Resources for Teachers and Students on Billy Graham
Prepare: Billy Graham is a Christian evangelist,
best known for his large-scale "crusades" conducted
in sports stadiums such as the Rose Bowl. He presides over
the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, an international
organization with annual revenues of over $100 million.
His official
biography can be viewed on the website.
Read:
Billy Graham's Architects
of Peace essay, excerpted from the book, Day by Day
with Billy Graham, focuses on an alternative definition
of peace.
Explore: The
Billy Graham Center of Wheaton College exists to
"stimulate global evangelism." According to an
article
written by Lon Allison, the center's director, the way to
global peace is through individual transformation, since
war is the normal nature of things. To discover a distinctly
evangelical approach to peace, visit the center's website.
Write: In his Architects of Peace essay, Billy Graham
states that peace "is a spiritual reality in a human
heart which has come into vital contact with the infinite
God." Is this true? Are people with strong religious
convictions more likely to value peace than persons who
experience no "vital contact" with God? Should
peace mean different things to the adherents of different
religious traditions? Write a three-to-five page theological
reflection on Graham's definition of peace. If possible,
create a dialectic between Graham's definition and one that
you find within another religious tradition.
Extend:
Many US presidents have sought the counsel of Billy Graham,
and he has met with every president since Harry Truman.
At a taped meeting with Richard Nixon in 1972, however,
Graham expressed concerns that have been interpreted as
being anti-Semitic. He has apologized for those remarks
on at least two occasions, as is reported in the BBC
News archives.
Additional Resource: One of Billy Graham's many
projects was the founding of a magazine called "Christianity
Today," a highly respected journal within the
Christian community. The magazine maintains a free on-line
ezine.
Biography of Billy
Grahm