Saturday, October 25, 1997

Franklin Graham crusade draws mixed reaction

By Tom Schaefer

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Franklin Graham, heir to the evangelistic empire that bears his father's name, is coming to Wichita.

And not everyone is happy about it.

The fact is, whenever Graham arrives in a city for a crusade, there's always some opposition. "I've had people come forward to mock me," he told the Argus Leader newspaper last month before the start of his crusade in Sioux Falls, S.D. But those attacks, he added, are rare.

Weeks before Graham's arrival in Wichita, comments published in The Wichita Eagle have shown strong support and some opposition.

Many say that Graham's crusade is just what the city needs to create greater cooperation among churches and to save "lost souls." Some insist that the four-day crusade is too costly or too "pushy" with its religious views. A few have, in effect, said to crusade supporters: Keep your religion to yourself.

Even some members of the clergy are less than enthusiastic about the crusade.

A few months ago, a local minister (not my church) preached on the topic of why he isn't supporting the crusade. "My problem is this: How do people best come to Christ?" he asked. His answer: "Through the local congregation."

The preacher acknowledged that the intent of the crusade is to match converts with congregations, but "fundamentally it ends up endorsing the individualism of our age, rather than counteracting it."

This is nothing new. Crusades to convert non-Christians have always been controversial, even in this land of religious freedom.

In the early 1700s, the Great Awakening movement featured itinerant preachers who railed against sin in spirited sermons. Crowds responded by shouting and weeping as they fell on their faces seeking salvation - in striking contrast to the staid services of the established churches of their time. Clergymen of those churches weren't always happy to have such preachers "stealing their flocks."

A Second Great Awakening, which began in Kentucky in the late 1700s, spawned a new form of a crusade: the camp meeting. People pitched their tents in an open area and listened by torchlight to fiery preachers well into the night. (Mark Twain gives one of the best descriptions of such a camp meeting in "Huckleberry Finn.")

Also during this time, frontier evangelists called circuit riders traveled by horseback from town to town spreading the Word. Francis Asbury, a Methodist missionary from England, logged more than 300,000 miles on horseback preaching to people in the Atlantic colonies.

Wichita was a popular spot for outdoor revivals. In the early 1900s, a campground in south Wichita became a regular gathering spot for evening revivals. In 1911, when evangelist Billy Sunday preached there for six weeks, 1.3 million people reportedly traveled by streetcar to hear him.

Crusades, in other words, have been a lively part of our nation's history.

But the evangelistic fervor that called for individual conversion has also been tempered by a call for social reform: Heaven-bound souls need some earthly care.

Dorothea Dix started a crusade in the mid-1800s for the humane treatment of the mentally ill. At the turn of the century, Jane Addams espoused the cause of homeless people, and Walter Rauschenbush, a Baptist from New York, rallied followers to change the appalling conditions of the city's slums.

Saving souls or caring for a person's physical needs? It was then, and still is, a contentious issue.

For fundamentalist and evangelical churches, the command to "preach the gospel to the whole world" is primary and followed to the letter. For other churches, the gospel doesn't necessarily mean converting "lost souls" to Christianity. Issues of social justice and care for the downtrodden have moved to the top of their agenda. In part, that's why some churches won't be supporting the Graham crusade.

Then there are those people who are not Christians and want nothing to do with those who proselytize. In the past, they may have felt threatened by a crusade and remained silent. Today, many will speak out against what they believe are threats to their right to be left alone.

On Sunday, the Franklin Graham crusade will set up its pulpit and invite a community to come and hear the gospel message. Undoubtedly, thousands will show up and, perhaps, begin life anew.

Thousands more will stay away - because they disagree with the message, because they're uncomfortable with the crusade's type of evangelism, or because of matters unrelated to the issues of evangelism and faith.

The strength of our nation, and the issue on which most can agree, is that each of us has the freedom to say "yes" or "no" to this spiritual invitation - without being persecuted.

The question of who's doing evangelism the right way, or whether it should even be done, really doesn't matter.

Eternal destinies, after all, are not ours to choose.

(Tom Schaefer writes about religion and ethics for the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle. Write to him at the Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, KS 67201, or send e-mail to tschaefer(at)wichitaeagle.com )

(c) 1997, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.).

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