by Billy Graham
He also expressed great delight at the small gift I had brought him, a woodcarving of a shepherd with his sheep, done by a North Carolina craftsman. We recalled together Jesus’ words in John 10:14, 16. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. . . . I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.” In turn the pope gave me a medallion commemorating his papacy and several magnificently bound volumes.
About a year later, an invitation to preach in Moscow arrived. Before accepting it, however, I had to settle in my own heart and mind a very serious question: Was it really from God?
27
The Sunday School Teacher from Georgia
President Jimmy Carter
It was May 1975. I was in Jackson, Mississippi, for a Crusade, and Governor Bill Waller had invited me for lunch.
“Jimmy Carter is over at the statehouse shaking hands with everybody and telling them he’s running for president,” he said to me. “Of course, he doesn’t stand a chance of getting elected. But would you like to go over there? We’ll take him to his next appointment at a TV station.”
I readily agreed, but not just out of curiosity. I had had some contact with Jimmy Carter over the years and looked forward to renewing our acquaintance.
Governor Waller put the candidate in the front seat of his official limousine with his driver. We sat in back. As we started out, Carter turned around and flashed us the smile that would become his national trademark.
“I know you fellows think I’m crazy,” he said, “but I’m going to be the next president of the United States.”
I did not think he was crazy, of course. But to be honest, I was inclined to agree with the governor. A rural Georgia peanut farmer, governor of a southern state with almost no national or international exposure and relatively little experience in national affairs . . . it seemed impossible.
On that day in Jackson, my mind went back to the first time I had ever heard of Jimmy Carter. It was in 1966, as we were planning for an evangelistic outreach in Americus, Georgia. This would not be a preaching mission but a mission using an evangelistic film we had produced; that film would be shown for several days in a local theater.
As always, we insisted that the meetings be completely integrated. While this was no longer a new thing in much of the South, in that part of rural Georgia it was by no means the customary practice. Some even urged us to cancel our plans or face a potentially explosive situation. The issue was so critical, in fact, that we could not get a Christian leader in Americus to be chairman of the outreach. We were stymied but determined to hold our position.
At the last minute, a successful farmer and state senator from a nearby community stepped in and courageously volunteered to be chairman of the effort. His name was Jimmy Carter.
“When I went to the major churches,” Carter recalled, “none of them would let us in. So because of that, we went to the basement of an abandoned school building, and that’s where we had our planning meetings.”
Once the outreach began, he stood night after night before the audiences at the end of each showing, inviting those who were searching for spiritual answers to life’s problems to come forward for counseling.
Although he and I hadn’t yet met, I wrote a note after the film mission to thank him, both for caring and for daring to help.
Later, in 1972, he recalled this experience while addressing the United Methodist General Conference. He admitted that he had not been especially keen on taking the chairmanship, adding that our film, The Restless Ones, hadn’t particularly impressed him. He also reported, however, that “the first interracial religious effort in the history of our county” resulted in 565 people coming forward at the Invitation, with 137 of those indicating that they were accepting Christ as Savior. Carter gave credit for this response not to the film or his own efforts but to the Holy Spirit.
A few years after the Americus meetings, in January 1971, Jimmy Carter became the governor of Georgia, and we met personally for the first time. In spite of his heavy responsibilities, he willingly accepted the invitation to serve as honorary chair of our Atlanta Crusade. We had an interesting series of meetings in the Atlanta Stadium. Almost every night, he sat on the platform with us to indicate his support for the event. The next year, on March 1, 1972, I spoke at the annual Governor’s Prayer Breakfast in Atlanta and spent the night as his guest in the executive mansion. It was then that I got to know him and his wife, Rosalynn, better. Through these contacts, I grew to like him as a person and to respect both his intelligence and his genuine and unashamed Christian commitment.
Carter’s unexpected rise to national prominence and his successful pursuit of the Democratic nomination focused media attention on his personality and his political views. It also spotlighted his Southern Baptist roots and religious commitment. His quiet work across the years as a deacon and Sunday school teacher in his home church in Plains, and his self-identification as a “born-again” Chris-tian, became part of his public identity.
Suddenly the phrase born again appeared everywhere. The media demonstrated everything from curiosity and respect to misunderstanding, quiet mockery, and even derision. Because I knew from my own experience that reporters often felt uncomfortable dealing with religious issues and unfamiliar terminology, I sympathized with Carter’s attempts to explain his religious commitment without sounding “holier-than-thou.”
At first the attention on born-again faith seemed to open the door to a number of opportunities for me to explain the Gospel. I found myself answering questions about the expression born again in media interviews, for example. It was a term I frequently used in preaching. I had even written a book entitled How to Be Born Again, which had been well received by the public. The term was taken from one of the most familiar passages in the New Testament, the third chapter of the Gospel of John. In it Jesus told a noted religious teacher of his day named Nicodemus about the necessity and promise of spiritual renewal—a renewal (or spiritual rebirth) that comes as we turn in faith to Christ.
As time went on, however, the term born again was trivialized and came to mean almost anything. Advertisers used it to tout their products; politicians and pundits used it to speak of anyone who had changed his or her mind about something; pop psychologists and trendy cultists used it to identify any kind of “religious” experience, no matter how mysterious or strange. Soon I began to avoid the term almost completely, emphasizing instead the literal meaning of the original Greek term, which translates “born from above” or “born into God’s family.”
The injection of the religious issue into the 1976 campaign concerned me. On the one hand, I was delighted to hear a presidential candidate speak so openly with the press and the public about his personal faith. On the other hand, I knew Gerald Ford to be a man of deep conviction also, even if his own religious background was much different and less public. Religious conviction alone was not the most reliable guide as to who would be the best or most effective leader.
Jimmy Carter did not present himself as perfect or pious; in fact, the media were quick to pick up his own references to sinfulness in his heart. Neither did he compromise his understanding of the Gospel by verbal dodging or double-talk. He took a political risk by being so forthright about his faith; in the end, though, I believe his candor worked in his favor. After the disillusionment of Water-gate, the American people were attracted by Carter’s summons to a moral revival.
With his election, some people speculated that I would become a regular fixture around the White House. Although we never talked directly about it, I sensed that President Carter agreed with my feeling that such visibility on my part could easily have been misunderstood by the public, leading to the suspicion that I was somehow taking advantage of our shared faith to influence political decisions or secure favors or influence for the evangelical movement.
I recalled the caution that John Kennedy had exercised during his presidency in this regard. Somewhat like the Carter election,
Kennedy’s campaign had been marred by religious charges. Some had even contended that Roman Catholic clerics would have ready access to the White House and would use their favored position for political influence. Such was not the case, however; indeed, Kennedy went out of his way to avoid any overt signs of closeness to the Roman Cath-olic hierarchy. As an example, when Cardinal Cushing—an old family friend—made his occasional visits to the White House, he slipped in without publicity or even press knowledge.
But President Carter and I did have some personal contacts, cordial though infrequent, during the four years he was in office (1977–1981). He was a faithful supporter of the National Prayer Breakfast. During his tenure, I attended the one in 1977 and spoke at the one in 1979.
Ruth and I were privileged to be overnight guests of the Carters at the White House. For several hours, we reminisced about our southern backgrounds and talked about national affairs. Little Amy Carter sat quietly watching the television set. Much of the time that evening, however, we shared our mutual faith in Jesus Christ and discussed some of the issues that sometimes divide sincere Christians. When the four of us prayed together at the close of the evening, we sensed a spirit of oneness and Christian love among us. Rosalynn Carter was frequently pictured in the press with a serious face, but we found her to be a woman with a warm and caring heart.
Two incidents stick out in my memory from the years of the Carter administration.
The first was a personal matter having to do with the sister of one of our sons-in-law. Although born in America, she had been raised in Europe. For some reason, however, she had no passport of any nationality. When she turned eighteen, she applied for an American passport but was turned down, apparently for bureaucratic reasons or legal technicalities. We tried every avenue we knew to help her, but to no avail. One of our North Carolina senators finally told me that only an act of Congress, or an act of the president of the United States, could change the situation.
One day, as I was talking with President Carter on the telephone, I mentioned our dilemma. He listened intently and then said, “Send the details to my secretary.” I promptly did as he asked.
About a week later, the President himself called the girl involved. “You are a citizen of the United States, and your passport is being sent to you,” he said. “You will never have to worry about this again.”
We were very grateful for his help and his personal concern, touched that he had handled such a matter himself. His personal interest in people was unquestionably one of his strongest traits. When I was at the Mayo Clinic one time, he called simply to inquire about my health and to cheer me up.
The second matter involved our 1977 visit to Hungary. It was unprecedented for a Communist government to allow an evangelist from the West to preach, and I sensed that our visit might create a slight opening for better relations between Hungary and the United States. As the time for the trip approached, I contacted President Carter to inform him of the trip. He assured me not only of his interest but also of his prayers. He asked that I deliver his greetings to the people I would meet, especially his fellow Christian believers, which I did.
In preparing for that trip, we learned that Hungary’s greatest national symbol—the ancient crown of St. Stephen, first king of Hungary, enthroned in the year 1000—had been stored in the United States at Fort Knox since World War II. America’s possession of this emblem of patriotic pride was a real sore spot in Hungarian-American relations. The return of the crown was a major condition for improvement in relations between the two countries, according to the American ambassador to Hungary, Philip Kaiser. I asked his advice about the request for the return to Hungary of the crown of St. Stephen; he was very much in favor of whatever we could do.
The Carter administration, I knew, was already giving thought to the crown case. Many Hungarian-Americans, deeply suspicious of Hungary’s Communist government, understandably opposed its return. It was admittedly a complex question: by returning the crown, the United States would be granting undeserved legitimacy to a government it did not support. It was a dilemma for the President in both political and diplomatic terms.
When I arrived back in Washington after the Hungarian trip, I made an appointment with President Carter. At the last minute, a priority engagement surfaced for him. In his absence, I talked with Vice President Walter Mondale, who was courteous and sympathetic to my suggestion that the crown be returned, since that gesture might move Hungary toward closer contact with the West. I also raised with him the question of changing the trade status of Hungary. When I was interviewed after my return on Good Morning America, I said frankly that I thought our trade restrictions against Hungary should be lifted. This could, I felt, encourage greater liberalization there. However, I stressed to Mr. Mondale that I did not want the White House to think I was being political or trying to tell the administration what to do; they understood the issues far better than I.
The matter of St. Stephen’s crown had been brought to the attention of the U.S. government by several prominent Americans before I spoke up. Whether my support of its return was a significant thing with Mr. Carter or Mr. Mondale, I do not know. I do know that later I was given credit for it by the authorities in Hungary.
The crown soon found its way back to Budapest, where it was put on public display in the national museum, and shortly thereafter our government did negotiate Most Favored Nation trade status for Hungary. Perhaps these steps opened the door for better relations between our two countries and eventual change in Hungary.
My last contact with President Carter during his time in office came on Sunday, December 7, 1980, when Senator Mark Hatfield asked me to preach at the small Baptist church across from his home in Georgetown. “I thought I’d invite the President and Mrs. Carter to come,” he told me on the phone. (A month earlier, Carter had lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan.)
Hatfield called the White House, and the Carters did come. Vice President-elect George Bush and his wife, Barbara, also came to the service. Afterward we all walked across the street to the Hatfields’ apartment where Mark and his wife, Antoinette, presided at a lunch for us all. We swapped stories, but mainly we discussed the Bible. In spite of his recent election defeat, President Carter could not have been warmer or more friendly to the Bushes or the rest of us.
Many leaders, I am afraid, place their religious and moral convictions in a separate compartment and do not think of the implications of their faith on their responsibilities. Jimmy Carter, however, was not like that. His deep-seated commitment to human rights around the world was an example of this. His determination to do something about the complex problems in the Middle East also came in part from his Christian convictions concerning peace. And that determination bore fruit: few diplomatic events in recent decades have been as dramatic as his breakthrough agreement with Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat in the Camp David Accords.
Since leaving office, Mr. Carter has continued to carry out his responsibilities as a Christian as he understands them, whether in his efforts on behalf of international understanding and peace or his work with Habitat for Humanity. Other political leaders would do well to learn from his moral and spiritual ideals.
Since his presidency, he and I have maintained occasional contact, and I value his continued friendship. Just before his trip to North Korea in June 1994, he called me and we had an extended conversation about his plans. Relations between the United States and North Korea had reached a stalemate over fears about that country’s nuclear program. Tensions were rising to a dangerous level. He was not sure if he could have any impact and had not completely decided about accepting the invitation to go.
I had just been to Pyongyang for the second time and had spent several hours with President Kim Il Sung. President Kim had been very warm to me personally, in spite of our differences in background, and I felt that he sincerely wanted to move forward in establishing better relations. I told Mr. Carter this and urged him to go. I felt that his warm p
ersonality would meet with a positive response from President Kim, and it did.
When my plans for another Crusade in Atlanta in 1994 first began to take shape, Jimmy Carter gladly agreed to serve as the honorary chairman. He was on the platform the opening night in October, in the new Georgia Dome, and spoke for several minutes to the audience. It was a remarkable Crusade, drawing strong support from both the African-American and white communities.
Historians will, I suspect, be kinder to President Carter than some of his contemporaries were. A man of faith and sterling integrity, he was undoubtedly one of our most diligent Presidents, persistent and painstaking in his attention to his responsibilities.
28
Moscow and Beyond
Moscow 1982, East Germany and Czechoslovakia 1982, the Soviet Union 1984
We were grateful for the doors God had opened for us in Hungary and Poland. Even if we never made any further visits to eastern Europe, those trips would have been worth the effort, both in evangelism and in encouraging the churches. But all along our prayer was that another door would open—the door to the hardest and most strategic place of all: the Soviet Union. Preaching there, we were convinced, would have reverberations all over that part of the world.
MOSCOW
In 1982 the Russian Orthodox Church planned what it called the “World Conference of Religious Workers for Saving the Sacred Gift of Life from Nuclear Catastrophe.” In spite of its cumbersome name, the May event was to be a church-sponsored international peace conference. It would draw to Moscow several hundred representatives from all the major world religions, not just Christianity.
After numerous contacts in Moscow and Washington (with Alexander Haraszti, Walter Smyth, and John Akers), the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pimen of Moscow and All Russia, extended an invitation for me to address the gathering.