Today Billy Graham went home to
be with the Lord. Billy Graham’s faithful
ministry spanned nearly seven decades. He was a friend to Dr. Martin Luther
King, evangelist to the world, and pastor to a dozen U.S. presidents. He was
and remains a personal hero of mine. Southern Baptist owes a debt to Dr. Graham
as they sought a return to gospel fidelity in the 1970’s through the 90’s. Dr.
Moher asked to use Graham’s name to aid the restoration of the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. I could go on about how God used him,
and while that may be a worthier task is not the focus of this blog.
I have often heard the question
from church members, “will there ever be another Billy Graham?” The short answer is No, absolutely not! There
are several reasons for this, let me see if I can help unpack why I say no.
Here are the reasons:
1.
The American culture has shifted
significantly since Dr. Graham’s crusades. He
was ordained in 1939. Dr. Graham was part of the greatest generation. His
contemporaries were John Stott, J.I. Packer, and Francis Schaeffer
. When he came onto the scene,
the prevailing worldview was modernism, which was predominately Christian
saturated and influenced. The move then shifted to post-modernism, which began
to critique the evangelical movement. But today we have experienced another two
cultural turns from postmodernism to pluralism and finally to tribalism.
2.
Evangelicals were once a tribe;
now evangelicals are tribal.
Seth Godin, who to my knowledge is not a Christian, has made a remarkable
observation about what technology has done to our culture. It has created
tribes. He defines tribes as “a group of people linked together by an idea, a
leader, and a way of communicating with each other.” Evangelicals have leaders
within their tribes with their leaders, publications, blogs, conferences, even
bible translations. The sad result is that many tribes talk about each other
but don’t talk to each other. As Mark Driscol points out, “We make a point, but
not a difference.” Billy Graham was the Big Chief of evangelical movement, but now
that evangelicals are tribal, no one will be the big chief. The closest we have
today would most likely be Rick Warren, but he is different still than Dr.
Graham.
3.
Nothing Ever Repeats itself twice
in the same way. C.S. Lewis once state in his
book a grief observed that “nothing ever repeats itself twice in the same way.”
We should not go looking to make someone a clone of Dr. Graham. Perhaps Acts
13:36, Dr. Billy Graham “served God in his own generation, he fell asleep” this
morning. We have his legacy to build on though he is dead, he will continue to speak to us through books and recordings of his sermons.
Dr. Graham completed his race,
but what about you? God will raise up His people and His leaders, God always
remains faithful to all generations! But have you trusted Jesus as your only
hope of salvation? Do you have confidence of your eternal destiny?
