A Prophet with Honor: The Billy Graham Story (Updated Edition)

by William C. Martin

Overview

A Prophet with Honor is the biography Billy Graham himself invited and appreciated for its sympathetic but frank approach. Carefully documented, eminently fair, and gracefully written, it raises and answers key questions about Graham's character, contributions, and influence on the world religious scene. In this engaging and comprehensive book, William Martin gives readers a better understanding of the most successful evangelist in modern history, and the movement he led for over fifty years.

A Prophet with Honor makes a vital contribution to the Billy Graham legacy and allows us to understand why his words, actions, and personality endeared him to popes and preachers, kings and presidents, and millions of Christians in virtually every nation and culture around the world.

Martin draws on

• extensive conversations with Graham himself
• nearly two hundred interviews
• previously untouched resources, including documents from six presidential libraries and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association archives
• personal observation of Graham's crusades and conferences in the United States and Europe
• decades of research on evangelical Christianity

Martin pays particular attention to Graham's controversial relationships with Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. He also describes how Graham's lifelong determination "to do something great for God" led him to organize international conferences that spearheaded the worldwide spread of the liberating message of Jesus, and prompted him to help strengthen religious freedom in the Soviet bloc and China.

Tracing Graham's life and ministry from his rural and religious roots in North Carolina to his place as the elder statesman of American evangelicalism, examining both his triumphs and his tribulations, Martin shows the multidimensional character of the man who has become one of the most admired persons in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310353300
Publisher:	Zondervan
Publication date:	02/20/2018
Edition description:	Updated
Pages:	832
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

William Martin (BD, Ph D, Harvard) is the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Chavanne Senior Fellow for Religion and Public Policy at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He has appeared on many national radio and television programs, including 60 Minutes, Nightline, 20/20, Today, Frontline, and All Things Considered. He has been published in numerous national and regional periodicals including The Atlantic, Harper’s Esquire, and Texas Monthly. While researching this book, he was given exclusive access to the Billy Graham archives.

Table of Contents

Preface to This Edition 9

Preface and Acknowledgments 11

Part 1 Genesis

1 Mr. Graham Goes to Washington 23

2 A Great Cloud of Witnesses 32

Part 2 America's Sensational Young Evangelist (1918-1949)

3 Billy Frank 57

4 The Boy Preacher 68

5 Ruth 83

6 "Geared to the Times, Anchored to the Rock" 92

7 The Canvas Cathedral 109

Part 3 "From Vict'ry Unto Vict'ry" (1950-1960)

8 Evangelism Incorporated 127

9 Principalities and Powers 146

10 Trust and Obey 159

11 Harringay 177

12 Fields White Unto Harvest 190

13 New Evangelicals, Old Fundamentalists 208

14 God in the Garden 230

15 Reaping the Whirlwind 245

16 Unto the Uttermost Parts of the Earth 258

Part 4 The Kingdoms of the World and Their Glory (1960-1974)

17 Election and Free Will 275

18 The Kennedy Years 290

19 Billy and Lyndon 305

20 Second Comings 323

21 Dreams and Wars 344

22 Nixon Revived 356

23 The Power and the Glory 379

24 "Billy, You Stay Out of Politics" 398

25 A Ministry of Reconciliation 407

26 Vietnam and Watergate 428

Part 5 Keeping the Faith (1974-1990)

27 Lausanne 447

28 Higher Ground 464

29 A Crack in the Curtain 483

30 The Preacher and the Bear 499

31 Tribulation and Triumph 522

32 Amsterdam 539

33 The Constituted Means 551

34 Decently and in Order 568

35 The Bible [Still] Says 583

36 What Manner of Man? 601

37 "To the Ends of the Earth" 614

Part 6 Finishing the Course (The Final Years)

38 The Work of an Evangelist 631

39 "Guard What Has Been Entrusted to You" 644

40 "Having Faithful Children" 662

41 The Last Days 677

Notes 699

Index 805

What People are Saying About This

David E. Harrell

One of the most important books ever written on American religious history.
— avid E. Harrell, Auburn University

Harry S. Stout

Fairly researched, lucidly written, and brilliantly crafted, it is sure to become a classic in the field of American religion.
— Harry S. Stout, Yale University

Editorial Reviews

'A brilliant and comprehensive study of one of the most important leaders in the history of Christendom.'

Anthony Campolo

'Thoroughly researched, lucidly written, and brilliantly crafted, it is sure to become a classic in the field of American religion.'

Yale University Harry S. Stout

'One of the most important books ever written on American religious history.'

Auburn University David E. Harrell

'A detailed portrait of Graham that far surpasses anything yet written about him.'

The Washington Post

'Beautifully limned, often painfully funny, sometimes nothing short of inspired... If [fairness] is the criterion for sainthood, Martin should be canonized.'

Christian Century

Martin's first book is an immense and appealing study of how Billy Graham became the ``world's most influential Christian leader'' and how Early America virtually became a Christian nation. The account starts 350 years ago with the Pilgrims spreading evangelical fervor, then progresses to portray Graham, now 72, as following the leads of evangelists like D. L. Moody and Billy Sunday. Martin, professor of sociology at Rice University, conducted some 100 interviews; he discovered no scandals but he found Graham to be a man of party politics as well as religious principles. We learn, for instance, that Graham successfully courted the favor of then North Carolina governor Strom Thurman and of Harry Truman years before his support of the Republican ticket in 1956, well before he became known as Nixon's pope. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Martin (sociology, Rice Univ.) chronicles the 40-year career of Graham, the foremost modern evangelical prophet, and offers an overview of the foundations of evangelism and the conflicts with fundamentalists. Martin gives a sense of Graham as a man of theology, not of administrative work, with influence on the world and politics. Graham describes an evangelist as ``a person with a special gift and a special calling from the Holy Spirit to announce the good news of the gospel.'' Sources used include interviews and texts. Graham has reviewed the work for accuracy. Recommended for most libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/91.-- L. Kriz, Sioux City P.L., Ia.

Library Journal