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Book explores the complex politics of Billy Graham
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Published: May 10, 2009
Billy, the preacher to presidents.
He's one of the few North Carolinians whose first name alone is a household word. And of that elite bunch that includes Andy and Dean, the Rev. Billy Graham has been the best known of them all in the 20th century, at least to churchgoing folks from one end of God's green Earth to the other.
Graham, 90, spends most of his days in quiet seclusion at his Montreat mountain home. But his presence hangs over the world. His genius is that we could see ourselves in him. He was just a country boy from outside Charlotte who got to meet the presidents and got used by one of them.
The real story of Billy Graham and his politics is far more nuanced than that, as Steven P. Miller's new book, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South, makes clear. Miller, a Vanderbilt graduate who has taught at several colleges, writes that Graham's involvement in politics was intentional, not accidental, as most accounts have painted it.
"He was more of a political creature than even he could admit," Miller writes. "Not unlike a rather different communicator par excellence, Ronald Reagan, Graham offers a profound commentary on the underappreciated synergy between innocence and influence, along with the analytical challenge of untangling the two," Miller writes. "In Graham's relationships with public figures, he combined an obvious degree of ingenuousness with a much more subtle dose of savvy."
Evangelism and politics share a common strategy, if not a common goal: Move the masses. Graham was an early master of that. Almost from the time of his first, electrifying revivals, in which he showed as much stage presence as the first rock 'n' rollers of that time, much of the public and media loved him.
For a few days in 1964, speculation about the chance of Graham himself running for president was so widespread that Walter Cronkite mentioned it on the news, Miller notes. Graham quickly said he wasn't interested.
Politicians saw him as a vote-getter. And he most likely saw his relationships with presidents as a means of bringing them and the nation to Christ.
He was friends with Eisenhower and Johnson as the former dealt with the fledgling days of integration and the latter spearheaded the push for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. While never an advocate of civil-rights demonstrations, Graham, a descendant of Confederates, took the radical step of desegregating his revivals in the 1950s. But by midway through Johnson's presidency, Graham was distancing himself from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and becoming more moderate.
Graham "advocated a politics of decency, which invoked religious faith, combined with law and order, toward moderate ends … Here, as with so many areas of Graham's career, the spheres of religion and politics blended almost beyond distinction," Miller writes.
The '60s unrest left Graham yearning for law and order. Nixon talked a good game about the rule of law. Graham's friendship with Nixon helped sell that candidate and his party to voters in the South, which had been largely Democratic. Miller writes that Graham "supported Nixon's values and style of leadership. He believed in Nixon the political leader, in addition to Nixon the man."
Which begs the question: How could Graham not have seen through Nixon? Was Nixon that good at hiding his foul-mouthed, bigoted, underhanded ways from Graham? Or was Graham blinded by his access to power?
Graham got burned by Watergate, as we all know now. But as Miller notes, it's wrong to buy the myth, perpetrated in part by Graham, that he truly distanced himself from politics after Watergate.
While Graham sometimes criticized the Religious Right and was more interested in "Christianity in politics instead of Christianity as politics, Miller writes, he "helped to construct the political and religious culture that made the Christian Right possible."
Graham's influence on Ford, Reagan, Carter and Clinton was limited. But his closeness to the Bushes almost certainly won them votes among evangelicals.
"Graham's central theme never altered; the evangelist preached Christ crucified and resurrected, with salvation through Him available to all who would invite Him into their hearts," Miller writes.
His book is about Graham and "the rise of the Republican South," but one wonders what Graham might have to say to President Obama, whose November victory put a serious dent in that rise. Graham has indicated he'd like to meet Obama and pray with him.
Stay tuned.
■ John Railey writes local editorials for the Journal. He can be reached at 727-7357 or at jrailey@wsjournal.com.
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