The Graham Campaign

By the REV. DONALD MACLEAN, Portree.

In the August issue of the Young People’s Magazine, after the London Crusade, the writer dealt with some aspects of Billy Graham’s movement. In view of the proposed campaign to commence in Glasgow in the month of March, together with other circumstances which have come to his attention, he feels constrained to enter into a more full discussion of the subject of modern evangelism which, although it has progressed in various directions since the days of Moody and Sankey, is still, in Dr. Kennedy’s classic phrase, “another gospel though a mighty power.” The sad thing is that in these, the “days of small things,” there does not exist a man of Dr. Kennedy’s spiritual and intellectual stature to thoroughly expose such movements and to warn the people of this land against the tide that threatens to sweep away the last remnants of vital godliness and the scriptural worship of the triune Jehovah. However, since the day of small things is not to be despised, we must make our humble effort to raise a witness on the side of the Reformed faith and practice and against what passes for genuine Christianity at the present time. It was in days such as these, when the Lord was showing His people hard things and making them to drink the wine of astonishment, that they were found saying, “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, that it may be displayed because of the Truth” (Ps. lx. 4).

To some it has occasioned surprise that the “Tell Scotland” Movement, which is fostered by the modernistic Church of Scotland, would invite a man of Billy Graham’s stamp to hold a campaign under its auspices, and others have felt a little bit confused that he would accept such an invitation. But as consistency is at a discount in the religious world at the present time, no one need be surprised at anything that may happen. The capacity of our religious leaders to swallow truth and error at the same time and to appear to enjoy

the proceeding only indicates that the Truth has never been made precious to them and that error has never been seen in its true light, as dishonouring to God and fatal to man. But there are other reasons for this arrangement.

First of all, this is entirely in line with what we may call the “Graham Plan.” According to this scheme, Billy Graham never holds a revival campaign anywhere until he is sure of the support of the Protestant Churches in the area, as well as the backing of business and civil leaders. By this means a good congregation is gathered even before the campaign starts and, as large numbers are required for the type of religion preached, this must be secured. This further ensures a large choir and a large team of counsellors to deal with the converts and the other details of the organisation. The Divine Redeemer tells us that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. xviii. 20). However few thus gathered, they have the blessing and the promise. But Billy Graham and his cluster “of smoothly dressed young men with religious backgrounds and their comely wives” are acute business men and the two and the three are not their interest. Since their business is to convert sinners by getting them to sign decision cards, an enquiry as to whether they have the Lord’s blessing in the work seems rather unnecessary on their part. Besides, it would lead to difficulties, for, if the Lord’s favour depends on sinners meeting in Christ’s name, that would include Scriptural worship which would only too effectively condemn the whole affair. They must have large numbers so that their pushing business methods will secure a large number of converts, quite in line with their leader’s words, “I am selling,” he says, “the greatest product in the world; why shouldn’t it be promoted as well as soap?” But, surely the selling of soap depends on purely natural principles and only secures the outward cleansing. The preaching of the Gospel depends on the power of the Holy Ghost and effects the inner cleansing of the “washing and regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.” It is very much to be feared that the “converts” of Graham’s work know very little about this inward and spiritual work. They certainly will not hear much about it from him.

It now becomes quite obvious that the “Tell Scotland” Movement is as essential to Billy Graham’s campaign in Scotland as the work of the Evangelical Alliance was in England. Similarly, the “Tell Scotland” Movement is in sad need of Billy Graham. This movement has really as its principal aim the bringing back of people to the Church. From reports which we have read, it is only too obvious that the affair is not going well. The original idea was that each congregation was to evangelise in its own area and seek to recall the relapsed multitude, but the bringing back of dead sinners to hear dead ministers is proving quite a strain and the effort is not meeting with the desired success. Now, Billy Graham is a great favourite with the Churches, because he

does not set up a separate organisation of his converts but insists that they join a Church. Once the decision card is signed, a copy is sent to the new convert’s minister, or, if he has not got one, a minister is chosen by the Graham organisation, and into that Church goes this latest addition. The “Tell Scotland” Movement obviously expect that a large part of their work will be done during the campaign and that their Church members will increase. Additions to Church Communion Rolls, however, does not mean that souls are engrafted into Christ, the true Vine, and it is solemn and sad to think how multitudes are being sent astray by such work. A further fruit of the campaign will doubtless be additions to the Roll of Divinity Students in the Church of Scotland, and this will be largely welcomed by the powers that be in that body. An interesting sidelight on this matter is afforded by the Croall Lectures being delivered at the time of writing by Professor Riddell of the Church of Scotland. The learned Professor is a Theologian and an acute man of business. He is also greatly interested in Divinity Students, and can be very helpful to them in his own way. He, no doubt, looks forward to several additions due to the Graham Campaign. In his lecture he criticises the Westminster Confession because it traces effectual calling back to a divine decree from before the foundation of the world.

The Professor says that this doctrine has unsuccessfully claimed a measure of support from Scripture, but simple-minded people, who are not well versed in theological difficulties, and who never heard of soap-selling practices being used for the preaching of the Gospel, are able to read in the Word of God, “Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Rom. viii. 30). Professor Riddell’s real objection to this doctrine seems to be that it is closely bound up with the doctrine of Man’s incapacity or passivity. That is to say, that man by nature is unable to perform any spiritual act until regenerated by the Holy Ghost. This, he maintains, seriously restricts the scope of evangelism. In other words, Professor Riddell, as a theologian, admits that the doctrines of the Westminster Confession restrict modern evangelism and, indeed, condemn it. The friendship apparent between the Modernistic Churchman and the Modern Evangelist affords an interesting study in contemporary ecclesiastic life into which we need not enter at the moment. It is sufficient to say that we believe the reason to be that the Modern Evangelist is as far removed in his own direction from the Reformed Faith as is the Modernistic Liberal on his own side. Professor Riddell rather confirms this point of view in the following words, as reported: “In the days of Moody and Sankey, and in our own time alike, the appeal for decision, so characteristic of evangelical movements, has been criticised by adherents of the Confessional statement and its uncompromising doctrine of election.” These are very significant words.

When a man attains to such a high place in the evangelical world and speaks much about conversion, we are, naturally, interested to find out how the great change came over himself. At such a time the foundation is laid in the soul of that good work which the Holy Spirit begins and carries on to the day of Jesus Christ and, if matters are not right here, then they will never be right. In the case of Billy Graham, we have read in more places than one of his conversion, which took place when he was 16 years of age. An evangelist, Mordecai Ham, came to Charlotte, the town in which the Graham family lived. Billy Graham and his friend, Grady Wilson, now one of his team, went to the meetings and quailed under the gaze and words of the preacher to such an extent that on another occasion they joined the choir to avoid his piercing look. “However, the straight personal questions of the preacher brought them under conviction, and when a personal worker urged them to go to the front of the pulpit for prayer, the lads knelt and in all sincerity asked Christ to become their Saviour,” says Dr. Cook in his book, The Billy Graham Story. Speaking of this time, Graham says, “I opened up my heart then and knew for the first time the sweetness and joy of truly being born again.”

“If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new” (II Cor. v. 17). There may be, and very often is, an outward change when there is no real inward change, but there can never be a saving change inwardly without that change being shown outwardly. We are, accordingly, rather surprised to learn that after this experience no one seemed to see any particular change in Billy Graham, whose chief aim in life was still to become a professional baseball player. Eventually, he gave up this idea and decided to enter the ministry. From what we have read there seems to have been two main factors which led to this decision. The first was, that having formed an attachment to a certain young lady, he was told by her that she wanted to marry a servant of God who would do big things and, as she was sure he would never be like that, she was rejecting him. This had a very desolating effect on him. The second was a sermon preached at Florida, about which Graham says, “That certain day Dean John R. Minder made a compelling appeal to us during Chapel Hour. He challenged us to go out and spread the Word of God, to give our lives to Christ. After that sermon I knew I had to make a decision. That night I took a walk to the Temple Terrace golf course and talked it out with God. I felt that the Lord wanted me, but I did not want to yield my life to Him. That personal battle went on for hours. I walked, paused, stopped, stood still, kept on walking. Somewhere around midnight it was decision time. I knelt alongside the eighteenth green, bowing my knees and my heart and said, ‘All right, Lord, if you want me, you have got me.’ ” We merely record, for the information of our readers these facts, with regard to these two stages in the life of this man. We

make no comment on them apart from saying that we have not so learned Christ either in the effectual call of the Holy Ghost nor in the call to the ministry of the everlasting Gospel.

The only book written by Billy Graham is called Peace with God, and from it, together with his sermons, we can gather some information with regard to his doctrine. The book is a kind of common man’s guide to peace with God and is not written primarily for theologians, we are told. At the same time, the common man must be told the Truth in plain terms, and the reading of this book will only confuse him more than ever if he is really seeking salvation. To our mind, it is full of contradictions. On one page you think you have Graham’s position on the particular subject being dealt with, only to find a few pages later on the whole thing contradicted. However, it is not our purpose to go out on that aspect of the affair but to look at the doctrines taught.

On the doctrine of sin, nearly all the emphasis is cast on the ruinous consequences of sin in man’s soul and relationships, by which the aspect of God’s glory as the One sinned against, together with His glory as the righteous Lawgiver and Judge in condemning and punishing sin, is obscured. “All mental disorders, all sicknesses, all destructions, all wars find their root in sin. It causes madness in the brain and poison in the heart—it is a tornado on the loose; it is a volcano gone wild; it is a madman broken loose from the asylum, etc.” (p. 73). “It is the presence of sin that prevents man from being happy. It is because of sin that man has never been able to obtain the Utopia of which he dreams” (p. 38). We do not say that sin as lawlessness is not mentioned but the emphasis is on man’s misery. This emphasis is also shown in the sermons and is confirmed when Dr. Cook, who is a firm supporter of Graham, says, “That there is need for Billy Graham’s message is beyond question. We live in an age of disillusionment, fear and frustration.” Thus the evil of sin is stressed from its calamitous effects, whereas the real evil of sin is that it is against God. The prodigal son, though surrounded by the terrible effects of his sin upon himself and his circumstances, expresses the realisation of the real evil of his sin in his confession, “I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight” (Luke xv. 18). David also says, “Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight” (Ps. li. 4). The declaration of man’s misery due to his sin is doubtless part of the preacher’s duty. But to do this with such emphasis as to almost exclude from the view the real evil of sin as against God, while productive of great emotional effect, will not lead to true conviction of sin.

Graham’s doctrine of God’s love excludes His electing, sovereign, eternal choice of a people to Himself from among the fallen race of mankind. He believes that God loves all and provided a way of escape for all through Jesus Christ, and all you have to do is to accept it. “Never question God’s great love, for it is as immutable as His holiness. No matter how terrible your sins, God loves you.

As you stand before the very gates of hell, God’s love is waiting, waiting for you to claim it through His Son Jesus Christ and be saved. Were it not for the love of God, none of us would ever have a chance in the future life. But, thanks be unto God, He is love! And His love for us is everlasting” (p. 30). “God in His love and His mercy did that, but it is up to you as an individual to believe, to accept, and to be saved by the love of God.” In line with this view, Graham also teaches that Christ died for all. “For you! For me! He bore our sins in His body on the tree.” He tells his audience, “Christ died for you,” etc. These two views are contrary to the plain teaching of God’s Word, where we read that God chose His people in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. i. 4) and that Christ came to redeem them as the good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. Only such are effectually called by the Holy Spirit.

This brings us to Graham’s teaching on spiritual experience and here confusion reigns supreme. He does speak of conversion, the new birth, faith and repentance, and at times mention is made of the Holy Spirit, but the meaning he gives those words shows how far he is from the doctrines of Truth. The key to his outlook may be found in the following words. Speaking of sin and its ruin, he writes, “God, meanwhile, in His infinite understanding and mercy, has looked on, waiting with a patience and compassion that passes all understanding, for man to turn to Him of his own free will. The same two paths that God set before Adam still lie before us. We are still free to choose. We are living in a period of grace while God withholds the punishment we so justly deserve” (p. 38). This makes it plain that he believes that man can turn to God of his free will. When speaking of repentance, faith and regeneration he writes, “It is debatable in which order these should come” (p. 102). His view of the order is told us in another place, “But we accept by faith that at the moment we repent of sin and turn by faith to Jesus Christ, we are born again” (p. 126). In other words, man, in the exercise of his free will, turns by faith and repentance and he is then born again. It is the old heresy of Regeneration by Faith, which lays the foundation for the call to make a decision for Christ. The scriptural doctrine is that man is dead in trespasses and sins and must be regenerated by the Holy Ghost before he can act faith on Jesus Christ in the promise of the Gospel. According to the heresy mentioned, a dead soul acts faith to bring himself alive! We could write much more on the subject, and on the somewhat peculiar views expressed, such as that the atonement covers a child’s sins until he reaches the age of accountability, estimated to be between 8 to 12 years; that marriage is a holy sacrament, etc., but we forbear.

The form of worship engaged in by the Graham party is now well known. We understand that there is to be 1,000 of a choir at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow. Song books containing hymns of man-made composition will be passed round to the people, and the choir will

help them to sing “old-time revival hymns.” The practice of “singing the gospel” will be indulged in by the usual soloists, and by such means a proper atmosphere prepared for Graham’s address. All these methods are without scriptural warrant. Musical instruments and man-made hymns have no place in the worship of God under the New Testament dispensation. The whole set-up savours of the flesh from which no spiritual benefit can be expected. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John iii. 6). Graham follows with his sermon and that brings us to our greatest objection to this whole movement.

The end and purpose of all this organisation, singing and preaching is to bring people to make a “decision for Christ.” People who make such a decision sign a decision card and are added to the list of converts. The method adopted to gain this result seem to us not only to be unscriptural but to be a means of deceiving sinners with respect to the real meaning of a saving change. Despite the fact that Billy Graham has a reputation for being a humble man, we do not think that any preacher of the gospel with a proper sense of his office would ever say the things he does. Natural humility Graham may possess, but to spiritual humility he is a complete stranger. “If the Lord will keep him anointed,” says Grady Wilson, his friend, “I’ll keep him humble,” which he proceeds to do by a series of practical jokes. This expression is a typical example of many things said by these men which reveal only too clearly that they do not understand spiritual realities. If the anointing of the Lord will not keep a man humble, is it to be expected that practical jokes will? John the Baptist was anointed from his mother’s womb, and we find the result of that in his words and spirit. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John iii. 30). Graham himself modestly says that he may just be a small item on the back page of heaven’s newspaper but he has no hesitation in placing himself to the forefront when it comes to inviting souls to decide for Christ. We have read the following as quoted from an address by Billy Graham which illustrates our point. “I beg of you to come now before it is too late. You know you need Christ in your life. Leave your seat now and come forward. If you have friends or relatives here, they’ll wait on you. Whether you’re old or young, or rich or poor, white or coloured—come quietly up now and say, ‘Billy, to-night I accept Christ.'” Can anyone find a greater travesty of the invitations of the everlasting Gospel than is to be found in such words? What authority has Graham or any mere man to stand between sinners and Christ and ask them to come to him and say, “To-night I accept Christ”? Or what possible good could he get to his soul from doing such a thing? We object, and rightly so, to the Romanist priest obtruding himself, in his own way, between souls and the great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. We also object, with equal cause, to modern evangelists who stand between souls and Christ in the invitations of the Word of God. If Christ is made known by the Holy Spirit to a soul, then surely he can receive Him by faith

sitting in his pew or seat? Why should he have to come forward to Graham’s feet and be shuttle-cocked into an Inquiry Room to be dealt with by Counsellors and Advisers and sign a decision card? Is it not dreadful in the extreme that having done so—having gone through this performance—he should have been given the impression that he is now a child of God, having peace with Him and confidently expecting to be in Heaven at last. The whole system should be fearlessly condemned by all to whom the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit has been made precious.

Nor is our objection to these measures founded upon prejudice or an ultra-conservative outlook but on Divine Truth. There are at least two portions of God’s Word which appear to us effectively to condemn these activities. The first is to be found in the parable of the man who sowed seed which sprang up, he knew not how, on the principle that the “earth bringeth forth of herself” (Mark iv. 26-29). The clear teaching of this parable is that the sower had his own sphere of action, namely, sowing the seed. When this was done, other principles outside of himself came into operation, causing the seed to germinate and eventually to bring forth “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” In other words, the sphere of the preacher is to preach the Word in season and out of season, but he does not have the power to bring forth the fruit of such sowing, which flows from the Holy Ghost alone. Religious atmosphere, good singing, a large congregation and a great deal of expectation and excitement can never bring one soul alive. That work rests with God, the Holy Ghost, alone. This fact is deeply impressed on all who are called to preach the Gospel by the great Head of the Church, agreeable to the words of the Apostle, “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (I Cor. iii. 6). To call to people to come forward and to say they accept Christ, and then to put them through the hands of Counsellors, etc., to get them to sign decision cards seems to us to be an unwarrantable attempt on the part of men to interfere with that which the Scripture teaches is the work of the Holy Spirit alone. Naturally, this is in keeping with the doctrine taught, for if man is able of his own free will to turn to God, then what need is there for the power of the Holy Spirit to this end?

Again, the parable of the sower, and in particular the warning about the stony ground hearer seems to us to condemn the Inquiry Room technique. Here we are told of those “who, when they have heard the Word, immediately receive it with gladness; and have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time; afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the Word’s sake, immediately they are offended” (Mark iv. 16-17). Here, it is plainly taught that there are those who spring up suddenly and receive the Word with joy and yet who are not genuinely converted to God. Let us make it quite clear that we are not against sudden conversion. Many such cases occur in God’s Word and we have known some personally. But we are most

emphatically against such being accepted as genuine converts, without a period of testing and trial to see that fruits are borne such as to warrant a reasonable belief that the root of the matter is in them. The stony ground hearers form a distinct warning to which all concerned for the eternal welfare of souls pay the greatest attention. Now, the call to decision so typical of the modern evangelist combined with the Inquiry Room technique makes sudden conversion the rule and without waiting to see if it is accompanied with the necessary fruits, publicises to the world the number of decisions and assures those thus deciding that all is well for Eternity. Such work is most evidently contrary to the Scripture we have quoted and must be deprecated as dangerous in the extreme.

In recent years a very loud profession has been made by the Evangelical Churches in this country of their attachment to the doctrines of the Gospel and the Reformation. They have rejoiced in the fact that Modernism has lost ground and that there are signs of a swing back to Biblical Christianity. It was only right that such a profession should have been tested so that the reality or otherwise of their attachment to the doctrines of Truth should be proved to all men. As we have shown above, the Graham campaign is unscriptural in doctrine, worship and practice, and a better test could not have been provided than the appearance of Billy Graham and his team in these islands. The almost universal acceptance afforded him, together with his invitation to Scotland this year, exposes the hollowness of the profession of the Evangelical section of British Christianity, in a way that could not have been done otherwise and to an extent which reveals the very low state of the Cause of Christ in this once highly favoured land. We have already referred to the action of the Free Church Assembly in our article in the Young People’s Magazine. In England the position, if anything, is worse. At the Islington Clerical Conference, the President, the Rev. Maurice A. P. Wood, said that “in the month before Whitsun last year twice as many had professed faith in Christ as in that first week after Pentecost.” The plain meaning of this statement is that there was a more plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit at Harringay than on the day of Pentecost. Having regard to the unscriptural nature of the proceedings, who can possibly believe such a thing, and it is beyond our comprehension how anyone knowing anything of the saving work of the Holy Ghost could commit himself to such a statement. At the same conference the Bishop of Barking “expressed his conviction that we were seeing the beginning of another evangelical revival.” Has the learned Bishop been seeing visions of the night when he would say such a thing when all the evidence points to the fact that Britain is ripening for the most solemn judgments unless we repent of our evil ways? Perhaps the saddest thing of all is that temporal judgments very often have spiritual blindness as their forerunner. So Christ, when speaking of the fall of Jerusalem, points to the fact that the things belonging to their peace were hid from

their eyes (Luke xix. 42). These statements make it evident the very high place that the Graham Campaign has, in the opinion of Evangelical Churchmen, and the correspondingly low place the Truth of God has in their hearts.

We conclude this article by addressing a serious and affectionate warning to our people against Modern Evangelism of this type and exhort them to wait upon the Lord in the means of His appointment, for has He not said, “They shall not be ashamed that wait for me”? (Isa. xlix. 23). Let them ever remember that in His great intercessary prayer to His Everlasting Father, the Lord Jesus described His people, who were given to Him and to whom He had manifested the Father’s name, in the following words: “And they have kept Thy Word” (John xvii. 6). Let them, each one, seek grace to be of such and let them flee from all errors, being persuaded that they are not from the Spirit of Truth. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell on the earth” (Rev. i. 10).