High Marks for Billy Graham Crusade

Last April I was watching a favorite television program. At the first commercial break, a young, well-groomed black man appeared on the screen and said: "Things are all starting to come together for me, all the things I've been working for. I mean, I've got my education, landed a good job, I'm making money. Even bought a new car. Like I say, it's starting to happen."

I then expected a plug from an area college, explaining how attending their school could make me successful, too. Instead, the young man concluded by saying, "So why do I feel empty inside, as if all this doesn't matter very much?" The commercial ended with an invitation to attend the upcoming Billy Graham Washington, D.C. Crusade.

It was refreshing to see an ad that wasn't pushing an upwardly mobile life-style. And it was particularly encouraging to see Billy Graham publicly identifying himself with an anti-materialistic gospel.

The eight-day crusade, attended by more than 150,000 people and involving 630 churches from Washington, D.C, Maryland, and Virginia, took place in late April and early May. Nearly one-third of those attending came from Washington's black community.

In early 1985 Sojourners had been invited to be part of the crusade effort. We felt honored to be asked and accepted the invitation. As Sojourners' representative, I found it a privilege to serve on the crusade's general board and on the Love-In-Action Committee, the evangelism and social action arm of the crusade.

THE CRUSADES HAVE come a long way in the past couple of decades, reflecting changes within Graham himself. Through our relationship with Graham over the years, we've come to respect Billy as a man of much wisdom and integrity, as someone who is able to learn from his mistakes, qualities unfortunately unique among today's mass media evangelists. Since the years of the Nixon White House, Billy Graham has grown in ways that have broadened his views on the social meaning of the gospel he preaches.

His changing attitude on nuclear weapons is a case in point. In an interview published in the August 1979 issue of Sojourners, Graham told us how he had come to believe that total nuclear disarmament was imperative. Since then he has taken much heat from the Reagan administration for his widely publicized visits and crusades in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Through those visits Graham has probably done more than any other public figure to give a human face to the "enemy."

Since the days of the civil rights movement, Graham has also been outspoken in his opposition to racism. Crusades in the United States and around the world, including South Africa, have consistently been racially integrated.

But only in recent years have urban crusades become consciously directed toward and organized with the inner-city poor. One high-level, national crusade official told me that the Washington, D.C. crusade has been their best effort yet in crossing the racial and economic class barriers, that they "are learning from their past mistakes."

The Washington crusade should receive high marks for the job done in bringing together people of faith from very different economic circumstances, racial histories, and religious traditions. Colleen Townsend Evans, of National Presbyterian Church, was the first woman ever to chair a crusade. Black clergy and lay leaders penetrted every level of the crusade organization. Dr. Ernest R. Gibson, executive director of the Council of Churches of Greater Washington, was a primary leader of the crusade. Every committee included representation and leadership from Washington's black church community. Prayer during the board meetings always lifted concerns for the city's poor, as well as the struggle for freedom in South Africa.

In pre-crusade visits Graham not only met with local and national leaders, he also visited inner-city, church-based shelters, food distribution centers, and day care centers, talking with people about the needs they felt in their lives. During the last three crusade gatherings, several tons of food were collected and given to Washington's needy. More significantly, those attending the crusades were given information on how they could become personally involved with the lives and needs of the poor.

In addition to the 9,000 conversions and recommitments to Christ made during the crusade, perhaps the most lasting effect the crusade will leave is the growing relationship and unity built between suburban white churches and inner-city black churches.

This crusade reflected a number of encouraging changes in Graham's crusades. Still, some leftovers from the past occasionally stood out. Singing of "America the Beautiful" during one offering collection felt like a throwback to the "God and country" emphases of the 1960s and early 70s.

Relationship to political power was given an inordinately dominant role that seemed unnecessary and even contradictory. This was especially true with the honored place given to Vice President George Bush on the opening day of the crusade. While Bush's remarks were filled with numerous outrageous statements, the most offensive was his closing assertion that "the United States, one nation under God, is the last best hope for man on earth." For many of those attending from Washington's ghetto, and for millions of their oppressed sisters and brothers around the world, Bush's statement was contemptible. Fortunately, Graham's "liberty to the captives" text from Luke 4 and his preaching that day pointed them to the real last best hope for humanity.

Also lacking in Graham's preaching was a powerful word on nuclear weapons. While Graham has taken strong stands on nuclear disarmament, they could be integrated more directly into his preaching without sounding like partisan politics.

Billy Graham is a man of much integrity. His vision and his preaching gifts have helped bring untold numbers of people to faith in Jesus (including some members of Sojourners Community) and have helped create more unity in a world sorely in need of reconciliation. We are thankful for his ministry and for the opportunity of participating in it here in Washington, D.C.

Joe Roos was a founder and publisher of Sojournerswhen this article appeared.