Billy Graham: the Pope of Protestant America

The mid- twentieth century was a period of great change and development in many aspects of the world. World War II was coming to a close, the development of nuclear and atomic warheads was becoming prioritized, and people around the world were diving into an interesting new world containing new developments in technology. This revolutionary period also brought about more freedom and lack of reliance on the church for support. Many Americans sought to break free from the strict governing of the church and find themselves in the world. Countless lost their faith in God and choose to live lives unrestricted by a deity. Yet there were also others whom had not yet met this God that so many had lost faith in after the war; people around the world and some just down the street. This is when the famed Billy Graham begins to earn the renown he is known for. Billy Graham is the most famous evangelist the twentieth century had ever known and he holds his reputation to this day. William Franklin Graham Jr. was born on November 7, 1918 in Charlotte, North Carolina. He lived on a small dairy farm with his mother and father, Morrow and William, and his three other siblings. It was a traveling evangelist named Mordecai Ham that first started Graham down his spiritual path of righteousness. Graham had attended spiritual revivals that spoke to the sixteen year old. So after high school, he traveled to Tennessee to attend Bob Jones College but quickly transferred to Florida Bible Institute because of the disconnection he felt from the school. He then joined the Baptist Convention Church and was ordained in 1939. Once Graham graduated from Florida Bible Institute, having earned a bachelor’s degree in Theology, he went to Wheaton College in Illinois to extend his training. Here he met his future wife, Ruth McCue Bell and they would have five children together. Graham began his journey by briefly pastoring the First Baptist Church in Western Springs, Illinois and then joined Youth