Sometimes those preachers could get hot and they'd boil for the Lord. One such man was Billy Sunday. A baseball player gone public revival leader, he is said to have been quite the figure. No theatrics too theatrical for this popular figure. I think the images speak for themselves. Billy Graham is obviously the heir to this (this) Billy's throne.
Devil might have some slick tricks but Billy's got a chair!
Some Christians believe that the end of the world is near, that first the elect or church of true believers will be raptured, after which seven years of tribulation will follow under the rule of the Antichrist, after which Christ will return and reign on earth for a thousand years. This is usually referred to as Premillennialism, expecting the return of Christ before the thousand years of peace. There's also Dispensationalism, when more than one phase in human history (or should I say Biblical history) is recognized. Together neatly they are called Dispensational Premillennialism. People that believe this actually worked it out in neat charts. I love these charts because they are minutely detailed and carefully drawn out, rationally organized intricate maps of an event that is quite hard to imagine will ever take place outside of a certain Biblical frame of reference. The charts really look like step-by-step instructions on how to fix your radio.
Man of the hour seems to have been Clarence Larkin who made these and countless others of illustrations like them.
No, not about Mel Gibson's movie. It's about a local production, The Passion, provided by the Dutch Evangelical Broadcasting Community with some support from the Roman Catholic Church and the Dutch Protestant Church. It was huge and spectacular. 1.7 million people watched it on television, more than 10% of the total Dutch population. I read nothing but praise about the technical aspect and the delivery. The artists were all local celebrities. Personally, this is an instance where two loves meet for not only am I fascinated by popular expressions of religious sentiment, I do have a weak spot for Dutch local artists too. There is something pathetic and familiar about it that strangely warms my heart just as much as Christian sentiment is able to. If Christ doesn't feel strangely familiar to me then at least the Dutch artists certainly do. And here they are, celebrating the story of my buddy Jesus!
But what do I see? In 2012? Nothing but criticism from both the secular and the religious sides it seems. Most striking is that the secular side is complaining about this story being portrayed irreverently. What! If anyone the secular side should be able to recognize that the idea of religious integrity is suspect at the very least. Either the non-religious have not yet completely emancipated themselves from religious sentiment or they abuse an idea of religious integrity to bash a type of popular entertainment that they can't stand, for of course it is the intellectuals that complain about this. Most likely a combination of both.
But even from the theological side I hear complaints. Really? Well go ahead and dig your own grave with complaints for shovels then! If popular culture is seen as something that can only corrupt religion then pretty soon that religion will be over and done with. I would like to see how someone from the United States would react to this European type of criticism. "Are they crazy?" My fictional evangelical American friend might ask. "The Gospel should be told and made heard, whatever it takes," he would argue. I guess the US has more of a tradition of catering to popular sentiment, making use of popular entertainment and modern media. Also in the US the religious emphasis seems to be more on experiencing religion than subscribing to a set of beliefs. The reasons for things growing differently in the US and in Europe are many but the bottom line is, if the EU clergy isn't going to wise up they might keep an eye on the classifieds ads printed next to their angry letters in the newspapers.
Like 7th Heaven, this series was one of the few glimpses we got of American religious reasoning. Looking back at it now, it actually doesn't seem that explicitly religious. From Wikipedia: "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman is an American western/drama series created by Beth Sullivan. Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn, played by Jane Seymour, left Boston in search of adventure. She goes to Colorado Springs, Colorado where she establishes herself as doctor / advisor. DQ, MW is a post-Civil War, 19th-century drama." Personally I probably associate it with Evangelicalism because our Evangelical broadcasting company, de Evangelische Omroep, was the one that aired it here. Somehow it did seem to tie in with an idealistic outlook on life so obviously naive that only the Evangelical broadcasting company would dare present it to their audience. There does seem to have been a strong Christian bias in the way human relations were being portrayed by the series, also reinforcing these interactions as absolutely effective. I might even go so far as to say that it presents Dr. Quinn as the hope for the West. The rough and ruthless realities of the West being redeemable if (and only if) Christian ethics, understood in a New England fashion, would be applied properly. Interesting that she is also a Medicine Woman, the healer, one might say, and that she takes upon herself her duty to not only heal but also to redeem and show the "uncultured" the way to happiness through proper behavior and relations. Adds a little bit of martyrdom and missionary zeal to it all, celebrating the good that dare seek out the lost. But enough far fetched over-analysis, let us enjoy the shameless music and acting skills from this also somehow typically 90s series!
Since whenever I look at which blog entries are most popular Mr. Graham here is never absent from the top 10, I thought I'd honor him with a few words to accompany his marvelous pictures below. The thing is, this man has seen it all. One of the very first radio broadcast microphones was in front of his nose and now the man has a Facebook page. He's been around the block. And he was everywhere! Youth for Christ, he made it happen. A US President needed someone to whisper sweet words in his ear? Graham was his man! Think of this man what you will, you can't deny his central religious and perhaps even cultural presence in the United States. Most known for his wild revival talks perhaps though, in the best of tradition ever since Whitefield through Finney and Sunday. The modern-day face of evangelical Christianity. I especially love that first picture, even though fire isn't coming from his mouth too much on that one. But it's that innocent confidence, that good spirit... that made this country so great! Oh no wait, I'm in another country.
Present-day Graham. Still going strong. Well... still going anyway.
