© Don W. King

A version of this review first appeared in World 6 (January 4, 1992): 15.

A Prophet With Honor: The Billy Graham Story by William Martin. Morrow,

736 pages, $25.00.

A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story is a fair, even-handed, closely researched study of America's greatest evangelist. Though other biographies of Graham are in print, none are as comprehensive. Martin, while scrupulously maintaining total financial independence from Graham and thus avoiding charges of hagiography, was given unprecedented access to Graham's personal letters, papers, and financial records as well as Graham team and staff personnel. Most importantly, he was able to interview Graham on numerous occasions for extended periods.

Such access shows. Martin briefly explores the historical development of American evangelism by tracing its roots back to Whitefield, Finney, Moody, and Sunday; then he turns in depth to Graham's evangelistic career as an outgrowth of those who went before him. His effective plumbing of Graham's early life creates a psychological snapshot that explains Graham's energetic style and deep commitment to evangelism. For example, Martin quotes Graham's mother who remembers that "there was never any quietness about Billy. He was always tumbling over something. He was a handful. I was relieved when he started school." At the same time, his sanguine personality was attractive and led classmates to recall that "he likedeverybody so enthusiastically that everybody had to like him . . . You couldn't resist him."

Surprisingly, Graham's initial attempts at witnessing as a young teenager were "timid, fumbling efforts, more embarrassing than edifying." After briefly attending Bob Jones College in 1936, he transferred to Florida Bible Institute and came under the tutelage of the academic dean, John Minder. One evening while visiting a small country church together, Minder unexpectedly called upon Graham to preach his first sermon; according to Minder, "nobody ever failed more ignominiously." In spite of these early failures, Graham knelt one evening by the eighteenth green of a nearby golf courses and prayed: "All right, Lord, if you want me, you've got me. I'll be what you want me to be and I'll go where you want me to go." He never looked back and by the time he graduated from the institute his enthusiastic preaching earned him the nickname, the Preaching Windmill.

From Florida, Graham went to Wheaton College in Illinois where he earned a degree in anthropology and where he met and married Ruth Bell--next to God's Word the greatest influence on his life. After the Wheaton years, the pace of Martin's biography quickens as he gives a careful account of Graham's ministry as a field representative with Youth for Christ, International. His extensive travel on behalf of YFC in 1945, when he logged 135,000 flying miles and traveled to forty seven states, foreshadowed his later world-wide ministry. Although such travel separated him from his growing family back in Montreat, North Carolina, Ruth accepted the situation with characteristic grace and wit: "I'd rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man." Martin notes that these early days of evangelism led to creative ways to cut costs; Graham and George Wilson, a long-time Graham associate, "often slept in the same bed fully dressed and wearing shawls over their heads to keep warm."

After unprecedented success in evangelistic campaigns in Los Angeles (1949) and Boston (1950) lasting as long as eight weeks, Graham formed his own ministry, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; its formation coincided with Graham's complete embracement of mass media to promote his ministry. Martin repeatedly refers to what he says is Graham's love of publicity since he undoubtedly "wanted to be somebody--somebody important, somebody famous, somebody who stood in the circle of other somebodies." Yet Martin softens such criticism by adding that Graham's real passion "was to be approved by the Ultimate Somebody: Almighty God."

In addition to Martin's careful research and account of Graham's many crusades, he devotes much time to Graham's relationships with American presidents. According to Martin, Graham's youthful brashness put off Truman, but his fierce anti-communism won the confidence of Eisenhower. With Kennedy in office Graham had less direct impact on White House policy although after Kennedy's assassination he found a true friend in Johnsom. During one weekend together Johnson is supposed to have said that "we bragged to each other. I told him he was the greatest religious leader in the world and he said I was the greatest political leader."

More problemmatic, however, was his relationship with Nixon. Martin says Graham constantly urged Nixon to take clear public stands on issues of religious faith and public morality, if for no other reason than that by so doing Nixon could win the votes of the so-called silent majority. The two spent so much time together that Nixon regarded Graham "not just as a close friend but also as a political ally." Graham apparently genuinely admired Nixon; thus, when the truth about Watergate came out and Graham read excerpts from transcripts of the "secret tapes," he was devastated: "He wept. He threw up." Ruth said it was "the hardest thing Bill has ever gone through personally." The effect of the experience was profound and gave Graham a healthy reticence in subsequent relations with Reagan and Bush. One of Graham's associates claims that "Billy still has no idea of how badly Nixon snookered him."

Martin writes extensively on Graham's involvement in the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelism in 1974, his forays into Russia and Eastern Europe (this part of the book reads almost like a good spy novel), and Amsterdam 1983 and 1986, international conferences for itinerant evangelists, primarily from Third World countries. Though Martin casts a close critical eye over all these events, he is never cynical.

Indeed, it is rare to find direct criticism. Martin does note Graham's enjoyment of publicity; he does chronicle the one instance of supposed financial malfeasance by the BGEA (although even here he is generous); he does rebuke Graham for seeming to flip-flop on racial issues early in his ministry; and he does suggest that Graham falls too easily to the flattery of politicians and other powerful people. Graham is not pictured as a plaster saint.

Yet, like many of Graham's critics over the years, Martin is won over by Graham's personal sincerity and integrity. Perhaps most compelling for Martin is Graham's consistently simple evangelistic message: that all men and women need know nothing "save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Time and again Martin shows Graham earnestly presenting this message, be it to an uneducated audience in a one-horse town or to politiniks behind the Iron Curtain. Equally impressive is the way Graham has faithfully maintained this message while moving away from his insular views on communism, and his growing support for nuclear disarmament, human rights, and ecclesiastical tolerance.

The book's greatest weakness is its focus on Graham's public life; at times it reads more like a biography of the BGEA than a personal biography. Although there are notable exceptions (for example, we learn that Graham's family nickname is Puddleglum, the moniker of a pessimistic marshwiggle in one of C. S. Lewis' children's stories), more often than not his personal life is not explored. However, because the majority of his family, friends, and BGEA staff are still alive, it is not surprising that potentially embarrassing personal details are not included. Though understandable, such omissions damage the idea that Martin's biography is definitive. The book is well-researched and crisply written, but it is not complete. Not yet. Graham perhaps has many years left before he completes the final chapter of his remarkable life as the greatest evangelist the world has ever known.