Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation is the subtitle of the book, America’s Pastor, an acclaimed sort-of-biography by acclaim-worthy Duke University historian Grant Wacker. Last weekend Wacker discussed his book at the Cushwa Center of the University of Notre Dame with a crowded, hall-full of historians of American Christianity who have been invited to enjoy the hospitality of that Center for now three decades.
Wacker’s book was critiqued by Richard Bushman, expert on Mormonism and much more, and Christian Smith, a sociologist who strains beyond the disciplinary confines of his field. Both were laudatory, and, after three hours of my note-taking, I find that I (almost) never heard a disparaging word, though questions were apt and expertly handled by the panel of three.
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