Why Billy Graham’s legacy is complex

News appeared this afternoon that Billy Graham had died at the age of 99. The significance of this moment is clear – he was someone who lived an extraordinary long life, met the great and the good of all the world, changed the lives of countless thousands who were not the great and the good and helped to shape the world that we live in today.

My own feelings on hearing that he died are complex. After all, I took part in one of his great stadium campaigns. I sang in a choir of a thousand voices in a football stadium in 1985, invited my friends (some of whom had their lives changed by that encounter) and prayed like mad for the success of the venture. It was a defining moment for so many people who were involved in it. What’s more I know people whose lives were changed at the Billy Graham Glasgow Crusade in 1955 in the Kelvin Hall.

The methods and the message didn’t change that much over the years.

Very many of those of us who remember those events will be reluctant to simply dismiss what Billy Graham did. We were there. We know the good intentions and the good will that were exemplified by the preacher from the USA.

However, those who believe that Jesus is just about to come back and sort everything out for good don’t always do terribly well at thinking about how we should live in this world. (And that’s a long-standing thing – just look at St Paul and his ideas about marriage). Billy Graham was one such. Believing that Jesus would come back soon and sort everything out he didn’t appear much interested in the world being sorted out by human endeavour. Thus, he had a conflicted relationship with the Civil Rights movement in the USA, chummed up with the likes of Richard Nixon (with whom he was caught out making anti-semitic remarks) and was completely on the wrong side of God’s loving relationship with humanity in his attitude to human sexuality.

I’ve seen a number of responses to his death today from those remembering all these things who paint him as a demon. I don’t believe he was, however mistaken I think he was about some things. In many ways, I think he was sincere but wrong. I don’t think he was a demon because I remember him. I was there.

I’ve also seen responses from those idolising him including some from people responding in public on behalf of organisations whose own private lives were significantly deleteriously affected by views which Billy Graham shared so powerfully. Very obviously, I don’t think Billy Graham an angel either.

Lives are complex and so are legacies. Today on the news of his death I find myself thinking of those who were given purpose, energy and life in all its fullness by an extraordinary missionary preacher and I thank God for that.

I also find myself thinking that the America in which Donald Trump can triumph is part of that legacy too.

White evangelicalism in the USA was undoubtedly bolstered by Billy Graham’s life and work. The lack of condemnation from Billy Graham of the antics of some of those (including his children) who emboldened that community even further travelling on his coattails is a stark reminder that his faith made him able sometimes to proclaim his gospel clearly but see the affairs of the world more dimly.

Notwithstanding Trumpism, Billy Graham’s ideas were perhaps more successful in the church than in the world. Historically the church shifted over the 20th century and the Evangelicalism of Billy Graham became a far more significant factor in church life than ever it would have been without him.

It was an extraordinary life. It was a life that benefited me and it was a life that gave credence to ideas which harm me.

Such is human complexity.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

To some surprises.

Trolleys are for Supermarkets

I had a lovely morning today conducting a funeral service. Oh, I know lots of people don’t get that this can be satisfying but to me I can’t really think of a more lovely way of spending a morning than committing someone who has died at a great age into the love of God. The fact that the person who had died had in large part lived to make the world more beautiful only made it more lovely.

I was struck by a brief conversation with the undertaker before the service went in. This wasn’t a busy funeral – the person who had died had outlived most of those who might once have come to celebrate her life. As the coffin was being taken out of the hearse, I was surprised to see three members of the undertaker’s staff join him in lifting the coffin onto their shoulders.

“Oh, you don’t use a trolley?” I asked in surprise.

The answer that I got was wonderful –

“No, Mr Holdsworth, trolleys are for supermarkets, we always carry the coffin in”.

I cannot tell you how pleased I was to hear this.

So many funerals seem to involve a squeaky and undignified trolley. I even have to insist sometimes that the coffin is lifted onto proper tressels during the funeral itself. There’s many a person in the funeral business who would leave a coffin on the trolley throughout.

Am I alone in thinking that there’s not much dignity in a coffin on wheels?

I know there will be exceptions where a trolley is necessary and I guess that, in an industry that has seen costs soaring, it is going to cost more if one has to pay the pallbearers but I do prefer a coffin to be carried into church rather than pushed.

At some crematoria where I’ve officiated the presumption is so much in favour of wheels that a kind of roll-on, roll-off trolley has become an integral part of the proceedings.

We don’t talk that much about death, though there are some valiant attempts to get us to do so. There’s the death café movement that gathers people to talk about death and I seem to remember an initiative in the Church of England called Grave Talk which was an attempt to build up a conversation.

I know that any undertakers will arrange for pallbearers to carry a coffin in properly if you ask them. That’s what undertakers do – they undertake to make the arrangements for you. I’m someone who mourns the transformation of undertakers into “funeral directors” – the very term seems to imply that the business knows better than either the celebrant who has probably got a bit of experience on how to do things properly, the relatives (who may, if they are feeling particular grief may well feel better for being involved in the funeral planning and service) and indeed the wishes of the person who has died if they did  the sensible thing and left instructions.

The joy today was finding a company which just don’t normally use a trolley as policy. It is a small thing but an important one.

Funeral trolleys always remind me of the wobbly nave altar in St Ninian’s Cathedral in Perth, which itself always looked as though it had been purloined from a hospital porter.

Now where did undertakers’ trolleys come from? And why do people put up with them?

They are hideous. Always hideous.

No. No. Away ye trolley-bearers.

And congratulations to Sim and Son for their trolley-free policy.

(I’m happy to link to any other undertakers in the West of Scotland who never use a trolley)