Shall We Co-operate With Dr. Billy Graham. (Question Box)

J.W. Deenick. Trowel & Sword, September 1958.

Preamble: Following on from last week’s article from Rev. van Groningen we have a second article, from Rev. J.W. Deenick regarding the visit by Dr. Graham. He is responding to a question from an unnamed subscriber who asks what to many would appear to be a reasonable question. I wonder how many of today’s pastors/ministers would answer in a similar way.

QUESTION: Dominie, it seems that some conservative christians object to the evangelistic methods of Dr. Billy Graham. What will our attitude be when he comes to Australia and New Zealand? Can there be any objection against working together with a man so sound in his message and so fruitful in his work? Should not our ministers act as counsellors on the committees for the follow-up work after the campaign? Or are we opposed to everything and everybody just for the sake of being “in the opposition”?

ANSWER: You are right, Dr. Graham is coming to Australia and New Zealand at the invitation of the National Councils of Churches in Australia and in New Zealand.

To begin with our Reformed churches are not represented in these national councils, as I believe for good reasons. I think I could formulate the main objection of our Reformed churches to the world council and to the national councils in this way. That we object to cooperation with churches that are so manifestly rejecting the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Scriptures, in their inner church life. We have separated ourselves from these churches. We did not believe that we could trust ourselves or our children to the guidance or to the pastoral care of these churches. We did not join the Presbyterian Church because we knew that we could not trust its gospel preaching in many places from many pulpits. We therefore encourage both Australians, New Zealanders and Dutchmen to join us in the Witness for the faith of the Protestant Reformation, which we believe to be the message of the bible itself.

Now Dr. Graham is coming to this part of the world in order to preach the message of salvation. We trust that he will do that, as he has generally done, in a scriptural way . We believe however that in some respects his message is not sufficiently clear and in others too limited. To give one example, we believe that the message of the sovereign grace of God should be preached more emphatically than Dr Graham does. Moreover, we believe that his activity is more revivalistic, along the lines of the Wesleys, Moody and Sunday, than Reformed in the tradition of Luther, Calvin, Hodge and Machen. In this and in other respects Dr. Graham upholds the teachings of arminianism, which we reject.

Our main problem is not what Dr. Graham preaches. We wholeheartedly agree with most of what he proclaims so powerfully. In 1954 we wrote in Trowel and Sword : “We have greatly enjoyed the reports on Dr. Graham’s campaign, most of all because it has become evident again what the world needs, even in our age  is clear and fundamental gospel preaching”.

We then continued: “but as far as we understand the Scriptures and the history of the Christian Church the deadly weak side of Dr. Graham’s crusade is the fact, that he is co-operating with people, who actually hate his message and will do their utmost to shipwreck whatever he might have achieved”.

And that is the problem. An evangelistic campaign demands follow-up work. 

“Converts” must be guided to a full understanding of the Scriptures. This follow-up work will be entrusted both in Australia and New Zealand to many sincere Christians, but also to many who cannot be trusted for one minute, and who believe nothing of what Dr. Graham preaches. It is Dr. Graham’s method to seek the follow-up workers among the so called modernists as much as among the so called evangelicals.

A Reformed follow-up worker or as he is called “counsellor” would know that in the next room his colleague would possibly deny what he affirms. Moreover, a Reformed counsellor would have to promise that he will send every “convert” back to the church to which he originally belonged in the Protestant or Catholic world. That is, I believe, a promise we can never make. We cannot advise someone else to do the thing we refused to do ourselves. We openly stated: these churches are not trustworthy. We cannot honestly say to one seeking Christian: they are good enough for you.

We do not believe, that this would be a scriptural manner of doing the follow-up work of any evangelistic campaign. But Dr. Graham insists upon this method and is excluding everybody from his counsellors who does not fully accept this way of cooperation.

Therefore we would do a greater service to both Dr. Graham and to the Christian Church by not co-operating under sincere and urging protest, than by being silent and by acquiescing in methods we do not believe to be scriptural.

J. W. Deenick

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