Billy Graham, American evangelicalism, and the Cold War clash of messianic visions, 1945-1962

Abstract

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Dept. of History, 2012.This study examines the Cold War ideology of Billy Graham and other prominent representatives of the National Association of Evangelicals and their attempt to implement their messianic vision within the United States and promote it abroad from 1945 through 1962. While it focuses on the evangelical Protestant notions at the core of Cold War American messianism--the notion that the American way of life was ideal and that Communism posed a grave threat to it, the study also considers the nature and strength of Soviet messianism. In July 1945, evangelicals declared ideological cold war against world communism and began planning a spiritual invasion of Europe to restore Christianity and stop communism there. Billy Graham was among the young ministers sent to Europe, and he built upon his experience there to emerge as a major spokesman of American messianism. The popularity of Graham's anticommunism, a regular feature in his sermons, helped propel him to national fame. By 1950 his message was reaching much of the nation in a weekly radio broadcast, and by 1952 he was serving as a spiritual advisor to presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower. As president, Eisenhower worked with Graham to orchestrate Cold War civil religion, which drew much of its animus from Soviet Communism. Graham was an important national leader in the ideological war against communism. His desire to create a big tent of American Christianity led to ideological moderation during the late 1950s, but he continued to preach his messianic vision for the United States. Meanwhile, Soviet messianism underwent major changes during the early Cold War that, because of their own ideological assumptions, most Americans missed. Billy Graham drew from American mythology to construct a compelling messianic vision for the future of mankind that met the hopes and fears of Americans in such balance that it became something of an official Cold War ideology throughout the 1950s. However inaccurate American conceptions of Soviet messianism were, Graham's imagery resonated with the public and its policymakers, and helped keep America's messianic vision for the future of mankind robust into the early 1960s, even as Soviet messianism flagged