I watched Billy: The Early Years, which was a 2008 movie about the early years of renowned evangelist Billy Graham.
The character in the movie who tells the story about Billy Graham’s
early years is Charles Templeton, whose older self is played by Martin
Landau. I knew the name “Charles Templeton” on account of a documentary
that I saw a while back that was hosted by Christian apologist Lee
Strobel, who interviewed him. Essentially, Templeton was a Christian
evangelist and close friend to Billy Graham, but he lost his Christian
faith. I was hoping that Billy: The Early Years would get into
that topic, since I am interested in the stories of people who gain,
lose, or change their beliefs about religion.
Templeton is an old man on his hospital bed, and he is being
interviewed by a reporter, who is played by Lindsay Wagner. Templeton
vacillates between rants and charming coherence, and I did not
understand why exactly the movie was portraying him in that way, for he
came across as low-key and reasonable on the Lee Strobel documentary
that I watched. Was the movie suggesting that Templeton went off the
deep end or opened himself up to demons because he left the Christian
faith? The thing is, while the movie portrayed him as rather arrogant
about his preaching abilities and in-your-face with his unbelief, it did
not depict him as one who left Christianity due to a moral or spiritual
flaw that he personally had, as a number of Christians see those who
leave the faith. Rather, in the movie, Templeton’s reasons for leaving
Christianity were intellectual, and maybe even understandable: he
wondered how a good God could permit the Holocaust, he found biblical
stories (Jonah and the sun standing still in the time of Joshua) to be
unscientific and hard to believe, he thought that the Bible contained
lacunae and contradictions, he speculated that the biblical authors were
regular people trying to find answers in life, he acknowledged other
beliefs out there besides Christianity, and he felt that Christianity
was too simplistic in light of an increasingly complex world. In the
movie, Billy publicly praises Templeton for his integrity in resigning
the ministry rather than preaching a faith that he did not accept.
Templeton goes back to Billy’s youth, when Billy was working on his
father’s dairy farm. Billy’s parents were religious, but Billy was
not. When a traveling evangelist, Mordecai Ham, was coming to town for a
revival, Billy mocks him as just another preacher wanting to fleece the
flock. But Billy’s father encourages him to go hear the preacher for
himself rather than basing his opinions on what others tell him. So
Billy goes to the revival, and Dr. Ham starts to preach directly at
Billy. He says that Billy has an emptiness in his life that girls and
fancy cars cannot fill. He says that there are times when Billy’s heart
is full of love, but other times when his heart is dark. The
evangelist says that Billy, and everyone else, is a sinner who needs
Jesus. Billy wonders how the evangelist knew all those things about
him, and he accepts Christ.
Billy goes to Bible colleges, but he is not exactly a resounding
success. He is not that good of a preacher, and he is told that
explicitly. He is bumbling and socially awkward, especially around the
ladies. A girlfriend of his, Emily, breaks up with him to marry a
Harvard man because she doubts that Billy will amount to much. In a
touching scene, however, Billy does encourage an African-American man
who is discouraged because he feels that nobody cares about him or wants
to be around him, and he asks Billy if he can help him. Billy shares
with him the Gospel of God’s love. As the African-American man weeps in
Billy’s arms, Billy says that this moment was planned by God thousands
of years ago.
Billy gains his preaching voice when he teams up with successful
evangelist Charles Templeton. Billy also hears George Beverly Shea
singing on the radio, likes his voice, and travels to Moody without
making an appointment to invite Shea to come with him. In the course of
all this, Charles Templeton begins expressing to Billy his doubts about
the Christian faith, and Templeton resigns the ministry. Later, when
Billy sees Templeton at a respectable get-together, Templeton publicly
dresses down Billy for believing in Christianity. Billy is shaken by
that, and a kindly intellectual (whom Templeton praised for his
dissertation about Barth and Neo-Orthodoxy) asked Billy if he was all
right. Billy called his Mom, who told him that he has to decide what
his calling is: Is it to answer everything about the Bible, or is it to
open people’s hearts to the love of God in Christ? Billy has a crisis
of faith, but he decides to accept the infallibility of the Bible. At
the end of the movie, Billy is powerfully preaching about the Gospel and
racial equality. Billy mentions his atheist friend, who acknowledges
that Jesus was the greatest man who ever lived, and that tells Billy
that there was something special (even authoritative and divine) about
Jesus.
The movie was weird in places, but it was an excellent exploration of
issues surrounding faith and doubt (despite the depiction of Templeton
as a bit crazy near the end of his life). I myself acknowledge that
Christianity has insights. I agree with Mordecai Ham that there are
times when I am filled with love, and there are times when darkness
fills my soul. I also believe that there is value in opening oneself up
to the love of God, even if one cannot answer everything about the
Bible. I would like to believe that my life has significance and value,
and I want to feel at peace, as Templeton said he felt when he
converted to Christianity. Yet, like Templeton, I have intellectual
doubts about Christianity, and I also desire more intellectual meat than
Billy Graham usually provides in his sermons. What is interesting to
me is that Billy Graham himself in his later years expressed openness to
different ideas: he was more inclusivist in his understanding of
salvation, and he stated that he did not believe that evolution was
inconsistent with the Christian faith. He still believes that Jesus
Christ died for us on the cross, but he does not seem to embrace a
Christianity that writes off all of the non-Christians in the world or
ignores scientific evidence.
Something else to note is Billy Graham’s humility. In the movie,
Templeton was enamored by his own ability as an evangelist to hold
people in the palms of his hands, and he was thrilled that thousands of
people came to see him. In one scene, however, Billy as a
student is asking his professor what it takes to be an evangelist, and
the professor responds that an evangelist should not be in evangelism
for the fame, but rather to serve Christ, who died for him. That is my
impression of Billy Graham: he is famous and world-renowned, but he
never let that go to his head. Rather, his focus is on Jesus Christ.
It was interesting to read about Mordecai Ham, the evangelist who
brought Billy to Christ. Apparently, Ham was anti-Semitic and
anti-Catholic (see here). Even people who preach the message can have both light and darkness in their souls!
I was surprised that the movie did not go into the role of newspaper
magnate William Randolph Hearst in making Graham famous. The movie did
well, however, to focus on Graham’s growth as a preacher, and issues
surrounding faith and doubt.