WORLD AFLAME

by Billy Graham ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 1965

Fundamentalist-evangelist Graham hasn't budged. Imbued with a prophetic distemper, he measures chapter and verse with a scrupulous slide-rule, envisions heaven as a kind of deathless Levittown where dwellings will ""be even better than the Time magazine version of the New Age house,"" and admits of no possible solution to crime, nuclear escalation, racial tension or poverty outside of religious revolution. Indeed the title fire is seen in some cases as divinely lit. ""God,"" he is claims, ""is using Communism as a Judgment upon the West"" On the subject of the church's responsibility toward racial strife, Mr. Graham is somewhat elusive or evasive. He is ""not sure that the leaders of the church have a right to speak without consultation from the whole membership."" He has never preached to a segregated audience ""in any situation over which he had control."" Billy Graham's written and oral styles -- replete with alliterative slogans and cut rate allusions to other great thinkers of our day-- are identical. For those who have said ""Amen,"" fine and dandy; for others, his simplistic dismissal of humanism, syncretic Christianity and the United Nations is less than intellectually respectable.

Pub Date: Sept. 3, 1965

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION