The reader will remember that some months ago [Issue 3, 11/1/1965] I criticized an essay by Dr. Billy Graham on "The New Birth." This essay was published by Christianity Todayas one of a series of essays on "Fundamentals of Faith." But the essay itself was excerpted from Dr. Graham's recent book, "World Aflame."
Partly through some correspondence with a Calvinist friend in England who was also interested in this book of Graham, and partly, I suppose, out of a certain innate curiosity and desire "to see for myself", I purchased the book. I wanted to see whether the entire book was like the sample given in the essay on "The New Birth."
Billy Graham has had a huge influence. I hope this article [will be as] enlightening for our younger readers as it was for me to write it. What we know today as “mainstream evangelicalism” follows largely in the footsteps of Graham. I hope you are able to see from this article the connections between what Graham stood for and what surrounds us today in what is called “mainstream American Christianity”—dispensationalism, false ecumenicism, the extreme prevalence of will-worship, watered-down Arminian preaching, moral...
