How did Evangelist Billy Graham impact America?
A question from a reader: How did it change America?
Posted in Mike Adkins
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Some say very well, and some say he damaged the harvest field with ecumenicalism.
There have been thousands and thousands of christians out there because of his messages!!
In short – he made bible literalism more mainstream, paving the way for the US to be sooooo backwards and socially conservative now.
I’m sure that he impacted the world!
I have never been a fan of Billy Graham. My mother in law loved him.
I would say he has made very little impact on America. He was just another television evangelist.
He was a pastor to several presidents, which ultimately led to some policy decisions I am sure. He wrote a huge autobiography, take a read if you have time. His ecumenism did cause some waves for sure, I personally believe it a good thing. He did much for shaping how ministry organizations function. He made it more acceptable for large religious gatherings to occur, I’d love to go to see 50,000 Christians in a stadium personally.
He pushed the Xtian evangelical agenda into the mainstream, especially on TV, and he made it acceptable for suit-and-tie type “God salesmen” to ask for and make ridiculous amounts of money and to act justfied in doing so. Not that he was the first to do this — there were slick bible hucksters even back in the golden days of radio — but nobody personified this image like Graham.
All the phoney made-for-TV preachers, the Bakkers, Jimmy Swaggart, etc., owe a great deal to him. Fortunately this influence has been waning since the late 1980s – early 1990s, with the end of Reagan-Bush Sr. era and the subsequent downfall of the TV preacher empire.