Billy Graham preaching in Oslo, 1955 (National Archives of Norway)

I actually worked for Billy Graham, for a few months, back in the 1970s. Not in any notable way — in those days the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association headquarters were in Minneapolis. I went to work in the “Decision Building” during a year I took off to pay for my last year of college. I did bulk mail work, mostly slinging mail bags around, though they did “promote” me to operating a Phillipsburg Inserter machine before I decamped for a higher paying job. But I distinguished myself by writing a letter to the Minneapolis Star & Tribune to dissent from a critical article they published about Billy.

I’m old enough the remember the man in his prime. My home church, a Lutheran pietist congregation, was pretty leery of Baptists in those days. But Billy was an exception. He could pretty much do no wrong in our eyes. And the funny thing was, in general he deserved it. Ethel Waters, a Graham convert and supporter, writes in her autobiography, To Me It’s Wonderful, how she immediately got suspicious the first time she saw his picture: “He’s too good-looking.” But no hint of sexual scandal ever came near him personally (he was an early adopter of what we now call the Mike Pence Rule).

I don’t think we’ll see his like again. I’ve long held a superstitious fear that God was delaying the judgment America deserves so long as Billy was alive. Without him, will there be anyone to stand in the gap?

Enter into the joy of your Master, William Franklin Graham.