Biography of Billy Graham and His Accomplishments in His Career
"This is the Hour of Decision with Billy Graham, coming to you from Minneapolis Minnesota" Billy Graham, has preached to more than 210 million people through a live audience, more than anyone else in history. Not only that, but Mr. Graham has reached millions more through live televison, video and film. This has led Billy to be on the "Ten Most Admired Men in the World" from the Gallup Poll since 1955 a total of thirty-nine times. This includes thirty-two consecutive more than any other individual in the world, placing him as the most popular American for about forty years. This essay is going to talk about Graham's personal life, and what kind of family he grew up in and im also going to talk in detail about how he became an evangelist, because I feel it is very important yet interesting. His accomplishments in the fifties are uncomparable, so I will be including a considerable amount of information concerning that topic. Finally I will be talking about his personal achievements, books written, and how he has been a companion to some of the American Presidents. William Franklin Graham Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 17, 1918. Graham was raised on a dairy farm by William Franklin (deceased 1962) and Morrow Coffey Graham (deceased 1981). In 1943 he married his wife Ruth McCue Bell, and had four children Virginia 1945, Anne Morrow 1948, Ruth Bell 1950, William Franklin, Jr. 1952, and Nelson Edman 1958. At age eighty, he keeps fit by swimming, playing with is nineteen grand children, and from aerobic walking, in the mountains of North Carolina, where he currently lives. (Billy Graham Best Sellers, 1999) Billy Graham told Time Magazine in one article about his life before becoming a preacher. "I lived on a farm. The only difference was I had to get up early in the morning and go milk cows. When I came back from school that day, I had to milk those same cows. There were about twenty cows I had to milk. By hand. That was before they had those machines. I loved being a farmer. But God called me to this work that I'm in now. I knew it was God calling. I said, "Yes. I will follow what God wants me to do." And so I went to two or three schools to get education.
Harry S. Stout is the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Christianity and Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University, and is also an author. He received his B.A. from Calvin College, M.A. from Kent State University, and Ph.D. from Kent State University. Professor Stout is the author of several books, including The New England Soul, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for history; The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism, which received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for biography as well as the Critic's Award for History in 1991; Dictionary of Christianity in America (of which he was co-editor), which received the Book of the Year Award from Christianity Today in 1990; A Religious History of America (coauthor with Nathan Hatch); and Readings in American Religious History (co-edited with Jon Butler). He most recently contributed to and co-edited Religion in the American Civil War and is currently writing a moral history of the American Civil War. He is also co-editing Religion in American Life, a seventeen-volume study of the impact of religion on American history for adolescent readers and public schools (with Jon Butler). He is general editor of both The Works of Jonathan Edwards and the "Religion in America" series for Oxford University Press. He has written articles for the Journal of Social History, Journal of American Studies, Journal of American History, Theological Education, Computers and the Humanities, and Christian Scholar's Review. He is a contributor to the Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching, Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, and the Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West.
In the essay, “The Second Great Awakening” by Sean Wilentz explains the simultaneous events at the Cane Ridge and Yale which their inequality was one-sided origins, worship, and social surroundings exceeded more through their connections that was called The Second Great Awakening also these revivals were omen that lasted in the 1840s a movement that influences the impulsive and doctrines to hold any management. Wilentz wraps up of the politics and the evangelizing that come from proceeding from the start, but had astounding momentum during 1825.The advantage of the Americans was churched as the evangelizing Methodists or Baptists from the South called the New School revivalist and the Presbyterians or Congregationalists from the North that had a nation of theoretical Christians in a mutual culture created more of the Enlightenment rationalism than the Protestant nation on the world. The northerners focused more on the Second Great Awakening than the South on the main plan of the organization.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born at noon on January 15, 1929 in Memphis, Tennessee to the Reverend Martin Luther King and Alberta Williams King. Martin Luther King Jr. spent the first twelve years in the Auburn Avenue home that his parents shared with his maternal grandparents, the Reverend Adam Daniel Williams and Jennie Celeste Williams. When Reverend Williams passed away in 1931, Martin Luther King Sr. became the new pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church and established himself as a major figure in both state and national Baptist groups. Martin Luther King Jr. later attended Atlanta’s Morehouse College from 1944 to 1948 during his undergraduate years. During this time, Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays had convinced Martin Luther King Jr. to accept his calling and to view Christianity as a “potential force for progressive social change. Martin Luther King Jr. was ordained during his last semester in Morehouse.” It was also around this time that Martin Luther King Jr. had begun his first steps towards political activism. In 1951, King Jr. began his doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University’s School of Theology. In 1953, Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott on June 18 in a ceremony that took place i...
Readers of Walker’s Appeal can clearly see that his Methodist background provided Walker with a stable ground of moral beliefs, which, despite conflicting perspectives, enabled Walker to firmly convey the messages he intended to communicate.
Lischer, Richard The Preacher King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the word that moved America Oxford University Press: 1995. Print
Firstly, Abernathy’s Early Life includes his family and the first roles and jobs that he start doing. Abernathy’s family consisted of his mother, his father and his 10 other siblings. His parents’ names were William L and Juanita Odessa Jones. His father was a local farmer and church deacon; he owned 500 acres of farm land. Juanita, his mother, was always encouraging Ralph to strive to reach his goal of becoming preacher once he realized that was his calling. His father was a part of the school board of Linden Academy, the high school that Abernathy attended. When it came to religion, his whole family consisted of Christians. Abernathy was born the 10th out of 11 other siblings, brothers and sisters that lived with him when he was a child and adolescent in Linden, Alabama. One of his sisters gave him the nickname of “Ralph” after a favorite teacher she had. His family was respected by the black...
People of all groups, social status, and gender realized that they all had voice and they can speak out through their emotional feels of religion. Johnathan Edwards was the first one to initiate this new level of religion tolerance and he states that, “Our people do not so much need to have their heads filled than, as much as have their hearts touched.” Johnathan Edwards first preach led to more individuals to come together and listen. Than after that individual got a sense that you do not need to be a preacher to preach nor you do not need to preach in a church, you can preach wherever you want to. For the first time, you have different people coming together to preach the gospel. You had African American preaching on the roads, Indian preachers preaching and you had women who began to preach. The Great Awakening challenged individuals to find what church meets their needs spiritually and it also let them know about optional choices instead of one. The Great Awakening helped the American colonies come together in growth of a democratic
In my own life I have been impacted by Billy Graham; several years ago I began to see how important integrity is – at that time I committed never to ride alone in a car with a girl. Although I was unaware of the “Modesto Manifesto” at the time, I knew that Graham refused to be alone with any woman other than his wife, and his vow helped to influence mine. Graham’s dedication to having all the world hearing the Gospel likewise influenced me to take the Gospel to the city of Rochester. Now, learning more about Graham and how he did ministry, I see where I could change in multiple ways: being more tolerant of all denominations,
He was a man whose very words struck fear into the hearts of his listeners. Acknowledged as one of the most powerful religious speakers of the era, he spearheaded the Great Awakening. “This was a time when the intense fervor of the first Puritans had subsided somewhat” (Heyrmen 1) due to a resurgence of religious zeal (Stein 1) in colonists through faith rather than predestination. Jonathan Edwards however sought to arouse the religious intensity of the colonists (Edwards 1) through his preaching. But how and why was Edwards so successful? What influenced him? How did he use diction and symbolism to persuade his listener, and what was the reaction to his teachings? In order to understand these questions one must look at his life and works to understand how he was successful. In his most influential sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards’ persuasive language awakened the religious fervor that lay dormant in colonial Americans and made him the most famous puritan minister of the Great Awakening in North America.
John MacArthur is a well-known and sometimes controversial pastor that holds a strong conservative viewpoint of the Scriptures. As a graduate of Talbot Theological Seminary, MacArthur’s ministry has covered a wide spectrum of Christian fields including pastor, author and radio host. MacArthur currently serves as the Pastor of Grace Community Church in Sunny Valley, California. For over 45 years his pastoral ministry at Grace Community Church has given evidence of a deep abiding love for the exposition of the Scriptures. Beyond his role as pastor, MacArthur serves as the president of the Master’s College and Seminary, which functions to train men to work in various areas of Christian ministry. As a successful author, MacArthur continues to write many books ranging from culturally and theological relevant issues to New Testament expositional commentaries and study guides. Macarthur also serves as the lead teacher of Grace to You, an everyday radio and television ministry, which centers on verse by verse exposition of Scripture. MacArthur is not known for shying away from controversial topics that Christianity struggles with. He seeks to use scripture to help modern Christians think through these topics.
However, both groups consciously reshaped the organizing framework of religion to diminish its ordering of their lives within the public and private sphere. Prothero posits that while “The Bible remained authoritative [. . .] Americans insisted on interpreting it for themselves” (47), especially women who lived under its patriarchal construction. “In that effort,” Prothero continues “they were assisted by a new culture hero: the populist preacher, who combined evangelicalism and egalitarianism in daring new ways” (47). Prothero maintains that it was “the rise of pulpit storytelling” (51) that allowed such reimagining of religious ideology. Prothero goes on to argue that the “story sermon” (51) as a rhetorical style “did not catch on as fast in New England as it did in the South and the West (51),” a point ...
Miller, Park Hays. Why I am a Presbyterian. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1956.
Jonathan Edwards was known as a “nurturing pastor, frontier missionary, and bold revivalist preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Edwards exemplifies a man who integrated reason (the mind) and personal devotion (the heart) in unwavering dedication to the sovereign God revealed in creation and Scripture.” Jonathan Edwards spent much of his young life trying time to live and serve God through his works and deeds. He finally realized that it was impossible to earn his own salvation through his works and he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. Jonathan Edwards helped propel the First Great Awakening around 1733-1735, by directing some of the very first revivals from his Northampton, Massachusetts church. During some of these revivals Edwards preached sermons about salvation to his Puritan congregation. When these sermons were conducted amazing outbreaks of the Holy Spirit took place and people started recognizing their need for Jesus. This awesome move of God helped communities, households, and individuals to bond together in unity. These events continued to spread throughout the communities and most of the American colonies. Jonathan Edwards successful revivals were not without opposition. Edwards was drawing opposition and criticism from more traditional and strict Puritan leaders who were more concerned with religion. Jonathan Edwards then relocated to Stockbridge,
Moving to the post World War II era, the evangelical coalition began to appeal to the older generations, to the Hollywood population, and to leaders in Washington D.C. Soon after the war, the religious conflicts that infected fundamentalism in the 1920’s were no longer relevant. Protestantism, in its mainline form, had become much more evangelical in its’ nature and its’ sects became much more interested in becoming recognized publicly. Many historians agree that, “what has not often been recognized, however, is that one of the most important driving forces behind the postwar resurgence of religion was a cadre o...
Boyd, Gregory A., and Paul R. Eddy. Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009.