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Billy Graham Converts 20,000 Berliners

The American Evangelist in the Olympic Stadium
– Sausages, Coca-Cola and Trumpets

By Eka von Merveldt, “The Berlin Kurier,” June 1954

(Berlin, End of June) Two hours before Billy Graham, the American evangelist, spoke on Sunday in the Olympic Stadium, the first listeners began arriving. Not many used autos. Most came by trains and omnibuses. Eventually, 80,000 waited patiently in the sports arena, which buzzed with merry talk . Over it, the Biblical words, “Come to me all who are tired and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” were affixed to the giant board on which sports results would usually be announced.

The beginning [of the afternoon event] seemed less like the preparation for a traditional worship service under the blue dome of heaven, than it did the opening of a “big carnival,” with much ballyhoo. Sausage stalls did good business, and Coca-cola and bonbons sold quickly, but so did Graham’s writings and tracts with the Word of God for 10 pfennings. Very young girls enthusiastically lit up cigarettes; skeptics looked around, laughing; children crawled around between benches. 350 trumpets blared and 2,000 choir singers sang, but they blared and sang spiritual songs.

The young people here--for example, the little trumpet player with the long pigtails--seem different from the autograph-begging teenagers at Tempelhof airport, who the stars of the Berlin Film Festival receive day after day and who surround hotels and movie theaters, from which balconies the flickering stars graciously look down. In the Olympic Stadium, there was no film star to be seen, although Graham has long counted Roy Rogers, a well-known cowboy actor, among his fellow-workers ever since Rogers’ conversion.

Among the adults, one could recognize many visitors from the Soviet zone by their shabby clothes, many by their sorrow-marked faces.

Bible in Hand

After two hours, a loudspeaker announced that the beginning [of the meeting] would have to be pushed back five minutes. A woman near me said worriedly, “That’s dangerous. If someone lets Berliners wait, they’ll quickly start making a noisy racket.”

On many faces, there were mocking smiles when Billy Graham—tall and blond, dressed in blue, his favorite color, Bible in hand, with his following of smart young Americans—also dressed in blue—and German clergy and helpers from the Berlin “Billy Graham Committee,” came into the stadium down the great stairway from Maifeld. He had introduced himself there with a short address to thousands of more listeners outside, who later all found places in the great Olympic stadium.

“It was much more festive at the Kirchentag [the biennial national church conference] two years ago.” “Yes, more serious,” whispered two Diakonissnen [Lutheran church deaconess/nurses] behind me.

The “big carnival” went on. The trumpets blew. A piano on the speakers’ platform, located on the vast green field, played by Mrs. Graham, also in blue, began to resound through all the loudspeakers--but so much technology, and air movement, which mangle sounds is no real joy for music lovers. A baritone sang stirring, folksong-like songs in a powerful, melodious American voice, with the wistful style of his homeland’s Negro spirituals and cowboy songs. A manager of Graham’s bounced up to the microphone, radiating the optimism and cheerfulness of a 12 year old: “We are delighted to be here. We’ve never heard so many trumpets!

“Now, brandish your pamphlet with the song lyrics, so I can see if you all have one, because now we want to sing a song together.” All those in the wide arena—all the way up to the uttermost tier—brandished the yellow pamphlet, and very many sang, “Jesus has come …”

The skeptics had long used evil words to describe this prophet during his crusades in the USA and European counties, like England and Scandinavia. “Best-paid evangelist in the world … Traveler in Religion … Repentance Preacher in Violet … God’s Machine-Gun … God’s Traveling Salesman … Fingernail-biting Fanatic.” But they also know that his evangelistic campaigns in the States--since his first great success in Long Angeles in 1949 and later, for example, in Texas—drew 75,000 people evening after evening. Likewise in England—where in the beginning, there was opposition to him and the clergy sharply criticized him—he had brought together 120,000 people in Wembley Stadium in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In all cities, after his sermon, the converted stood up from among the masses, walked to the lectern and made known their “Decision for Christ.” Now, the doubters in the Berlin Stadium waited for an explanation for all that.

Whoever already knows the 35-year old, reasonable, natural, tactful American Dr. William Franklin Graham, with the deeply-set, fantastic eyes, knows he is extremely matter-of-fact and practical, that he doesn’t like religious excitement and peculiarities, no bombastic gathering, no hysteria. He is obviously sincere and simple, despite his masterly command of sophisticated methods of mass publicity—more typically used for cigarettes and cold drinks—and shrewd techniques of mass persuasion.

In his simple words, “The Bible tells us clearly that upon every people who separated themselves from God, ignored his warnings, and didn’t turn back [to Him] in repentance, there came divine judgment. Only one thing can halt that judgment: the people’s return to God.”

There have been many awakenings in church history. Today, he feels himself appointed [to lead another]. “We need a daily, practical Christian life, a moral support. I freely concede,” says Graham, “that it’s possible for a speaker to stand up and bring an entire crowd of people to [a state of] excitement and tears. But a person must be convinced. Whoever makes merely an emotional decision is far worse off than before. Such conversions aren’t firm. So, the follow-up--when we have sent that person back again to his church--is most important. We have learned that the efforts it takes to win one person for Christ are not as great as those needed to keep him [in the Christian life].”

“You must hear Billy Graham -- young, modern, Christian,” say blue placards everywhere in Berlin. The faith is old, but the means to revive it must be modern. That is the opinion of this preacher and is [the reason for] his success. He has not only charm, he has not only a fascinating voice, and compelling gestures. His short, pounding sentences, with which he now pursues the Berlin public--and which the translator, a theology student, with the same flair and the same gestures, reproduces--are understandable to anyone. His unfettered voice stands apart from the quavering and pathos of the German preachers before him and after him, who have set the mood for this event.

He chooses an example from Mark’s Gospel, about the rich man whose soul starved, but he doesn’t use the opportunity to preach about Marxist mass ideology, although he considers socialism an ethical lifestyle for anyone. He says materialism has left the souls of people unsatisfied. He means, apparently, the method of wanting to gain as much money and pleasure as possible, with as little effort as possible.

Rationalism has failed. Psychoanalysis has failed. Philosophers have failed. Today, humanity finds itself in a vacuum. It hungers for God.

“Buy a Bible. Read it daily. It will change your life,” proclaims Graham. His examples from daily life are often so mundane that the translator now and then is a loss for words.

But he [Graham] confronts problems which affect everyone. He appeals to the feeling of guilt which practically everyone feels. He speaks directly to atheists. He admonishes about death and restlessness: “Many are sitting here who are already dead, because they only live as bodies, without souls.” Many glanced around the wide arena and thought, ‘That’s a fact. In 100 years everyone sitting here will be dead.’ Graham cheerfully promises his listeners that they only need to profess Christ to feel themselves secure, joyful, and happy in a world of sin, danger, and want. “Helping, where one can help, is the most satisfactory life in this world.” One has heard profound discourses before, but he speaks with the conviction of deep faith.

In order to make it easy for the converted to stand up and openly confess themselves for a Christian life, he said it wasn’t easy for him, either, to come to the speaker’s podium. “The stadium is so huge, I can’t ask you all to come forward here onto the field, but I do ask you all to decide for yourselves now, in this hour. In many parts of the world, many believers’ thoughts are now on Berlin, and they are praying for you.”

In front of me, two 15-year-old boys stood up. Then, one after the other, thousands rise, half the stadium. Graham cautions that only those should stand who today have found the way to Christ. No one wants to sit down. Graham asks for quiet, he directs that heads be bowed. He prays, the translator interpreting sentence for sentence: “From this moment on, I will follow the Savior. I thank you, Lord, that you have saved me.” It is a long prayer. As thousands repeat it, a whisper fills the stadium. Graham prays with his hands in his pants pockets. Then remembering—sensitive as he is—the great solemnity of the Germans, he places his hands behind his back. He says, bathed in sweat, “Never have so many stood up. This is the greatest moment in my life as God’s servant. This can be the beginning of a great awakening in Germany.”

Religious advertisement

Certainly, it was no conversion of the pagans, but without doubt tens of thousands of lukewarm or fallen-away Christians were reclaimed. 20,000 filled out cards with their addresses for the Billy Graham Committee. Now remains the tasks of directing these people to churches. Soon, Billy Graham will return. These conversions might be an expression in our time of a shift to personal redemption.

The Lutheran bishop of Berlin, Dr. Otto Dibelius--who at the beginning of the public event cited the burst of sunshine and the alleviation of the evangelist’s illness (Dr. Graham, in follow-up to a kidney infection in Düsseldorf, had lain in bed [before the afternoon meeting] until mid-day) as divine action--spoke the closing prayer: “Lord, let not the decisions of this day be in vain.” Standing, 80,000 people prayed The Lord’s Prayer and began singing the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

In the omnibuses, participants still sang revival songs. Later, among other Berliners, they could no longer be recognized. But there were many [in Berlin] who discussed the afternoon in the Olympic Stadium. Some called him “Billiger Billy” (lit: “Cheap Billy”)—typical Berlin wit. Many objected to the effective use of sales techniques to promote spiritual values, this organized form of religious advertisement. But an opposing question was also stated: “Why is it wrong to advertise for God?”


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