Billy Graham

Billy Graham Before the Crusades: Stories from Wheaton College Classmates

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Portrait of Billy Graham, c. 1940s. Taken by local Wheaton photographer (and Wheaton College alum) Orlin Kohli. Photo File: Graham, Billy 1940s

Seeking to add a liberal arts education to his Bible College background, Billy Graham enrolled in Wheaton College for the fall of 1940. With previous credits from Florida Bible Institute and Bob Jones University, Graham came to Wheaton as a Sophomore, graduating in the spring of 1943.

In 2010, the staff of the Evangelism & Missions Archives at Wheaton College contacted dozens of Graham’s surviving classmates, asking them to fill out questionnaires about their memories of Wheaton in the 1940s and especially their memories of Billy Graham. The staff also taped and transcribed oral history interviews with more than twenty-eight of these classmates. The interviews are all online in the guide to Collection 74 and can be accessed there. Below are excerpts from the interviews, documents, and questionnaires. The excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.

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A Centennial Crusade

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In September 1959, Wheaton, Illinois, made history as “the smallest city ever to conduct a crusade,” when it welcomed evangelist Billy Graham back to his alma mater, Wheaton College.

The crowd at one of the outdoor crusade meetings, Wheaton College’s Centennial motto “Dedication in Education” in background. College Archive Photograph #B06313.
V. Raymond Edman with Ruth and Billy Graham in front of Memorial Student Center, 1959. CN 74, OS 13: 1959 Crusade Scrapbook.

To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Wheaton crusade, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections features below recordings, photographs, and documents from this historic event.

Originally, Wheaton’s president, V. Raymond Edman, had invited Graham to lead the College’s annual fall evangelism meetings as part of its centennial year celebrations. However, at Graham’s suggestion, the scope of the event quickly expanded to a weeklong crusade that extended far beyond the campus, reaching into the surrounding suburbs and Chicago. The following letter from Billy Graham to Wheaton Chaplain Evan Welsh, held in the College’s Centennial Committee Records, outlines Graham’s growing vision for the meetings:

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‘For the Evangelization of the Whole World’: Looking Back at the 1974 Lausanne Congress

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Logo for International Congress of World Evangelization (ICOWE), Lausanne, 1974. Printed on Congress program.

In July 1974, 2,500 leaders from 150 countries gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the International Congress on World Evangelization, better known as the Lausanne Congress. Over the course of ten days, evangelical leaders from around the world spoke in plenary sessions and workshops to consider the project of world evangelization in the modern era. An immediate outcome of the congress was the Lausanne Covenant, a statement of Christian belief and lifestyle that became a touchstone for many evangelicals around the globe.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Lausanne Movement’s founding Congress, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections features highlights from Collection 46: Records of the Lausanne Movement, as well as our oral history collections with Lausanne leaders and participants.

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Faith, Memory, and Archives: An Interview with Devin Manuzullo-Thomas

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Last September, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections hosted Dr. Devin Manzullo-Thomas for the annual Archival Research Lecture, where he presented “Exhibiting Evangelicalism: Exploring the History of Christian Museums in the United States.” This month, we feature an interview with Dr. Manzullo-Thomas, delving into his archival exploration of how evangelical communities engage with and commemorate their histories.

When and how were you first introduced to Archives & Special Collections?

I first visited the Archives and Special Collections at Wheaton in 2013 or 2014, to conduct research related to my denomination, the Brethren in Christ Church. (Several Brethren in Christ leaders are either alumni of Wheaton College or are otherwise represented in Archives & Special Collections materials.) While there, I also visited the Billy Graham Museum on the first floor of Billy Graham Hall, and my interest was piqued. Because of my training as an archivist/public historian and my scholarly work on the history of my own denomination, I’ve long been interested in how religious communities present their history in museums and historic sites. I started wondering: “How have other evangelical groups and institutions represented the past in public spaces?”

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‘He Had Something to Say and He Said It Well’: Billy Graham at Wheaton College

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Billy Graham, The Tower, 1944.

Next week will mark the five year anniversary of Rev. Billy Graham’s passing on February 21, 2018. This month, in remembrance of his remarkable life and legacy, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections commemorates the beginnings of Billy Graham’s evangelistic ministry as a fledgling undergraduate preacher at Wheaton College in 1940.

During Billy Graham’s time as a student at Florida Bible Institute (1937-1940), Alma Toff Edman, mother of then-interim president of Wheaton College, V. Raymond Edman, heard Graham preach at a local service. Impressed, she told her son Elner Edman and his friend Paul Fischer about the young preacher and urged that they hear him too. The two men invited Graham with them as a caddy for a round of golf. Similarly impressed with his passion for ministry and gift for speaking, they urged him to attend Wheaton College after graduating from FBI, to add a liberal arts education to his Bible and homiletics training. Graham applied to Wheaton and was accepted, starting on September 19, 1940.

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Finding “A Clear Voice”: 65 Years of Christianity Today

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On October 15, 1956, 65 years ago today, Christianity Today published their first issue. Explaining the place of the new magazine in an editorial titled “Why Christianity Today?”, the editors stated, “evangelical Christianity needs a clear voice, to speak with conviction, and love, and to state its true position and its relevance to the world crisis.” Employing that clear voice to wide effect, the first printing was sent to more than 250,000 pastors, seminary students, and evangelical Christian leaders across the world.

An autographed copy of the first issue, as well as correspondence, board meeting minutes, financial reports, memos, photographs, audio tapes, and other material mostly relating to the founding of the magazine and a wide range of religious, social, and political issues can be found in Collection 8: Records of Christianity Today, held here at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives.  

A copy of the first issue autographed by four of the magazine’s original five editors (CN8, Folder 14-1).
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Celebrating 40 Years of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center!

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Billy Graham poses with Harold Anderson outside the partially constructed Billy Graham Center, August 1979.

Forty years ago this month, the newly completed Billy Graham Center was dedicated for Christian service on Wheaton College’s campus, the culmination of a decade’s worth of prayer, planning, and construction.  The open-air dedication ceremony featured an array of processions, invocations, addresses, and prayers, flanked by performances of Caesar Giovannini and Ralph Vaughan Williams by the Wheaton College Conservatory combined choral groups. The ceremony’s centerpiece was a dedicatory address (Part 1 and Part 2) by the building’s namesake, Dr. Billy Graham, detailing the evangelist’s own intentions for the Center and its impact on the global Christian Church through ongoing education, training, and resources. This September, we celebrate the ongoing realization of Graham’s guiding hopes and commemorate the past four decades of fruitful Christian ministry documented in the Archives’ Collection 3: Records of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. 

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Still “Geared to the Times, Anchored to the Rock”: Celebrating 75 Years of Youth for Christ

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“‘What are you doing? Can’t we do it here? How do you get started?” And we did everything we possibly could to help everybody we possibly could. And they came here, and we sent people out there, and we were busy” (CN 285, Tape 3).

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Torrey Johnson, founding member and first president of Youth for Christ.

“Busy” is how Torrey Maynard Johnson describes the explosion of interest in youth evangelism stemming from the runaway success of Youth for Christ evangelistic rallies in Chicago in 1944. In a 1984 oral history interview with Archives staff, Johnson recalls the rapid emergence of Youth for Christ during World War II, a movement that innovated evangelism practices—specifically targeting young people—launched the career of a young Billy Graham, and became an international phenomenon still ministering to young adults today.

This November, the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives celebrates seventy-five years of Youth for Christ, and explores the origins and early rallies of Youth for Christ in Chicago prior to its formal establishment in November 1944.

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Billy Graham and the Presidential Election of 1944

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Biographers of Billy Graham and scholars of American evangelicalism have long been interested in Graham’s involvement in U.S. politics, particularly his relationship with every U.S. president dating back to Harry S. Truman. While whole books have been dedicated to examining these connections, Graham’s earliest foray into presidential politics has, to date, escaped notice. This July, the Archives highlights Billy Graham’s brief, but fascinating, correspondence with presidential candidate Thomas Dewey during his 1944 election campaign against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In August of 1944, the twenty-four year old Billy Graham was serving in his first and only pastorate, a small congregation in the Chicago suburbs. After graduating from Wheaton College the year before, Graham and his new wife Ruth accepted a call to Western Springs Baptist Church, where they ministered for the next two years. During his pastorate, Graham became increasingly involved with Youth for Christ, touring the upper Midwest and eventually coast to coast, preaching at youth rallies with Torrey Johnson and other rising YFC evangelists.

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A rare image of Billy Graham as a young pastor, speaking at Western Springs Baptist Church in 1944.

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