Religion: Billy & Babylon

"We dread the prospect," says the current issue of the Protestant fortnightly Christianity and Crisis. The prospect: Evangelist Billy Graham's next crusade in Manhattan, scheduled for some time in 1957. Christianity and Crisis, edited by Theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and John C. Bennett, gives its reasons:

"Billy Graham is a personable, modest and appealing young man who has wedded considerable dramatic and demagogic gifts with a rather obscurantist version of the Christian faith. His message is not completely irrelevant to the broader social issues of the day, but it approaches irrelevance . . .

"If Billy Graham were coming only to warm the hearts...

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