Religion: Billy in the Lions’ Den

“The senior proctor has warned undergraduates that Billy Graham must not be kidnaped when he arrives in Cambridge today.” This stern warning in the varsity newspaper greeted Evangelist Graham when he arrived for a week-long revival that was certainly one of the strangest weeks ever known by Cambridge, whose attitude toward religion has long been intellectual, skeptical, or slightly pained.

Evangelist Graham’s sponsor was CICCU—the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union—called “Kick You” by both its friends and enemies. The 400 undergraduate members stimulate many of their fellow students and dons to snorts of irritation at their frankly anti-intellectual attitude and their assurance that they alone have the Gospel of Christ. “Why, didn’t you know?” said one classics student last week. “In Cambridge, Christ is the property of CICCU.” “But you can’t enter into CICCU’s Christ,” said another, “because they have only one part of Him—the crucified part.”

CICCU believers deny that they are literalists or anything but plain Christians. “We simply uphold the fundamental, orthodox beliefs of the church. In short, we believe in the Apostles’ Creed. We do not prefix it with a ‘maybe'” says CICCU’s president.

No Hara-Kiri. When Billy Graham accepted CICCU’s invitation to Cambridge last August (he insisted on paying his own expenses), there was a flurry of nattering pro and con in the letters columns of the Times. “The recent increase of fundamentalism among university students cannot but cause concern,” wrote an Anglican canon. “Universities exist for the advancement of learning. On that basis, therefore, can fundamentalism claim a hearing at Cambridge?”

But the vicar of the church of Saint Mary’s the Great, official church of Cambridge University, arranged for Billy to use his pulpit. Though regretting CICCU’s “exclusive attitude” of noncooperation with other religious bodies, he explained: “We must continue to help them when we can, providing we are not expected to commit intellectual hara-kiri.”

Billy arrived on Poppy Day, traditional for its student high jinks to raise money for disabled veterans, and it was reliably rumored that five separate groups of undergraduates planned to kidnap and hold him for ransom. But the brisk vigilance of students and plainclothesmen kept him safe for CICCU.

What the Bible Says. The Billy Graham who walked into Great Saint Mary’s for his first preaching session was a long way from Georgia, or even from London’s Harringay Arena. There was no singing, no platform to pace, no lapel microphone,’ no special lighting. Dressed in a black academic gown with the red, green and gold hood of an honorary doctor of laws (Houghton College, N.Y., ’50), he stood in the cramped quarters of the pulpit before a crowd of 1,200 which had left behind an overflow queue two blocks long. When he began to speak, probably no more than 10% of them were wholeheartedly for him. But Billy’s face never lost its smile.

Admitting that he found the pulpit confining, he told about the little girl who watched a preacher ranting and jumping about in the pulpit and asked her mother: “What will we do, Mother, if he gets out?” He disclaimed any pretensions to learning or theological subtleties. “I am here to tell you what the Bible preaches,” he said, and over and over again he began his sentences with: “This is what the Bible says.” On the second night, one exasperated young intellectual exclaimed aloud, “Really, you can’t get away with that, Billy!” But as the week wore on, Billy Graham must have known how Daniel felt in the lions’ den. The crowds came and stayed, silent and impressed. More than 400 made “Decisions for Christ.” Once when a divinity professor introduced him with the reminder that he “could not agree with his doctrinal views,” Billy rose smiling in the tense silence and said that he did not think that kind of disagreement made much difference. “We are all Christians and we love one an other,” he said. “A minister is not a minister unless he is winning men for Christ.

If theological students don’t think they can do that, they should quit studying for the ministry.” The students applauded for three minutes.