The Threat of Crisis in the Sermons of Billy Graham during the All Scotland Crusade in 1955

Abstract

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.