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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A look at Graham's crisis of faith that almost destroyed his ministry..., September 30, 2008
I recently was sent a manuscript for the book Billy: The Untold Story of a Young Billy Graham and the Test of Faith that Almost Changed Everything by Bill McKay and Ken Abraham. I've read and reviewed other books about Billy Graham, but not any that restricted itself to the beginning stages of his ministry told in narrative form. This book is meant to coincide with a soon-to-be-released movie titled "Billy: The Early Years." In the book, the authors tell the story of Billy Graham's ministry through the eyes of his one-time partner, Charles Templeton. The scene is a hospital, where Templeton is living out his last days with Alzheimer's. An aging reporter, eager to revive her flagging career, has been told to interview Templeton in order to get some dirt on Graham... be it scandals, hypocrisy, or whatever. She sets up in the hospital room with a camera crew and starts the interview, trying to get Templeton to turn on his former colleague. But much to her dismay and amazement, Templeton's cynicism over what Graham believes and preaches is not enough to overcome the fact that he can find no fault in Graham. He knows that however much he belittles the beliefs he used to share, he can't deny that Graham has accomplished far more that should have been humanly possible given his background and skills.
The flow of the story starts back in Graham's teen years, before he became a Christian. After going forward at a tent-style revival, he decides that he wants to attend a bible college and move into some sort of ministry work. Much to his shock and surprise, he's asked to speak in front of a church. Terrified, he covers the breath of his Bible knowledge in rapid-fire fashion... taking an entire seven minutes. But there's something there, and he's asked to speak in more locations, eventually leading to a full-time pastor position. Along the way, he meets and marries his wife Ruth, who gives up her dream of becoming a missionary to Tibet to support Graham in his ministry. As his preaching and evangelism starts to pick up speed, he's eventually teamed with Charles Templeton, an extremely popular and well-known evangelist at the time. They seem to make a good team, but Templeton's life is getting much darker...
Templeton is starting to question his faith, and it comes to a head at the end of World War II. He sees a newsreel showing Holocaust survivors, and decides he can't believe in a loving God any more. Graham is crushed by his decision to leave the ministry and study at Princeton. This turning away by Templeton starts Graham down the path of questioning his own commitment. The story moves to a moment in time where Graham struggles with his fears and doubts by himself out in the woods at a conference. The ultimate outcome of that war would end up changing the face of world evangelism as we know it.
Unlike some of the other books on Graham that attempts to analyze all his works and actions, this is a more story-driven treatment of his early life. I'm sure that once the movie is released, I'll find that this book follows very closely to the timing and direction of the film. Still, it's an inspirational look at someone who has committed everything to what he believes. It also shows that particular moments in time can have ramifications *far* beyond what one might expect at the moment.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Billy - a novel about a movie about a real person, January 13, 2009
The plot of the book is this: a reporter is interviewing a person on his deathbed. In flashbacks, Charles Templeton is talking about the early days of Billy Graham. The reporter is trying to find scandal in Graham's life. Templeton is trying for one last time in the spotlight.
Templeton had been a colleague and mentor to Billy Graham. Eventually, however, he decided that he had too many questions about his faith and gave up his pastorate, gave up his preaching, identified himself as an agnostic, and had a second career as a newspaper reporter.
Templeton talks, in answer to questions by the interviewer, about Graham's early life, decision to be a Christ follower, college mishaps, dating and marriage, and major struggle with his own faith in the Bible.
By focusing on the early years, the years before his big success, this book shows the pieces of Graham's life that can be overshadowed by later years. He attended three colleges before ending up at Wheaton (full disclosure, my college, too). He dealt with people who were pretty legalistic about what counted as church. He was a preacher and then a speaker and then a college president before ending up in the crusade preaching career that most of us know him for. These sections, this thread through the book, is great.
I struggle, however, with other elements.
1. Style of writing. It reads like a book that was written to describe what was on the screen. I want a book to be a book, not an adaptation of a screenplay. I want a book to be about the subject, not about what you are seeing on the screen.
2. Fictionalization. This book is a story about Billy, with elements made up to tell the story. Thus, there are parts of Graham's story that I recognize. There are parts that I think, "Ah, that's how it happened." However. The whole reporter/flashback element of the book is made up to tell the story. As far as I know, there never was this interview with Templeton. I'm guessing that the scene at the end, where the adult Billy comes to visit the adult Charles, never happened. As a result, I'm not sure what is true about conversations that Billy may have had and what isn't.
3. Dramonic License - One part of Graham's biography that is particularly compelling is his decision to depend on the Bible as true and trustworthy. If you ever have heard him preach, the phrase "the Bible says" is a foundation of his argument. And I know that there was a time early in his ministry that he made a conscious decision to trust. In this book, that decision is dramatized as a scene on a hilltop, with the devil as a character having lines and stage directions. And it feels strange.
I liked what was novel about the Grahams, but less novelization would help.Billy: The Untold Story of a Young Billy Graham and the Test of Faith that Almost Changed Everything
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Two Men, Two Roads Taken, November 23, 2008
Title: Billy: The Untold Story of a Young Billy Graham and the Test of Faith That Almost Changed Everything
Authors: William Paul McKay and Ken Abraham
Published by Thomas Nelson, 2008
264 pages
Billy is an unauthorized, true account of young Billy Graham, picking up when he is about 15 years old. It is as much a story of the man who became, for some years, his best friend: Charles Templeton, who, by his own account, was better looking, more articulate and a better preacher than Billy Graham. A popular evangelist, Templeton could command audiences of tens of thousands, when Billy could hope for only a few thousand, on his own. Yet, the two men took different paths in response to severe testing of their faith. Their stories, separate and joined, bring to mind that classic poem by Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken":
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.
As the book opens, Templeton is in his early 80's, hospitalized with Alzheimer's. Deborah Matthews, a middle-aged, has-been reporter, is under orders to interview Templeton to "get the dirt" on Graham. Matthews' boss will not accept her assurance that there is no scandal to dig up, and she knows her job is on the line. Throughout the book, her interview provides a springboard for stories from Graham's life, including his awkward attempts to communicate coherently with girls who had caught his eye and his heart; his conversion and growing sense that he was called to preach the gospel; and the beginning and maturing of the love between Billy and his life's mate, Ruth Bell.
Both through Templeton's responses to Matthews' questions and in the narrative of the story, we read of the friendship that developed between Templeton and Graham, as they traveled and preached together. Their unity began to unravel as their evangelistic efforts in post-WWII Europe brought Templeton's pre-existing doubts into sharper focus. His response to those seems tragic; in contrast, how God blessed Graham's evangelistic efforts serves to show how God blesses those whose faith is in Him, at all costs. Matthews' questions often trigger outbursts of Templeton's frustration, as he looks back on all that he has lost: the wide acclaim he once enjoyed, the intellect that he had relied on at the expense of his faith, his two failed marriages, and the astounding success of the man he had called his best friend, the man whose intellect, eloquence of speech, and preaching Templeton still considered inferior to his own.
Near the end of the book we read of Templeton's emotional crisis as he faces his demons. Reading of his breakdown before the reporter and her crew, confessing (speaking of Jesus) that "I miss him," we want him to reclaim that faith in God that he had renounced, so long before. Then, as Templeton struggles to regain control, Matthews tells him someone wants to say, "hello." Billy Graham enters the room and in their reunion, Templeton seems to respond to the unconditional love, forgiveness and grace of God, shown through his old friend.
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by Billy Graham
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~ Various Artists
