Evangelicals and Trump, Again

 Because what I am about to say might confuse some, let me be clear: I did not vote for Donald Trump. I am an evangelical who feels evangelicals have had a bum rap for the past four years, and have been targeted by critics again the past few weeks. As will be clear, some began taking shots at evangelicals before the polls closed on November 3. There is no one explanation for why evangelicals in such large numbers voted for Trump in 2016. But, whatever the individual evangelical’s reason, I doubt it was because there is something intrinsically wrong with evangelicalism or because some 80% of evangelicals suddenly abandoned their faith. 

Beyond all his brutish behavior and boorish boasting over the past four years, the next ninety or so days may shape how we remember Donald Trump. I suspect many who profess fear the president won’t accept the results of the election, would really like to see him carried out of the White House like a puppy that soiled the carpet. And after that image has yielded all its laughs, they would continue to berate Trump, saying:

• He is racist (perhaps like Woodrow Wilson),

• He is a womanizer (perhaps on the order of Warren Harding or Bill Clinton),

• He is short-tempered and coarse (perhaps like Andrew Jackson or Harry Truman),

• He is a sore loser (perhaps like Theodore Roosevelt) 

• He panders to divisive elements in the nation (perhaps like James Buchanan).

A few historians might even recall he did what he said he would do—quickly adding that what he said he would do was wrong. But, for me, Trump may be most remembered as the man who threatened to ruin the reputation of evangelicalism.

On Election Day, a friend complained of how “80-90% of white evangelicals will vote for Trump and have no qualms about whether that conflicts with their worship of Jesus….” Young, he probably doesn’t realize it’s a bit presumptuous to claim to know the motives and the minds of millions of strangers. I know some of those evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2016, and to say they had “no qualms” is slander.

Actually, we don’t yet know how evangelicals voted on November 3. It may not matter, the anger about how they voted in 2016 hasn’t gone away. And probably won’t. Some will never forget Trump kept Hillary Clinton from returning to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to be in charge this time.  But after four years of thinking about Trump’s election and his presidency, I have two observations. One is obvious, the other not so obvious: 

--That evangelicals helped elect Trump shouldn’t have been surprising.

--After helping elect Trump, evangelicals failed him.

Compelling Reasons

I suppose evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump are under no more obligation to explain their decision than Roman Catholics who vote for pro-choice candidates are obliged to explain their decision. Still, those who praise the latter group, have only contempt for the former. The evangelicals are painted as having abandoned the faith but not the Catholics, even though some may have voted while planning a CYA visit to the confessional just in case God is not as open-minded as their Newman Center director used to claim (CYA: Cinch Your Absolution).

The 2016 election was not the first instance evangelicals supported candidates whose positions didn’t reflect their values. In his acceptance speech, president-elect Biden mentioned how 1932 saw the advent of Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal.” Many Baptists and other evangelicals (called “fundamentalists” then) supported Roosevelt, despite his pledge to overturn prohibition and his seeming commitment to ideologies some found threatening. They heard the counsel of notorious Southern Baptist fundamentalist J. Frank Norris who, having seen the devastation the Depression was causing, brushed aside concerns about Roosevelt and said, “To Hell with your socialism, people are dying.” Teetotaler Baptists like Norris believed they had a compelling reason to overcome their natural inclinations and voted for the man who would reopen the saloons. Today, we don’t look back and call them hypocrites. (Note: As the Depression’s impact began to lessen, Norris raised his voice against FDR’s policies.)

Of course, Roman Catholic Joe Biden and Black Baptist Kamala Harris have supported reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, despite their traditions’ long opposition to abortion and support for “traditional” marriage. Biden and Harris have taken the stands they have taken because they found a compelling reason to do so. Only the most radical call them hypocrites. 

What compelling reasons did evangelicals have to vote for Trump in 2016? There were several. Despite his obvious lack of piety, Trump promised to protect religious rights. Though it may have garnered the most attention in the years before the election, the legal action against the Colorado bakers who refused, on religious grounds, to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple was just one instance evangelicals perceived as a progressive government’s attempt to limit their rights. Then, too, Trump promised to use every opportunity to place conservatives or strict constitutionalists on the Supreme Court (the only hope anti-abortion evangelicals had of seeing Roe v. Wade overturned). The evolution of evangelicalism’s attitude toward abortion is complex and hardly without nuance, yet those who believe abortion a species of infanticide pursue every opportunity to see the practice ended. But the most compelling reason? Trump wasn’t Hillary Clinton.

While her apologists cannot see why anyone would object to the former Secretary of State being president, many Americans believe she (along with her husband) is thoroughly corrupt. Then, too, her words betrayed contempt for the ordinary people Trump attempted to address, who—rightly or wrongly—believed their jobs were threatened by the influx of those entering the country illegally. Instead of trying to calm the fears of such people, Clinton tossed them into a “basket of deplorables.” Van Jones’s passionate statement following Biden’s election has touched the hearts of millions of Americans, but don’t forget his reservations about the choices offered in 2016. The man who worked in the Obama White House and who was one of the few Democrats who believed Clinton could lose said, “You put Hillary Clinton up against Donald Trump, I’m scared by the choice no matter what you do.” Now, four years later, Trump may snatch from her head the crown as the nation’s sorest loser. But I digress. 

The Evangelical Failure

Jeremy Taylor, an eighteenth-century devotional writer whose influence on John Wesley (and, therefore, nascent evangelicalism) was great, summarized his understanding of a proper pastor’s responsibilities. The minister was to expend his energy “to preach to the weary, to comfort the sick, to assist the penitent, to reprove the confident, to strengthen weak hands and feeble knees…” If, as some evangelicals have claimed, Donald Trump is a “baby Christian,” he needs faithful pastoral ministry whether he lives in the White House or a penthouse (or the jailhouse, as some of his opponents fondly wish). But it seems certain those evangelicals closest to the president failed to truly “assist the penitent” and “reprove the confident.” The shameful sycophancy of evangelical leaders like William Graham and Robert Jeffress, coupled with Trump’s tendency to eviscerate any who might dare criticize him, permitted the president’s blind arrogance to put the nation’s health at risk, not to mention the damage his attitudes may have done America’s relationship with other nations.

To say or even imply a man with such conspicuous hubris was God’s anointed, was folly. Claiming any who might oppose Trump were under the influence of the demonic, as Eric Metaxas and Franklin Graham did, further compounded their failure to “reprove the confident.” Rather than help Trump see the value of civility and sitting down with one’s opponents to rationally and respectfully discuss differences, they were delighted by his name-calling, demeaning tweets. Such tweets, his admirers claimed, showed he was a real man.

As we might expect, Trump chose successful, celebrity Christians (both male and female) as his closest friends. Doubtless they enjoyed being invited to the White House and being featured in stories about the president’s evangelical coterie. Perhaps these leaders forgot how Billy Graham confessed he had been guilty of “crossing the line” in his relationships with the American presidents he called “friends.”  The evangelist believed he had been too uncritical, failing to acknowledge their flaws. 

Above all, these evangelical leaders failed to see the repercussions of their unqualified support for Trump. They forgot the warning of the late Charles Colson, a man who knew a little about politics and its temptations, “When the church aligns itself politically, it gives priority to the compromises and temporal successes of the political world rather than its Christian confession of eternal truth. And when the church gives up its rightful place as the conscience of the culture, the consequences for society can be horrific.”

These leaders not only failed Trump, they failed their evangelical brothers and sisters. Because of their failure, many are unable to differentiate the values of historic evangelicalism and the ideology of right-wing conservatism.

Ancillary Observations

Just as I was embarrassed by the fawning attitude of Trump’s evangelical supporters, I was disappointed by the conceit of those who were so above voting for such a flawed candidate they preferred renouncing the name “evangelical” rather than ask if somehow they had remained blind to their favorite’s flaws—and never, ever asked why so many of their spiritual siblings, including some famed for moral rectitude bordering on  priggishness, should feel compelled to vote for someone like Trump. In short, their devotion to Clinton seems no less uncritical than the devotion to Trump displayed by the scruffiest Proud Boy.

If those thinking of abandoning evangelicalism would listen, I would remind them of the rich history of the term “evangelical.” I would tell them of how Evangelicals were at the forefront of social change in 18th and 19th century Britain, of how American evangelicals like Katharine Bushnell passionately called for equality for women (in Bushnell’s case, basing her claims on a detailed, scholarly analysis of the Bible), of how evangelicals opened hospitals, orphanages, and schools in all the lands where they went as missionaries. I would warn them against a kind of pervasive American provincialism that infects the most liberal of us, reminding them that evangelicalism is a worldwide phenomenon, that William Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr. are not representative of all evangelicals. In the recent book Evangelicals: Who They Have Been, Are Now, and Could Be (2019), Mark Noll, one of its authors, reminds us that “from a global perspective . . . the fate of evangelicalism depends on more than the ebb and flow of parochial American concerns.”

And, then, I might tell the young friend I quoted at the beginning about another friend of mine. Will, a fellow pastor and a man with strong opinions, knew more about contemporary American politics than anyone I have ever known, before or since. Shortly before his death a few years ago, Will began to insist “no Christian could vote Democrat.” In this opinion he was immovable. Doubtless my young friend, a committed Christian and a Democrat, would be incensed. He might even tweet his outrage. Then, I would gently remind him of how much this sounded like his opinion of fellow-Christians who voted for Donald Trump. 

It’s called reproving the confident.

Praying on Election Eve

 Anne Lamott tells of a friend who begins her day with the prayer, “Whatever.” She ends her day praying, “Oh, well.” 

Over the years I attended many denominational meetings that took place only weeks before an election. Usually the moderator would include in his benediction, along with prayers for travelling mercies and blessings on the churches represented, a phrase like, “Lord, we pray for your will to be done in the upcoming election.” To this, the assembled pastors and church leaders would intone, “Amen.” Then, weeks later, at least some of those who had endorsed the seemingly bipartisan spirit of that prayer would complain about the results of the election.

How should we pray on this day before the election? Should I say THE election? After all, many a pundit has said this is “the most important” election in our lifetime. (Seems we’ve had a lot of those in recent years.)

I confess I am feeling the weight of not being able to join my friends at our weekly lunch (a situation first imposed by the pandemic and then rendered permanent by our cross-country move): there is no opportunity to laugh away the angst generated by this election. Or maybe these usually optimistic guys are also fearful of what will happen after November 3. This stressful year has seen both the Left and the Right spawn groups willing to meet disappointment with violence. 

Nearly a half-century ago, I did a pastoral internship under Ira Stanphill (1914-1993). Stanphill wasn’t a Baptist but he still graciously allowed a student at a Baptist seminary an opportunity to meet with him weekly and listen to his wisdom. Though he was a successful pastor and evangelist, his real legacy is found in the songs he wrote. His “Room at the Cross for You” was often used during the invitation at Billy Graham crusades. But another of his songs is on my mind on this election-eve. Written in the midst of the turbulent post-war years, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, speaks of the inevitable flirtation with anxiety even in those who know the futility of worry. The song's refrain speaks to situations like those we face this election:

Many things about tomorrow

I don't seem to understand

But I know who holds tomorrow

And I know who holds my hand.

That’s certainly more comforting than, “Oh, well.”

When Should We Remember to Forget?

 Here’s some news from the Lone Star State. The Longhorn band is refusing to play “The Eyes of Texas.” It seems the song’s author, John Sinclair, writing in 1903, used a phrase UT’s president William Prather often said to the students, “the eyes of Texas are upon you,” meaning the people of Texas were expecting great things of the students. But—and here’s the bugaboo—the phrase was adapted from one Prather recalled Washington and Lee College president Robert E. Lee using, “the eyes of the south are upon you.” Hence, the objection. 

Now for something completely different. A digression, as it were. 

Way back when I graduated from seminary you couldn’t consider your study of a New Testament passage done (or started, perhaps) until you had consulted Kittel? For the innocent, I refer to the eight volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament that explored the background and use of every significant Greek word in the New Testament—and there were a lot. I even asked Pat to buy the set for me, one volume at a time, birthday, then Christmas, then anniversary. I made it to three volumes when I decided I could head to the West Texas State library to use their set—and enjoy a greater variety of gifts, gifts that didn’t tax our budget quite as much. No doubt there’s been a lot of preaching made to sound deep because of Kittel’s editorial efforts. Anyway, maybe I wasn’t paying attention when this was discussed in my classes, but I’ve discovered Gerhard Kittel was a flaming Nazi. (He had a really nasty opinion of Jews.) I can’t imagine our seminaries making a bonfire of the volumes, though I’m sure there are online resources to compete with the big blue books. More important, I’m encouraged to believe that someday the truly valuable work of some pastors and educators will be remembered when their political follies are long forgotten. Just a thought. 

Reading About Racism

      I have recently read two books on racism. One author writes from a secular (albeit not anti-religious) perspective; the other from an overtly Christian perspective (as might be expected in a book from an evangelical publisher). Each author is black; each, a southerner. Each writer addresses a post-Obama nation. Each book offers insights into the shameful problem of racism in the United States. Each book acknowledges America’s failure to live up to the vision embodied in the words: “all men are created equal.” Each book admits there is much to be done in exorcising racism from our nation’s ethos. Only one of the books celebrates the progress the nation has made in challenging racism. Only one of the books offers hope. That book is not the book written from the Christian perspective. Simply put, I find that sad.

A Forgotten Woman in Billy Graham's Life

 Joe Biden was being pressed to justify his habit of inappropriately (“uninvitedly?”) touching women. Characteristically, Biden both apologized and made jokes about the complaints. Ironically, roughly two years before the Biden story broke, the current vice-president, Mike Pence, was criticized for following what is often called “The Billy Graham Rule.” The rule, established early in the evangelist’s career and followed as a protocol by his whole team, most famously governed Graham’s behavior with women who were not members of his immediate family; in short, he refused to be alone with them—ever. It is unclear if Joe Biden ever wished he had followed Graham’s example. No matter. Our focus on Billy Graham and women, especially one woman.

After the Pence story broke, the media and the internet were rife with comments on “the rule,” some praising the practice, some condemning it as demeaning to women and to men. Law professors declared the practice to be illegal; comedians wove it into their monologues. Some Christian writers praised the rule as comforting to wives while other Christian writers declared the policy to be harmful.  In addition to providing another opportunity to attack an already unpopular administration, the discussion inspired renewed interest in Billy Graham.   

What did the world’s most famous preacher think about the role of Christian women? Ellen Ott Marshall quotes two articles from 1969 and 1970, respectively, in which Graham gave his opinion, an opinion crafted to answer the arguments of the increasingly vocal women’s movement. In Graham’s own Decision magazine he insisted the Bible teaches a woman’s “primary duty…is to be a homemaker.” The next year, in The Ladies’ Home Journal, he opined, “Wife, mother, homemaker—this is the appointed destiny of real womanhood.”  This, although Graham insisted Jesus was the true source of women’s liberation.

No wonder Anne Graham Lotz felt her parents’ displeasure as she began her preaching/teaching ministry.

Yet, there were influences in Graham’s life, even in the earliest days of his career, that may have eventually, though unintentionally, produced a broader vision for women in ministry.

From 1947 to 1952, Graham served as president of Northwestern Schools in Minneapolis. Founded in 1902 by William Bell Riley as a safe enclave to train young ministers where they would be shielded from the ravages of liberalism, the school, by 1947, functioned as a Bible school, liberal arts college, and seminary. In its earliest decades, female graduates often became missionaries, evangelists, and pastors both abroad and in the United States. By 1930, however, voices within the school’s administration and faculty began questioning the propriety of preparing women for public ministry. In September 1931, professor C. W. Foley wrote in The Pilot, the school’s widely-circulated magazine: “It is a plain as anything could possibly be, that a woman is not to take the oversight of a church, or publically preach or teach in the man’s appointed place.” Foley based his argument, in part, on the claim that a woman in public ministry was “inconsistent with the subordinate position God had assigned her.” By 1935, Riley seems to have concurred in denying women a place in public ministry.  This shift reflects the pattern reported on elsewhere in this study.

Though Foley and Riley denied women a place in public ministry, what could not be denied was the evident success of Northwestern Schools’ female graduates who were serving as evangelists and pastors. Such women could be found in churches throughout the upper Midwest and as far away as China. Chief among them were Minnie S. Nelson, who served several pastorates where she was involved in “[r]esurrecting dead churches” and “uniting divided ones,” while still traveling and preaching; and the evangelistic team of preacher Alma Reiber and singer Irene Murray, who began ministering together in 1910 and were still working as “school-sponsored evangelists” as late as 1937. 

In 1948, Minnie Nelson wrote an autobiographical sketch of her years in ministry. Her passion for service is evident; in addition to her work as a pastor she recalled, “My pulpit has often been the radio, street corners, country schoolhouses, taverns, jails, hospitals, and hundreds of homes.”  

Trollinger focuses on Alma Reiber as an exemplar, not only of female graduates of Northwestern Schools, but of male graduates as well. “Alma Reiber,” he writes in his biography of Riley, “was a wonderful example of the graduates the Northwestern Bible School produced at its most successful. Northwestern inculcated Reiber and her comrades with a burning desire to serve as Christian warriors who would advance the cause of truth in an unfriendly world.”  As president of Northwestern Schools, Graham doubtless heard of the accomplishments of women the school had sent to become pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. While that knowledge may not have been enough to cause Graham change his early opinions about women in public ministry, it may have become part of a “data bank” that could not be ignored in his later years. 

Another incident, occurring just on the cusp of Graham’s rise to fame, also involved a woman, a woman who deserves to be better known among American evangelicals. Unfortunately, her role at a crucial time in Graham’s pilgrimage is sometime omitted or forgotten. Indeed, Graham biographer Walter Martin presents her simply as a rich woman who taught a large Sunday school class and had famous friends in Hollywood. Yet, when she died, Graham said he doubted if any woman other than his wife and his mother had had so much influence on him.  

Henrietta Mears (1890-1963) was born in Fargo, North Dakota, into a prominent banking family.  Financial reverses associated with the Panic of 1893 forced the family to resettle in Minneapolis where they again prospered. 

Henrietta was converted at age seven and from that age continued to exhibit a depth of commitment unusual in a child. At age twelve she taught her first Sunday school class and continued teaching classes for most of her life. After receiving her degree from the University of Minnesota, where she studied chemistry, she taught high school and later became a principal. 

In 1927, while teaching a girls’ class in William Bell Riley’s First Baptist Church (Minneapolis), she wondered if God might be calling her into full-time Christian ministry. Her class for eighteen year-old-girls had grown from five (who called themselves “The Snobs”) to over five hundred, an accomplishment sure to draw attention. At Riley’s suggestion, Henrietta and sister Margaret took a sabbatical that included a stay in California.  The sisters visited Hollywood Presbyterian Church whose pastor Stewart P. MacLennan had met Henrietta in Minneapolis and had been impressed with her. He asked her to speak several times at the church. At his invitation, she agreed to become the education director at the church.

In 1928, she and Margaret moved to California. Within two years, Mears helped the Sunday school at Hollywood Presbyterian grow from a few hundred to over four thousand. Dissatisfied with the quality of Sunday school literature available—she believed it boring and ill-suited for children—she began writing her own. Her material was unique in that it was graded, specially prepared for different ages in the Sunday school. Many churches found the material useful and asked Mears for copies. As a consequence, in 1933, Mears and some business partners founded Gospel Light Press to meet the need for good quality, evangelical Sunday school literature.

Mears became convinced ministry to college students was crucial. She taught a popular class for these students who were often at critical junctures in their pilgrimages. In 1937 this conviction led her to found the Forest Home Conference Center where students could hear clear Bible teachings from some of the world’s best teachers and be challenged to a greater commitment to Christ. These conferences would continue for more than a quarter-century.

In 1948, Mears invited a rising young evangelist to be one of the speakers, Billy Graham. As president of Northwestern Schools, Graham was the youngest college president in the US; and as an evangelist for Youth for Christ, he had had great success in calling men and women to Christ. Unknown to Mears, he was also facing a spiritual crisis.

Graham’s good friend and fellow YFC evangelist Chuck Templeton had begun to have doubts about the reliability of the Bible and the relevance of the message both he and Graham had been preaching. Templeton had also been invited to Forest Home for the conference. With seventy-year’s hindsight, it’s clear the mountain retreat became a battleground: the prize was Billy’s heart. 

There had been previous skirmishes. Templeton had once traveled to North Carolina to challenge Billy’s traditional faith. The impact of Templeton’s campaign on Graham was telling; in the first issue of Christianity Today (October 1956), he spoke of his struggle. He said the doubts had impacted his ability to preach with authority, and added, “Like hundreds of young seminary students, I was waging the intellectual battle of my life.”  In his autobiography, Graham admitted he had determined that should the crisis go unresolved, he would leave the ministry and become a dairy farmer.  Templeton, brilliant and charismatic, aimed to win Graham to his brand of urbane skepticism. 

At the same time, Mears, along with British historian/evangelist J. Edwin Orr (another conference speaker), set out to assure Graham of the Bible’s trustworthiness. While Templeton taunted him, Mears and Orr prayed with him and for him.  But both Mears and Orr were also able to discuss the scholarship Templeton found so attractive. Of Mears’s, Graham wrote, "She had faith in the integrity of the Scriptures and an understanding of Bible truth as well as modern scholarship. I was desperate for every insight she could give me."  

Although, A. J. Appasamy stresses Orr’s involvement in helping Graham through the struggle, Graham focuses on Mears’s role. He speaks of having “times of prayer and private discussion with Miss Mears at her cottage.” Apparently, these were far from dispassionate discussions of modern theological options. Graham recalled, “I ached as if I were on the rack, with Miss Mears stretching me one way and Chuck Templeton stretching me the other.”  

Of course, this struggle ended with the now-famous “stump prayer,” that moment when Graham resolved to preach the Bible as God’s Word, despite being unable to resolve all the questions he may have had. In time, Graham would describe Mears as "the great Christian educator and Bible teacher who had been so instrumental in my spiritual growth in Los Angeles."  Billy Graham might have found his way through this period of doubt without Henrietta Mears’s help; that she was so instrumental earns her the gratitude of all who have benefited from Graham’s ministry.

Wendy Murray Zoba described Mears as “the ‘grandmother’ of modern evangelicalism.”  I won’t quarrel with the accolade, though I understand if some might question why I would include Mears in this account. After all, she probably would have never accepted ordination and always believed herself teaching under the authority of the pastor—avoiding using the pulpit in most cases. Yet, even when she subordinated herself to the pastor, she believed she functioned as an equal, possessing a “strong sense of authority.” Vonette Bright, wife of Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright, in whose home Mears lived for several years, recalled, "[S]he could be impatient with a person who did not give her an opportunity to do what she had been called to do."   

Jennifer Tait wrote, “Henrietta would never allow herself to be called a "preacher," though others attributed the title to her. She believed that preaching was a male role and preferred "Teacher," which became the loving nickname her friends and students called her.”  This was a somewhat ironic stance for a woman bred in fundamentalism; after all didn’t Paul say, “I do not permit a woman to teach?” Obviously, she had found “wiggle” room, perhaps because she knew—deep in her heart—her beloved Paul would not have asked her to deny her obvious gift. But I digress.

I have spent so much time on this important woman because she was an important woman—in Billy Graham’s life. Knowing he was almost certainly aware of women like Alma Reiber and sensing his clear admiration for Henrietta Mears, we might have expected Graham to have held an advanced view of women as he emerged on the American scene. As we’ve seen, that wasn’t the case.

Ellen Marshall’s analysis of Graham’s viewpoint implies the evangelist failed to see its inherent contradictions. In short, Jesus liberates women but not to do what he frees men to do. She cites William Martin’s biography of Graham at length to illustrate.

Given his own marriage to a strong and capable woman, Graham had to admit that ‘in one sense, the husband and wife are co-equal in the home; but when it comes to the governmental arrangement of the family, the Bible…teaches that man is to be the head of the home…He is the king of the household, and you, his wife, are the queen.’ A proper queen, he said, would prepare the king’s favorite dishes, have the meals on time, make their home as attractive and comfortable as possible, and feel ‘it is her duty, responsibility, and privilege to remain at home with the children.’ 

This prompts Marshall to write:

I do truly believe that Graham values equality and freedom for all people and that he believes that Christianity ensures these things. And yet his argument for gender-prescribed vocations is deeply inconsistent with these core commitments. To put it simply, one cannot simultaneously affirm equality and freedom and prescribe vocation according to gender.

Regardless of gender, all people must have equal freedom to pursue their own sense of vocation, whether that is primarily in the home or not. Vocational discernment is not a matter of fulfilling a biblically prescribed duty but of prayerful consideration of one’s gifts, attentiveness to one’s calling, and accountability to one’s deepest commitments to self, to family, and to community. Vocational discernment is not a matter of adhering to rules. It is about crafting a life that is authentic and meaningful. 

She is more succinct when she says, “Either we are all equal, with the same range of freedom, or we are not.”  She further challenges what she sees as Graham’s insistence that women are made to be mothers (mothers who stay at home) and his persistent observation that world-changers tend to be sons (who have been shaped by godly, stay-at-home mothers) with no hint that daughters might be world-changers other than indirectly.

She further challenges Graham’s charge that any woman who does pursue a vocation outside the home is guilty of pride and rebellion. Instead, she suggests women who do not use their gifts to benefit a world wider than their household may, like the man in the parable, be guilty of burying her talents. She is, however, careful to avoid judging either the women who work outside the home or those who don’t. 

Marshall doesn’t expend much effort in exploring changes in Graham’s opinions over nearly five decades. That is regrettable. During that half-century there was a movement toward a broader understanding of what God is about in the world. For instance, many in Graham’s denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, once believed “speaking in tongues” either to be demonic or an expression of mental illness. The libraries of some Baptist colleges catalogued books on Pentecostals under “cults.” Although such harsh judgments are seldom made today, key leaders believe the convention’s chief doctrinal statement presents “a de facto cessationist” position; that is, Baptists who claim to follow the statement are expected to teach that spiritual gifts such as tongues ceased at the end of the apostolic age.  By 1987, Graham acknowledged God had “used the charismatic movement throughout the world to wake up a lot of communities”; at the same time, conceding many “godly people” have the gift of tongues, a gift they have found to be life-changing. 

 Graham vexed wife Ruth when he announced his new opposition to the death penalty, having concluded it was too often unjustly and wrongly applied—nothing suggests Ruth ever changed her mind. Though part of a denomination where many ministers still condemn using any form of alcohol, Graham insisted the Bible does not teach teetotalism and admitted taking an occasional drink of wine—at bedtime. Formerly known for his hawkish stance, the evangelist came to believe the arms race was detrimental to nations’ economies and ultimately made peace less likely. From seeing feminists as prideful rebels he came to acknowledge “women have been discriminated against.” And, while never abandoning the evangelistic imperative to call each man and woman to trust Christ, he became more supportive of a gospel with explicit social implications. He would eventually say of himself: “I am a man who is still in process.”  Though he was speaking of his new appreciation of the “peace movement,” the description applies to other long-held views.

Including the issue of women’s ordination. Early in the 1970s Graham began to move toward a more supportive position on women in ministry. From 1975 to 1977, he had moved from uncertainty on the issue to saying, “I don’t object to it like some do because so many of the leaders of the early church were women. They prophesied. They taught.” Having grounded his still somewhat modest support on scripture, he then turned to the modern church to observe: “You go on the mission fields today and many of our missionaries are women who are preachers and teachers.”  

Apparently, he even conceded women might one day be accepted in the role of pastors. William Martin outlines Graham’s position:

‘I think [women as pastors] is coming probably, and I think it will be accepted more and more. I know a lot of women who are far superior to men when it comes to ministering to others.’ Men might resist giving them full rights in the church, but such women ‘are ordained of God whether they had men to lay hands on them and give them a piece of paper or not. I think God called them.’ 

By the mid-1980s, Graham was allowing a few such women to lead prayer and take more visible roles in his crusades, thus “quietly [placing] his stamp of approval on women ministers.”  Graham, who eschewed the term “inerrancy” because of its divisive nature, might not have called himself an “egalitarian” in the debates over women in ministry but his position was far from that of John R. Rice. 

While Marshall’s essay on Graham’s view of women is helpful, she does not stress a very significant matter. Years ago, Billy Graham denied being a “fundamentalist.” Not everyone believed him. After all, he regarded the Bible as the Word of God; he believed Jesus was born of a virgin; he claimed Jesus had died for sinners and had risen again; he preached that Jesus was coming again; he insisted all need to repent and be born again. He sure sounded like a fundamentalist. But critics who made that charge missed two important points. Billy regularly acknowledged those who disagreed with him were still good Christians and, more significantly, he sometimes changed his mind. Not traits most fundamentalists exhibit.

Lessons from Gilligan's Island

 Maybe you’ve seen the bumper sticker: “Even on Gilligan’s Island they listened to the professor, not the millionaire.” Someone has invoked characters from the iconic TV series to comment on the administration’s seeming paucity of scientific knowledge. If you’re going to play around with a classic, you’d better remember there might be other lessons to be learned from the “uncharted desert isle.”

The millionaire (and his wife), the professor, the movie star, and the farm girl were all kept safe by veterans.

While the actress always looked good, she didn’t contribute much—on the other hand, she didn’t threaten to leave the island if she didn’t get her way.

The professor, who improved the quality of life on the island in so many ways, still couldn’t fix the boat.

The millionaire was always generous, and the beneficiaries of his largess were too smart to call him evil or demand he stop making money.

Even with a movie star, an Ivy-leaguer, and an academic in their number, most of the work was done by an old guy, a Midwesterner, and a former boy scout.

Echoes From the Playground

 We’ve moved from Ohio back to Texas. We bought a house we saw only on the internet and drove 1,200 miles from Worthington to Austin in two days—at our age and in the midst of a pandemic (insert shout-outs to safety minded Tru-Hilton hotels). Our route took us through southwest Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and northeast Texas. We ate at drive-through restaurants and never took breaks to “stretch our legs” in roadside stores or malls. But we did have to stop for gas and other issues (delicacy forbids giving details).

I admit feeling apprehensive in a convenience store in Tennessee. Stepping in, I realized I was the only masked person in the store. Would they imagine I had come to rob the place and call the sheriff? Or would they grab their squirrel guns? I shouldn’t have worried. The scornful looks from the clerks and other customers told me they knew I was just another foolish Yankee who believed in “the plandemic.” (A term used by conspiracy theorists who claim the Coronavirus crisis is designed to make money for drug companies, or to undermine the Trump presidency.)

 As it happens, from the time we crossed the Ohio River until we reached the outskirts of Dallas, I recall only signs and bumper stickers supporting the current resident of the White House; and not a few homemade banners and billboards celebrating his successes, not to mention the F-150s flying flags declaring, “Keep America Great.” One might imagine the absence of masks to somehow be connected. But pursuing that issue would be digressing. And I don’t digress.

But I will ask why some people resist wearing the masks. There seems to be ample evidence they help prevent us being infected or infecting others.

Why are some people refusing to wear masks?

Is it a matter of rejecting science? Are these folks along I-40 mocked (chastised) in those smug signs that say (among other things), “In this house we believe…science is real…?” (Any day now I expect “…the media is unbiased…” to be added to the list. But I digress. Oops.) I suppose a legacy of the Scopes Trial has been the perception of the scientifically vacuous South. Has the presence of Duke, Vanderbilt, and Rice meant nothing? Sure, some of those good old boys in that store might insist the earth is only 10,000 years old, but they know enough science to know a NASCAR doesn’t run on regular. And don’t forget that sad note in Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe,” recalling how “… there was a virus going ‘round, Papa caught it and he died….” Any Southerner who listens to oldies radio knows viruses kill!

So is it regional? Why does Costco (based in Seattle) require customers to wear masks while Sam’s Club (based in Arkansas) “suggests” customers wear masks? Why do leaders in Southern states insist schools must resume in-person classes (at the same schools so many of these leaders claim are ineffective)? Much as I’d like to argue the rebellion against masks is regional, I admit I saw many maskless faces back in Columbus, especially amongst the bright young folks on the OSU campus (the positivity rate among students being tested for COVID-19 hovers around 4%, well above the national average). Ultimately, the issue might not be where people live but among whom they live; if wearing a mask earns the scorn of those we wish to impress, we will skip the mask no matter how dangerous not wearing it might be. Perhaps this is why Dr. Andrew Fauchi encourages Americans to set a good example by wearing masks: he hopes people will chose to be leaders, not followers.

Is not wearing a mask foolish bravado? A friend had furniture delivered to her home; the driver had no mask. When she mentioned his maskless condition, the driver said, “The virus? I’m not afraid of that thing.” I thought an appropriate response would have been, “That’s only fair, ‘cause it’s not afraid of you. It will get right up your nose.” It seems like the unmasked can display such courage only if they don’t have parents or grandparents or, as we now know, children who might be vulnerable, only if they have health insurance to pay for a four-to-six week stay in the hospital, only if they can stand to lose their jobs, only if their spouses don’t mind quarantining, risking their jobs, and their own health. Still, in a world where people smoke despite warnings, ride motorcycles without helmets, wear plaids with stripes, there will be those who go maskless because they believe “it” can’t happen to them. But, of course, just as there will be smokers who develop lung cancer, helmetless riders who have head injuries, and sartorially impaired who never have second dates, there will be those who eschew masks and contract COVID-19. Real bravery faces criticism and defies peer pressure by acting responsibly for the sake of others—and ourselves. And that isn’t foolish.

In the end, people aren’t wearing masks because they don’t want to. Encourage them to wear masks by saying, “Not everything is about you;” and they’re likely to respond, “I’ve never heard anything so silly in my entire life.” Consider this analogy. In the United States at least one in ten pregnant women still drinks alcohol, despite its link to birth defects related to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. And expectant mothers in the US aren’t the worst offenders; Ireland, Denmark, and the UK have rates of 60%, 46%, and 41%, respectively. The prevalence of FAS in those countries follows the same pattern. Women in these countries, with their government sponsored health care programs, cannot claim ignorance about the risk. In the much of the world, any woman picking up a bottle of beer can read a warning like this from the European Alcohol Policy Alliance, “Drinking any alcohol can harm your unborn baby.” Still, they drink.

Should I show a little compassion because such women are obviously addicted? Addiction is real, but on that scale? My seventy-five-year-old grandfather developed polyps on his vocal cords and was told he had to quit smoking. Though he had been “rolling his own” since he was a teenager, he never smoked again. I’m sure the temptation to light-up was great but the desire to keep living was greater (he did live, dying just short of his 101^st birthday). Addictions can be beaten. Surely, most of the women who continue to drink alcohol while pregnant don’t stop because they don’t want to.

No matter the excuse, people who won’t wear masks are barefaced narcissists. Usually, their excuses are shallow: “my glasses fog up,” “I can’t breathe with a mask on,” or “the mask hurts my ears.” Of course, sometimes the excuses are lofty. An Ohio politician won’t wear a mask because he claims it is an offense against God since we are made in God’s image. By no means do I wish to deny that humankind reflects the imago dei, but that politician is spouting bad theology. (Orthodox theology does not interpret “the image of God” in physical terms; rather, it suggests we humans, like God, possess intelligence, creativity, will, a capacity for relationships, and a moral sense. But I digre… you know.)

In short, individuals who won’t wear a mask are standing with fists on their hips, as they would have on the playground, and saying to the government, to the medical establishment, to the community at large, “You’re not the boss of me.” Though, should they get sick, they will certainly expect the government, the medical establishment, and the community to have a bed ready.