinhold Niebuhr's challenge to evangelical fundamentalists (contemporary with Graham) would have been useful here. It was timely and important.

Graham's duping of Norman Vincent Peale during the 1960 presidential campaign was downright Machiavellian. Records show that privately President Kennedy found Graham appalling. Neither was Truman an admirer.

Also overlooked was the Graham Crusade's predatory fundraising during the 60's and 70's: viewers that called in for their free guide and gave contact information were later subjected to relentless mail and telephone soliciting (this before the era of opt out). More attention could have been given to Graham's use of come-hither night rallies, a template used in a more sinister way in 1930s Europe. (He could not have been unaware.) As this film notes Graham in his final public decade concluded that he was not exalted and infallible, a rather late learning curve. Hardly exculpatory for his prior public actions.