True Heroes

Have you ever been disappointed by someone you respected and admired? There is a good chance you have. It is human nature to put those we admire on pedestals, but sooner or later we discover that even our heroes have feet of clay.

I was a sixteen-year-old junior in high school when I became a Christian, primarily through the influence of my girlfriend—who later became my wife. Yet there was also another important influence—the world-famous evangelist Billy Graham.

His sermons mesmerized me. I listened to him every time I had the chance. I felt that if any human being was close to God, he was.  

While in college, I listened to his radio broadcast, The Hour of Decision on Sunday nights. It didn’t matter that he closed the broadcast with his famous, “God bless you real good.” I knew that grammatically the sentence was awkward, but, hey, he was Billy Graham and could break the rules if he wanted.

I collected copies of his sermons and memorized by heart a couple of them. Later, when I was invited by a small church to preach my first sermon, I chose one of the messages he had preached during the London Crusade. I knew nothing about copy right laws or plagiarism. I thought by preaching verbatim one of his sermons, I would be honoring him.

About thirty people were present when I spoke in a church for the first time. The “church” was a converted tavern that the congregation rented on Sundays to hold their services. The liquor cabinets were locked and dark curtains were draped over some of the more objectionable visual material.

When I saw the congregation, it felt to me as though thousands were in attendance. Near the front I saw my girlfriend. Seeing her in the audience added to my sense of anxiety.

The elderly pastor introduced me and welcomed me to the pulpit. I saw faces smiling at me, but didn’t know whether I was supposed to smile back, so I pretended not to notice them. My mouth was dry, and I wasn’t sure I could squeeze out a single word. I concentrated on what I had memorized and slowly began to repeat word-for-word one of Billy Graham’s sermons, a message he had preached in London to tens of thousands of people a few years earlier.

My focus was razor sharp. I didn’t want to leave out a single word. As I repeated his sermon—a   sermon that I had rehearsed for weeks—I forgot all about the audience, the smiling faces, and even my girlfriend.

When I finally came to the conclusion, the place in the sermon where Mr. Graham invites people to walk forward to the altar, I followed the script: “I want hundreds of you to come forward,” I said. “If you came by bus, they will wait for you.”

Quickly, I caught myself and realized my mistake but it was too late. You can’t just erase words once you have spoken them. It was then that I noticed the amused looks and realized that everyone in the room was aware of my blunder.

I tried to backtrack, but it was hopeless. I was embarrassed and could feel the blood rushing to my face. I didn’t dare look at my girlfriend. I wished there had been a trap door that would have swallowed me into oblivion.  

When I stepped away from the pulpit, the retired pastor said to me, “Well, son, if you’re going to copy another preacher’s sermon, one could do a lot worse than copying Billy Graham.”

In the early 2000s I was saddened to learn that my hero, Billy Graham, had made some disparaging comments about Jewish people. When I read the article, I simply could not believe that the report was accurate, but later that same day I heard a tape recording of Billy Graham telling then President Richard Nixon that Jewish people were publishing pornography and that, unless stopped, the Jewish people would cause the downfall of our country. He told Nixon, “They [Jews} don’t know how I really feel about them,” suggesting that he harbored some animosity toward the Jewish people.

Years earlier, H.R. Haldeman’s book, Haldeman Diaries, had included Billy Graham’s remarks in one of his chapters, but Graham had denied having ever said them. Now the voice recordings revealed that Graham had indeed made these morally reprehensible statements.

My heart sank when I heard these disgusting comments. Only when confronted with the audio recording, did Billy Graham own the words and apologize profusely for saying them, indicating that they did not reflect his true feelings, but the damage had been done. A remarkable career had been tarnished.

Some of Graham’s supporters came to his defense and said that Graham had been overwhelmed by the office of the president and voiced what he thought President Nixon wanted him to say. But I’ve always found that excuse rather lame. Billy Graham had been in the presence of great and powerful people throughout his ministry. And even when he was provided the opportunity years earlier to acknowledge his hateful words, he denied having ever said them.

I’ve thought often of Billy Graham’s moral lapse over the years. He had always been an inspirational model for me and countless other Christians. We creatures of flesh and blood long for someone to rise above us and show us the way. We yearn for heroes, someone to look up to, someone who voices our thoughts and longings, to have our backs and defend what we believe, to succeed where we have failed. Sometimes these iconic figures are athletes, maybe actors, sometimes pastors or priests, and on occasion, even politicians.

Yes, all human beings are flawed, sometimes deeply so. Maybe we shouldn’t put our celebrities on pedestals, where they can too easily fall off. When people we admire reveal their darker side—and every human being has one—we may be left with nothing but darkness.

Although I still respect Billy Graham, I see him in a different light today than I did as a high school student. I appreciate his contributions to the Christian faith, and I also give him credit for acknowledging his mistakes, albeit a bit late, owning up to his inflammatory words, words that inflicted pain on millions of people, words that stoked the flames of antisemitism in our country and beyond. Eventually, he took responsibility for his actions, asked forgiveness from the Jewish community, and pledged to be more accountable in the future. In that sense, he is still a hero but a hero of human foibles, just like the rest of us.

True heroes shun the pedestals. They admit their human weaknesses, their mistakes, their inappropriate actions. True heroes are selfless and think more of others than themselves, are more interested in uniting than dividing, more concerned with healing than harming.

Our country, our world, is in desperate need of true heroes.