Title: Billy Graham, revivalist in a secular age
First published: 1960
Description: This book is an attempt to place Billy Graham's revivals in their historical perspective.The revival tradition in America is almost three centuries old. Yet, except for occasional references to Jonathan Edwards, Aimee Semple McPherson, or Billy Sunday, few accounts of Graham have tried to relate him to this tradition. In order to see how and where Billy Graham fits into this religious panoply it is necessary to consider his career in a much broader context than has hitherto been attempted. This book, therefore, deals with his place in the venerable revival tradition, his role in the contemporary great awakening as compared to the role of revival leaders in past awakenings, his relationship to the institutional development of the churches, past, present, and future, and his place in the shifting climate of theological and ecclesiastical thought over the last fifty years. Above all, this book tries to relate the man, his message, and his career to the changing pattern of American social and intellectual life. For it is obvious to everyone by now that Billy Graham is far more than a professional revivalist. He is a representative figure of his age. This book attempts to discover, from the viewpoint of the social historian, precisely what Billy Graham and his revivals represent, and what they signify about the temper of American civilization in the middle of the twentieth century. - Preface.
People: Billy Graham (1918-)
LC classification: BV3785.G69 M3