Historian Grant Wacker's assessment of the long career of Billy Graham is to be published at the end of November by Harvard University Press.

According to a news report in the Church of England newspaper, the book is a highly readable study of how "a lanky farm kid from North Carolina" had such a major impact on American culture.

"There are no scandals concerning sex or money. Graham's life is refreshingly free of the kind of the dark clouds that have hung over some evangelists. His non-evangelical critics have mainly concentrated on his close links with a number of US Presidents, especially Richard Nixon."

Another truth coming to light is that Graham was probably closest to Lyndon Baines Johnson, author of the Civil Rights Act, not Nixon.

The really shocking revelation, that will confirm the worst fears of critics among the fundamentalists at Bob Jones University and elsewhere, is the news that if he was starting over again he would be "an evangelical Anglican".

It would appear that Graham was not as hard core right wing conservative as many have thought. Evangelical Anglicans will rejoice that Graham, who was profoundly influenced by the late John R.W. Stott, rector of All Saints, Langham Place, London, was more drawn to both a liturgical service and an evangelical witness to the gospel.

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