
World Methodist Council Photo
Hale Graham English
The Rev. Billy Graham visits with his friend, the Rev. Joe Hale, then executive of the World Methodist Council, and the Rev. Donald English of Great Britain, former Council president, at Graham's home in Montreat, N.C.
When “America’s pastor” Billy Graham died Feb. 21 at age 99, few of his many obituaries gave more than a passing mention to something that most senior United Methodists still remember: The most famous evangelist of the latter 20th century had strong Methodist and United Methodist ties.
Perhaps the most important Methodist influence on Dr. Graham, a Southern Baptist, was a man who was himself a towering figure in evangelism – Harry Denman. Born in 1893, Dr. Denman, a layman, was an enthusiastic, self-effacing and highly focused Christian known for being “the man with one suit.” During the first half of the 20th century Denman traveled the world taking with him only a small black bag packed with necessities. Today’s Harry Denman Evangelism Awards are sponsored in annual conferences by the Foundation for Evangelism, which Dr. Denman helped found in 1949.
Dr. Denman was named top executive of the Methodist Commission on Evangelism in 1938. The agency was renamed the Methodist General Board of Evangelism after the 1939 merger of three denominations that produced The Methodist Church. Dr. Denman was serving in that post when Billy Graham rose to prominence as an evangelist in the 1950s. Dr. Denman had a direct influence on Dr. Graham’s use of modern communications technology in staging and broadcasting his enormous gatherings that he called “crusades.”
According to a “World Changers” sermon series from Out of the Box Worship Center, a United Methodist congregation in Hillsvale, Va., Dr. Denman’s counsel to Dr. Graham and all evangelists was: “Believers in the universal gospel must use all methods of communication. Jesus came preaching, teaching, praying, visiting, healing, calling persons, and training them to communicate the gospel.”
By using his crusades to connect new believers with local churches, Dr. Graham also followed Dr. Denman’s advice: “Tell your story, of how God came into your heart and changed you from the inside out. … When people see a changed life, they will come because of your satisfaction in Jesus Christ.” Because of Dr. Graham’s emulation of Dr. Denman, he and other rising evangelists of the time were sometimes referred to as “Harry’s Boys,” according to longtime United Methodists.
Dr. Denman also taught Dr. Graham single-minded devotion to the gospel message over all other public affiliations. In a remembrance for the New York Times, Jonathan Merrett recalls when Dr. Graham was asked why he didn't affiliate with the Moral Majority and other conservative Christian factions. Mr. Merrett quotes from a 2007 article:
"In fact, Mr. Graham was often critical of the conservative Christian right. When he was asked in 2007 why he never affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, Mr. Graham replied: 'I’m all for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice. We as clergy know so very little to speak with authority on the Panama Canal or superiority of armaments. Evangelists cannot be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle in order to preach to all people, right and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will be in the future.'”

UM Insight Screencap
Denman Letter
Methodist evangelist Harry Denman, a mentor of the Rev. Billy Graham, wrote to Dr. Graham and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suggesting an eight-night television series, in this letter from The King Center archive.
Dr. Graham was noted for refusing to segregate his crusades racially, saying he refused to preach to "Jim Crow" audiences. In 1965, Dr. Denman wrote to Dr. Graham and to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., himself the product of United Methodist-related Boston University School of Theology. According to a letter in the archive of The King Center in Atlanta, Ga., Dr. Denman suggested the television equivalent of a “crusade” – an eight-night series in which the evangelist and the civil rights leader would trade preaching and praying duties, backed by a 5,000-voice choir composed equally of white and black singers.
“The theme for this eight-night telecast would be ‘God’s Society,’ wrote the Methodist evangelist. “The great society [a reference to then-President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” social programs] is not going to be great unless it’s God’s society. … Millions will see this telecast. It will do more than anything I know to help the churches, to see Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. preaching and praying together.” Unfortunately, Dr. Denman’s vision for the telecast was never realized.
When Dr. Denman died in 1976, Dr. Graham wrote of his friend: “Harry Denman was one of the great mentors for evangelism in my own life and ministry… the thing people will remember above all about Harry Denman was his love of Christ and his desire to see others come to know Him. He truly was one of those rare individuals whose impact will continue for generations to come.”
An even closer friend of Billy Graham was the late Rev. Joe Hale, longtime executive of the World Methodist Council based at Lake Junaluska, N.C. A famous photograph shows Dr. Hale and the Rev. Dr. Donald English of Great Britain, former WMC president, visiting with Dr. Graham at his home in Montreat, N.C.
When Dr. Hale died at age 81 in 2016, his obituary stated: “At the age of 16, Joe was inspired by the preaching of Billy Graham, whereby the faith of his childhood was deepened with evangelical fervor. Later in life, he and Graham became personal friends and were mutually supportive in their evangelical endeavors.”
Perhaps the most amusing of Dr. Graham’s Methodist connections was his friendship with the Rev. James B. Buskirk, longtime pastor of First United Methodist Church of Tulsa, Okla. Dr. Buskirk and Dr. Graham first met at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974 in Switzerland, and became friends.
In a 2003 article for the Tulsa World newspaper, Dr. Buskirk told of the many times he was mistaken for Dr. Graham when the two tall preachers with wavy blond hair appeared together.
“… Once when Graham was conducting a crusade in Atlanta, Buskirk was among the dignitaries present, representing Emory University's Candler School of Theology, where he was [then] the dean.
“When Buskirk walked onto the stage, the crowd rose and applauded.
“When Graham followed him onto the stage, the bewildered crowd paused, and then, realizing the error, resumed clapping.
“Another time, Buskirk was on an airplane when two men approached him and said, ‘We know you're Billy Graham.’
"’I couldn't talk them out of it,’ he recalled."
Throughout his career, Billy Graham’s personal friendships with Methodists such as Harry Denman, Joe Hale, James Buskirk and others shaped his ministry with unsung but effective influence.
Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.