Crosshairs of Grace

Choos­ing an indi­vid­ual as a mod­ern soci­ety role model proves to be com­pli­cated when one begins to con­tem­plate the var­i­ous world­views. The more famous names of pop­u­lar peo­ple seem to jump to the front of one’s mind. Bar­rack Obama, Tiger Woods, Sarah Palin were the first and then dwin­dled off to David Jere­miah, Chuck Swin­doll, or Charles Stan­ley. At that point, the real­ity of world­views and the impact they have on the deci­sions one chooses to make become real. Claim­ing Chris­t­ian The­ism as a world­view forces me to choose some­one who I feel would be a good role model but also aligns with my per­sonal world­view. After review­ing the list of pos­si­ble role mod­els, the final deci­sion falls to Billy Gra­ham. With­out a doubt, based upon the exam­ple he set in life, fam­ily, and career choice, Billy Gra­ham is the mod­ern soci­ety role model.

Billy Gra­ham unde­ni­ably fits into the Chris­t­ian The­ism world­view. At the early age of thirty dur­ing a pas­sion­ate strug­gle with philo­soph­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal ques­tions about faith, God, and intel­lect Billy plunged to his knees and cried out to God. “Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word – by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intel­lec­tual ques­tions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word.” (Stro­bel, 2000, p. 10) He then went on to become “America’s pas­tor”. (Wacker, 2009, p. 492) Com­par­ing his fam­ily life to that of other world­views, we see again an unde­ni­able fit into Chris­t­ian the­ism. His belief on mar­riage was “that hon­esty, mod­esty, sobri­ety, gen­tle­ness and, above all, fidelity were both Chris­t­ian and manly virtues. Yield­ing to desire was easy; resist­ing was hard.” (Wacker, 2009, p. 496) He also played the pre­fect role of the wait­ing father await­ing the return of his prodi­gal son. Dur­ing the late 60s and early 70s there were strug­gles at the Gra­ham house­hold with his rebel­lious teenage son. These strug­gles cast the evan­ge­list into the role of a lov­ing and patient father. (Eskridge, 1998, p. 84) The lifestyle Billy Gra­ham lived along with the use of his money, the han­dling of fam­ily prob­lems and his career choice fit per­fectly into the pic­ture puz­zle of Chris­t­ian theism.

Would I choose Billy Gra­ham as a per­sonal role model? I would not hes­i­tate to choose the evan­ge­list as a role model. Rem­i­nisc­ing of child­hood days at Grandma’s house and lis­ten­ing to that beau­ti­ful bari­tone voice deliver a mes­sage say­ing “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begot­ten Son, that who­ever believes in Him shall not per­ish, but have eter­nal life.” John 3:16 (NASB) always prompted a lengthy con­ver­sa­tion last­ing into the early hours of morn­ing. Regard­less of the audi­ence or the arena, the mes­sage deliv­ered demanded a response and a deci­sion from those moved by the Holy Spirit. Know­ing that at age 91, 21 per­cent of Protes­tant pas­tors chose Billy Gra­ham as one of the most influ­en­tial fig­ures in their lives. Mr. Graham’s name was cho­sen three times more often that other well-known pas­tors like Charles Stan­ley, Chuck Swin­doll, Rick War­ren, and John MacArthur. (Peo­ple, 2010) Time mag­a­zine jour­nal­ists, when asked about the sin­cer­ity of the evan­ge­list said, his sin­cer­ity is like “paint strip­per, remov­ing any pre­tense and pride.” (Wacker, 2009, p. 496) Mar­tin Marty famously ranked him as one who dis­played the “fruit of the Spirit.” Ques­tions about the finan­cial integrity, unpre­ten­tious lifestyle, or mar­i­tal faith­ful­ness of Mr. Gra­ham hardly ever arose.

Ref­er­ences

Eskridge, L. (1998). “One Way”: Billy Gra­ham, the Jesus Gen­er­a­tion, and the Idea of an Evan­gel­i­cal Youth Cul­ture. Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Church His­tory , 83 — 106.

Peo­ple. (2010). Chris­t­ian Cen­tury: , Retrieved from Reli­gion and Phi­los­o­phy Col­lec­tion database.

Stro­bel, L. (2000). The Case For Faith: A Jour­nal­ist Inves­ti­gates the Tough­est Objec­tions to Chris­tian­ity. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Wacker, G. (2009). Billy Gra­ham s Amer­ica. Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Church His­tory , 489 — 511.