Great Medium for Messages

The long arms chopped the smokeless air of Manhattan's Madison Square Garden and the bone rigid forefinger jabbed at the TV screen. "Right in your living room," came the muscular Southern voice, "right in your bedrooms, right in a bar--you can let Christ come in." Wearing TV blue but no makeup, Carolina-tanned Billy Graham was bringing down the third-act curtain on the first live U.S. telecast of his New York Crusade. But as Billy continued his "invitation" ("just get up quickly and come right on down"), he was drowned out in a cue mixup by a "special announcer" plugging a Graham book and unctuously imploring viewers to "let us know if Dr. Graham has been a blessing to you." That night Billy went back to his hotel depressed and discouraged. Besides the technical mixup, he had been "nervous and bothered by the camera rolling around in front" of him. "He thought," said a helper, "that he had failed God."

But if the 61-station show was the "holy mess" Billy's team imagined, nobody else seemed to notice. Variety tagged it a "surefire click," hailed Billy as "tremendous box office." Trendex awarded him an 8.1 rating, highest ever registered by ABC for the crucial time slot opposite TV Titans Jackie Gleason and Perry Como. (Said Perry: "Very fine rating." Said Jackie: "No comment.") That meant (if the rating systems can be relied on to calculate audiences) an audience of about 7,000,000, biggest single congregation in the history of U.S. evangelism and enough to fill the Garden every day for a whole year. By week's end more than 35,000 favorable letters ("I found God last night on TV") had poured into Crusade headquarters, and Billy, both "surprised and gratified," exulted: "Many viewers wrote they made decisions for Christ--right in their homes."

Perhaps recalling too that TV's other inspirational spellbinder Bishop Fulton Sheen had begun his electronic tenure opposite Milton Berle and was still going strong last season against I Love Lucy, Revivalist Graham returned to the TV pulpit this weekend more streamlined and confident than ever. Eschewing the hell-fire-and-brimstone theatrics of his historical predecessors, he pitched his sermon just as he had for 24 consecutive nights to huge Garden crowds. He also added to his TV experience this week with Sunday appearances on Meet the Press and Steve Allen's Sunday night vaudeville hour. Explained Billy: "There is no difficulty being an evangelist and using TV at the same time."

To Billy, TV is "the greatest medium to get the message across and serves to break down public indifference to the church." Yet he admits: "Although I have a deep inner peace, I have an exterior fear before every program and get perspiration on my palms." Will he continue in TV after his costly ($270,000), four-week stint for ABC? "If we can get some institutional sponsors, such as a bank or steel company. And if I can find more of an inner sense of direction toward the medium--that is, get a green light from the Lord."

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