Billy Graham
By JOHN BETJEMAN EVERY night the Harringay arena is packed; every night throngs of converts—mostly young people—crowd up at the end of the service to the bare space below the rostrum, thence to be conducted by ' counsellors ' to a room where they are interviewed and given tracts. This is the Greater London Crusade of Billy Graham and I think he must be cynical indeed who affects to despise the crusade or doubt the sincerity of its promoters. If only a tithe of the ' conversions' are lasting, by the end of the campaign the effect on noncon- formity throughout London and the home counties, is bound to be enormous. And Evangelicals in the Church of England who are now enjoying a revival, will also benefit. Let me say at once, that I write as an Anglo-Catholic to whom the revivalistic approach is unattractive. I think it is necessary to be almost indecently lacking in reticence when writing about the Greater London Crusade, for it is not enough just to describe it objectively as though one were looking at an ants' nest and remarking, " How curious." I am not shocked by the technique of microphones, massed choirs, trumpets and advertising campaigns. To attract the indifferent today, one must, I suppose, shout loudly at first. But I have no memory of a blinding light striking, me at the corner of a street, or of a fit of the shudders while people knelt around me in prayer. I cannot point to a date, time and place and say, " That was when I was converted." I cling to the sacraments and live for the day, have many moments of doubt when the only thing that buoys me up is the thought that I would sooner the Incarnation were true than that it were not. This, at its lowest ebb, is my faith; but frequent confession and communion have proved to me, unwilling though I sometimes am to believe, that prayer works, that Christ is God, and that He is present in the Sacraments of the Church of England. Thus, though I frequently lapse and am rarely exalted, I am conscious of being under divine providence, to use a bit of jargon for which I can think of no clearer substitute, and th'hnkful that I was brought up by Christian parents. For me the growth of Faith is gradual and not a sudden revelation. would be prepared to understand a sacramental approach Christ. He is not an emotional speaker, despite his wonde eloquence. It is obviously within his power to make peop weep and scream " Alleluyah." But he restrains himself. has the great Evangelical love of Our Lord as Man. Je as a person is vivid to him. Billy Graham knows his Bibl so well and he brings the scenes of Our Lord's life on ear, so vividly before us, that neither Catholic nor Evangeli could quarrel with him. He is genuinely above religio differences and if any intolerance or quarrelling comes into th campaign, it will not be Billy Graham's work but the devil; the product of the Protestant underworld of mad sects, or th arrogant uncharity of ultramontanes. The whole burden his message is that people should return to their particul churches, whether Plymouth Brethren or Church of Englan For this reason he holds no services on Sunday in order tha people should go back to their own churches.
But what is more impressive than Billy Graham, who essentially a humble likeable young man who regards hims. merely as an instrument of the Holy Ghost, is the preparatto and organisation of the Greater London Crusade. For w over a year before it was decided to invite Billy Graha Nonconformists and Evangelical Anglicans engaged in pray for the conversion of London. He came at the invitation no of one church, but of many. And a great many of the ' prayer partners ' are in the Harringay arena nightly, and wl them ' counsellors,' young and old, wearing badges. The} have been trained to deal with the stream of converts an to put them in touch with their local churches. I fear th there are few, if any, who are catholics, whether Anglican Roman, among the ' counsellors.' This is a pity. But tho sorts of differences must matter little to people who, as sofn of the converts are bound to be, don't know who Christ wa, or what a church or chapel is for. And provided th ' counsellors ' have the clarity and breadth of Billy Graha I do not think we need imagine that their care of conve committed to them will be misdirected.
Sitting in the arena I could pick out easily the earnest, go organisers, prayer partners, stewards and counsellors of campaign, even if they were not wearing badges Ito emphast their identity. I pictured the vast half-empty chapel on soM clattering High Road, the sea of pitch-pine pews, and the fe people in them leaning forward in their seats and shad! I their eyes, as the brave disheartened minister asked for God,' blessing on Billy Graham and his team. I could see the moil crowded interiors of evangelical London churches, such as St. Peter's, Vere Street, and All Souls, Langham Place, and the young nurses and medical students and clerks, also leaninl forward, chapel-wise and praying as the clergyman read frog!, I trust, the Book of Common Prayer. And here they all we at Harringay, with persons whom they had hopes of convertini sitting near them. I foresaw the objectors : the old-fashioned left-wing atheisl$ who sees in it only a plot by American and English busines1 men to get the workers to work harder for less money: tO smug type, Anglican or Roman, who thinks it all "dreadfully vulgar and noisy, my dear, and dangerous too, for how all we to protect the apostolic succession ? "; the confirmed pessimist who regards it all as a flash in the pan. I foresa0 them. But long before I had even heard of the Greater Londe!' Crusade, a friend of mine who is an Anglican priest who ofte,11 visits America said to me: " A man called Billy Graham , being invited to England. He talks sense, though the way 11 is put over is not the sort of thing that appeals to you and nle.',1 You know : ' Are you saved ? See Isaiah 44: verses 22 and 23. But it does very well for people less burdened with sophistic" tion than us. I really think that if he has anything like thei success he has had in America, when the history of this countr,, comes to be written in a hundred years, Billy Graham's Vin will be one of the most important events in it." We shay see whether that is true. eloved Church of England need fear a land.slide yet into it or bout of it. People are beginning to think there is something Outside what they can touch and see. They are even moving Inwards the idea of a Creator who cares for us individually. Let the Church go on saying its offices, administering the facraments, avoiding stunts to fill pews or pandering to the Indifference of pampered villagers. Let it not sell all its old churchurdles in the cities to build new ones in the suburbs. In hes e end the Truth will triumph. And maybe Billy Graham as lessened the time of waiting.
Previous page
