Berntsen Library Blog

Homecoming Spotlight: Billy Graham

It's Homecoming week! We at the Library love to take this time of year to look back on our foundations. Please welcome guest writer and Berntsen Library Archivist Greg Rosauer as he shares about the legacy Billy Graham has left on the UNW campus. 

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When I came to Northwestern as an undergrad in 2001, I had no idea what the history of the institution was, and—to be honest—I didn’t really care. I think I knew that Billy Graham had been a past president, but I didn’t know why Graham was a big deal. It was 2001 after all, and he was in his twilight years. When he died in February of this year, his importance was illustrated by the fact that—long after his influence had faded—virtually anyone who’s anyone eulogized him in every corner of the earth and internet. For younger generations like my own who don’t remember him at his cultural height, it’s easy to assume that the scope of his impact is much like that of his son Franklin. The truth is, there is no one in the evangelical world, then or since, who comes remotely close to Billy Graham’s stature and influence. Even the term “evangelical” is now partly defined by the person of Billy Graham. To give you a sense for the magnitude of his consequence, here’s a simple stat: Graham has preached to over 215 million people face-to-face. That is more than anyone in the history of the world (with the possible exception of John Paul II), and a feat not likely to be reproduced by anyone anytime soon. He is truly without peer in the modern Protestant world.

                But when we remember Billy Graham as the president of Northwestern, we remember him without the stature and impact he subsequently garnered. He was just beginning to be noticed outside conservative fundamentalist circles in 1949, when his Los Angeles campaign unexpectedly thrust him to national prominence. Two years later he would resign the presidency of Northwestern to focus on evangelism. He spent a mere four years as the president of Northwestern Schools in Minneapolis where he never made his home and was frequently absent on evangelistic campaigns. Moreover, it’s well documented that Graham had a severe and sustained reluctance to becoming Northwestern’s president since he felt called to evangelism. Given that scenario, it’s easy to minimize his impact on Northwestern. But while Graham’s presidency was not the ideal that his predecessor envisioned, it’d be a mistake to think that Graham did not decisively shape the identity of Northwestern. Indeed, without him Northwestern would likely have become a very different school.

                Although I said above that Graham was without peer, he certainly was not without support. In the 1940s, a reform movement was beginning to sweep through the fundamentalist sphere. Fundamentalism at that time was different than how religious fundamentalism is usually perceived today. While today the word “fundamentalist” is wholly pejorative, back then the negative connotation was just starting to take hold in conservative circles. Northwestern’s founder and Graham’s predecessor, William Bell Riley, was a major figure in the early fundamentalist movement in America. Those early fundamentalists like Riley chose the term as a self-styled badge to communicate that they believed in a few fundamental doctrines—like the virgin birth, sacrificial atonement, and Christ’s bodily resurrection—which were being threatened by the accretion of theological liberalism in denominations and seminaries. However, it wasn’t long until the fundamentalists lost control of the meaning of their own label. Fundamentalists were pigeon-holed as angry, anti-intellectual, and socially-backward rubes. By the 1940s, this cultural perception was made manifest in reality. Fundamentalism had indeed become anti-intellectual and socially bankrupt. But there was always an uneasiness among some about the movement’s trend in that direction. In the 1940s, a loose-knit group began to form around a shared critique of the state of fundamentalism which centered on fundamentalism’s lack of intellectual and social engagement. In 1947 this group started using the term “new evangelical” to describe themselves. That same year, William Bell Riley died and left Northwestern to Graham, a 29-year old rising star in the Youth for Christ organization.

                Graham had a bachelor’s degree, but no experience leading an educational institution. Yet what he lacked in academic credentials, the new evangelicals had in spades. Boston pastor Harold Ockenga had a PhD, Carl F. H. Henry had two earned doctorates, and a number of other theological conservatives completed doctorates at Harvard. It was while Graham was at Northwestern that he forged relationships with this new evangelical intelligentsia. Graham needed their intellectual resources and the new evangelicals needed a broader reach for their program of remaking conservative Protestantism. It was a match made in heaven.

But not everyone thought that the new evangelical emphasis on intellectual engagement and Graham’s evangelistic style were good things. Tensions grew between fundamentalists who stressed separation from impure denominations and Graham-style new evangelicals who cooperated with such denominations for evangelism. Moreover, fundamentalists became suspicious of intellectual pursuits and saw this new evangelical emphasis as seeking worldly approval. While he was president of Northwestern, Graham was constantly trying to steer a fundamentalist constituency away from what he called “fighting ultra-fundamentalism,” by which he meant a contentious and angry form of fundamentalism that multiplied division and strife. In his 1950 annual report to the Northwestern board, Graham quoted Moody Monthly saying, “Fundamentalism has been in the past, in too many instances, truth on ice.” Graham added that “[t]he rancor, jealousy and striving rampant in fundamentalism savor of the fact that while our theology may be correct, our lives are [far] from it.” In contrast, Graham commended a warm, ardent, and practical vision for Northwestern crystallized in the schools’ new slogan: “Knowledge on Fire.”

A couple years earlier, in1948, Graham concluded a letter to Carl F. H. Henry by saying: “We are in desperate need today of the finest type of Christian scholarship.” While not known for his intellectual pursuits, Graham did quite a lot to further the interests of the intellectual wing of the new evangelicals and subsequent evangelicalism. He was even aware that there was an intellectual aspect to his appeal at the 1949 Los Angeles Campaign spilling over from his status as a college president. Cultured people, Louis Talbot observed, actually went to the campaign because they were persuaded that “they would hear something sane and worthwhile, coupled with culture and dignity.” But for the ultra-fundamentalist set, these were characteristic compromises to gain worldly prestige. There is some truth to that critique, but the important thing to notice is that Graham, while preaching the gospel to millions, never divided the mind against the heart. He was an evangelist, not an intellectual or professional theologian, but he never disparaged serious intellectual work. Rather, he made it a priority to carve out space for Christian intellectual work to happen. Graham did not see that vision through at Northwestern, but he certainly galvanized it.

Graham’s legacy at Northwestern isn’t a building or an endowment, it’s a direction. Without Graham, Northwestern could have easily followed the trajectory of “ultra-fundamentalism.” To some extent, the troubles that led to the eventual closure of Northwestern after Graham’s departure stemmed from the division in the constituency along fundamentalist and evangelical lines. Even though he knew he must leave Northwestern to focus on evangelism, he nonetheless fought diligently to make sure that the schools didn’t fall into the hands of ultra-fundamentalist leadership. Northwestern is not the same institution today that it was in Graham’s day. But it is a better one because of him.