Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Grant Wacker
The Dean of American Church Historians
Memories and reflections on Martin E. Marty, a scholar of remarkable influence, kindness, and wit, from a friend and colleague of 50 years. Martin E. Marty, the " dean of American church historians," died on February 25 at age 97. Born and reared in the village of West Point, Nebraska-Willa Cather country, he said-he would go on to serve Lutheran churches in the Chicago area for ten years before studying and then teaching at the University of Chicago from 1963 until he retired in 1998.
On the Road with Richard Bushman
Keywords Richard Bushman, Protestant, Joseph Smith, Translation Abstract Richard Bushman invited me to respond to his essay, given my long-standing interest in the Protestant encounter with world religions. With this very short essay of my own, I am pleased to offer a few words of appreciation and thoughts about further inquiries. Recommended Citation Wacker, Grant (2024) "On the Road with Richard Bushman," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 63: Iss. 1, Article 6.
Oneness Pentecostalism
Description Bio Table of Contents Sample Chapters Subjects This volume traces the history of Oneness Pentecostalism in North America. It maps the major ideas, arguments, periodization, and historical figures; corrects long-standing misinterpretations; and draws attention to how race and gender impacted the growth and trajectories of this movement.
Russ Spittler, Comrade for Keeps
I knew Russ for nearly sixty years, and great ones they were. Though I am now a United Methodist, I grew up in the “mother” church of the Assemblies of God, Central Assembly, in Springfield, Missouri. At the time, Russ was teaching at Central Bible Institute (now absorbed into Evangel University) across town, and he also worshiped at Central.
Ministers of a New Medium
"This gracefully written, deeply researched, and subtly argued volume illumines a strangely under-studied topic: the conjunction of the rise of electronic mass communications, the emergence of two radio celebrities from dramatically different traditions, and their role in the reception of historic Christian faith in mid-twentieth-century America. Of evangelicals such as Charles Fuller, Billy Graham, and Aimee McPherson, we already know a fair amount. But by focusing on ministries of Fulton J.
When Billy Graham Took His Ministry Transatlantic
Billy Graham was a born salesman, and he knew it. In the summer of 1936, after graduating from high school, he crisscrossed South Carolina selling Fuller brushes door to door. By the end, he had posted the best record in the state. The experience taught him a lesson he never forgot: If you have the best product in the world, then herald it with fervent conviction and the best marketing tools at hand. This background informs the story Uta A.
Influential UMC bibliographer Kenneth Rowe dies at 84
(Photo courtesy of United Methodist General Commission on Archives and History) Kenneth Rowe, a historian who was known as the leading United Methodist bibliographer, died on October 8. He was 84. “He completely reshaped how we understand the narrative of Methodism in America, expanding it to include indigenous persons, women and LGBTQ+ persons,” said the United Methodist Commission on Archives and History in a remembrance.
Opinion | Jerry Falwell Jr.’s downfall won’t change anything for evangelicals
Grant Wacker is an emeritus professor of Christian history at Duke Divinity School. In many ways, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s recent crash and burn is a big deal. As president of Liberty University since 2007, he built it into one of the largest and most influential conservative Christian schools in the world, claiming more than 100,000 online and residential students, and assets approaching $3 billion.
Billy Graham Is Still Shaping American Politics
Just before Christmas last year, Mark Galli of Christianity Today dropped a bomb in the already turbid waters of American evangelicalism. He called for President Donald Trump’s removal, either by ballot or by impeachment. Billy Graham’s ghost stalked the drama that followed. The evangelist had founded the magazine in 1956. Though dead for nearly two years, and off the public stage for nearly 20, he still mattered. Almost everyone invoked Graham one way or another.
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: A Symposium | Grant Wacker
Someone has quipped that an evangelical can be defined as someone who says to a liberal, “I’ll call you a Christian if you’ll call me a scholar.” Though Wheaton College historian Mark Noll knows all the one- liners about evangelicals, this one does not make his book. Evangelicals’ anti-intellectualism is no laughing matter.
Female Evangelical Leaders Have a Hidden Predecessor to Thank
“You have been called ‘hypnotic, charismatic, hypnotizing,’” said Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in 1974. His guest resisted. With a disarming smile, she said she was “just the most ordinary person in the world.” Carson didn’t buy it. “You’re not quite ordinary.” With this telling anecdote, Amy Artman launches her masterful biography of Kathryn Kuhlman, a charismatic healing evangelist who emerged in the post-World War II era alongside Oral Roberts.
They Called Him Billy
Several years ago, my wife, Katherine, and I spent a week researching letters that Americans sent to the evangelist Billy Graham, who died in 2018 at age 99. One day we stumbled on an undiscovered cache of children’s messages. They provide a window into Graham’s remarkably wide appeal. Most of the letters’ authors were seven to eleven years old, and often addressed the evangelist with his full name, but also very often, just as Billy. He offered them a safe space for sharing their fears and hopes.
How Billy Graham Learned the Art of Preaching
When I entered my small Methodist church one Sunday morning in February of 2018, Bob Maddry, a retired truck driver and old chum, walked over. “I lost a dear friend this week,” he said. “Billy Graham brought me to Jesus. He saved my life.” Bob paused and then added, “I never shook his hand.” A couple of weeks later, I asked Bob if he remembered where and when his conversion had taken place. He answered immediately and precisely. “Raleigh.
How Billy Graham Learned the Art of Preaching
When I entered my small Methodist church one Sunday morning a few winters ago, Bob Maddry, a retired truck driver and old chum, walked over. “I lost a dear friend this week,” he said. “Billy Graham brought me to Jesus. He saved my life.” Bob paused and then added, “I never shook his hand.” A couple of weeks later, I asked Bob if he remembered where and when his conversion had taken place. He answered immediately and precisely. “Raleigh.
How Billy Graham Learned the Art of Preaching
When I entered my small Methodist church one Sunday morning a few winters ago, Bob Maddry, a retired truck driver and old chum, walked over. “I lost a dear friend this week,” he said. “Billy Graham brought me to Jesus. He saved my life.” Bob paused and then added, “I never shook his hand.” A couple of weeks later, I asked Bob if he remembered where and when his conversion had taken place. He answered immediately and precisely. “Raleigh.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham, who died Wednesday at the age of 99, tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
Billy Graham's America
Grant Wacker, professor of Christian History at Duke University and a member of the Christian History advisory board, is working on a cultural biography of Graham, titled Billy Graham's America, to be published by Harvard University Press in 2011. He is giving us an advance peek at his research in the following essay—which is a condensed version of an article by the same title published in Church History, September 2009.
Commentary: Billy Graham approached own death with candor
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
The Legacy of Billy Graham | Grant Wacker
Billy Graham, who died Wednesday at age 99, may have addressed more people face-to-face than anyone else in history. By the time he retired in 2005, he had preached to 215 million people in nearly one hundred countries and to additional hundreds of millions through electronic media. Between 1955 and 2017, he won a spot on the Gallup Organization’s roster of “Ten Most Admired Men” 61 times, far outdistancing all rivals. In that regard, Graham was less a preacher than a Protestant saint.
My Turn: Grant Wacker: Spreading Christianity to millions
By Grant Wacker Billy Graham, who died Wednesday at 99, may have addressed more people face-to-face than anyone else in history. By the time he retired in 2005, he had preached to 215 million people in nearly 100 countries and to additional hundreds of millions through electronic media.From 1955 to 2017, he won a spot on the Gallup Organization’s roster of “Ten Most Admired Men” 61 times, far outdistancing all rivals. In that regard, Graham was less a preacher than a Protestant saint.
Evangelical Boilerplate
Every age of American history has had its star evangelist, a celebrity preacher whose call to repent and believe drew throngs of the faithful and the fallen. They convinced their followers that they could win the country for Christ, and earned the attention—and sometimes even the grudging respect—of elite observers. During the middle decades of the eighteenth century, George Whitefield rode up and down the Eastern Seaboard, enrapturing crowds of tens of thousands.
Book Review: America’s Pastor
America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation Burly Brooklyn-born actor Paul Sorvino isn’t generally associated with comedic roles, but in Carl Reiner’s 1977 film Oh,God! he’s clearly relishing the chance to send up American big-business televangelism by portraying his character, Reverend Willie Williams (dubbed by the President himself, we’re told, as “God’s own quarterback”) as a venal, short-tempered, bullying con man.
‘You cannot count your days, but you can make your days count’ - How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, people should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death. While some fundamentalists predicted that some believers would escape death in the rapture, the evangelist repeatedly insisted that death fell on everyone.
Billy Graham: After years of preaching of the inevitability of death, he squarely faced his own
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
Billy Graham left unparalleled mark on America’s faith
Billy Graham, who died Wednesday at age 99, may have addressed more people face-to-face than anyone else in history. By the time he retired in 2005, he had preached to 215 million people in nearly 100 countries and to additional hundreds of millions through electronic media.Between 1955 and 2017, he won a spot on the Gallup Organization’s roster of “Ten Most Admired Men” 61 times, far outdistancing all rivals.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
Grant Wacker: How Billy Graham Prepared for Death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. As no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
Guest Opinion: How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Grant Wacker Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
Billy Graham approached his own death with resolve
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the good news of salvation in Christ. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, we should think instead about the sure thing we do know: the certainty of our own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
Billy Graham has died. Here's how he approached his own death.
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99 in his home in Montreat, N.C. When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. As no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
How an aging Billy Graham approached his own death
Evangelist Billy Graham tackled the topic of death often and with surprising frankness for a man who made his living telling people the Good News of salvation in Christ. Graham died Wednesday at the age of 99.When Graham preached, he said that death was, of course, inevitable. Since no one knew when Christ would return, he said, everyone should think instead about the sure thing they did know: the certainty of their own death.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Grant
Contact Grant, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack