Billy Graham was one of the world’s most famous Christian evangelists in the twentieth century. He visited Scotland in 1955 and led a six week Crusade at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. Thousands of people attended these rallies and listened to Graham preach. At the end of the campaign, it was calculated that 26,457 people had responded to the Gospel message proclaimed by Graham. This paper, based upon a critical examination of twenty four sermons delivered by Graham, will discuss how the American evangelist presented Evangelical conversion during this Crusade in Scotland. It will explore how becoming a Christian was proclaimed by Graham to his Scottish audience in 1955.
It has been widely assumed that academic education lay at the heart of nineteenth century Scottish missions in Africa. This article will argue that a particular form of education that included artisan skills-based, commercial and industrial training was the basis of the Livingstonia expedition led by Robert Laws in Nyasaland from 1875. Inspired by Dr James Stewart of Lovedale, financed by Free Church businessmen from Glasgow and led by teams of tradesmen, the aim of this mission was to establish small settlements that would create a network of trading centres from which commerce, civilisation and Christianity would spread across Africa. The ambitions and character of these first missionaries, not least Laws, exercised a fundamental influence upon the nature and purpose of this enterprise. Livingstonia was the most industrial mission of the modern era in Africa. A practical skills-based education was central to the gospel according to Robert Laws.
Often the timing and manner of revivals have been significantly influenced by the working and leisure patterns of the contexts within which they have occurred. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scottish awakenings appeared most regularly within agrarian towns and villages during their summer communion seasons. Often they took place around the times of planting and harvest, with the result that the period between May and October was often considered the ‘holy season’. The appearance of these movements was appreciably affected by the annual agricultural cycles of work and rest. At the start of the nineteenth century the ability of these popular communion festivals to engender religious enthusiasm began to decline when, under the influence of an increasingly enlightened culture, they became more respectable and organized. In addition, new measures emerged which sought to attract the urban masses and they gradually undermined the old models of revivalism. Many of these ‘modern’ techniques were designed to compete against other social attractions for the attention and time of the city dweller. The 1859 revival hence presents an opportunity to examine how religious movements had changed and become related to the use of time by the middle of the nineteenth century.
Billy Graham was a world-famous Christian evangelist in the twentieth century. He visited Scotland in 1955 and led a six-week campaign that included a series of events held at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. Hundreds of thousands of people attended these rallies and many were converted. This paper will discuss how Billy Graham employed the danger of nuclear war during these meetings in his Gospel appeals. It will examine critically the sermons he preached in order to determine how he used this threat of crisis in order to generate spiritual anxiety and encourage people to be ‘born again’ during the All Scotland Crusade.
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