Altar Call in Europe

This book provides a transnational history of Billy Graham’s revival work in the 1950s, zooming in on his revival meetings in London (1954), Berlin (1954/1960), and New York (1957). It shows how Graham’s international ministry took shape in the context of transatlantic debates about the place and future of religion in public life after the experiences of war and at the onset of the Cold War, and through a constant exchange of people, ideas, and practices. It explores the transnational nature of debates about the religious underpinnings of the “Free World” and sheds new light on the contested relationship between business, consumerism, and religion. In the context of Graham’s revival meetings, ordinary Christians, theologians, ministers, and church leaders in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom discussed, experienced, and came to terms with religious modernization and secular anxieties, Cold War culture, and the rise of consumerism. The transnational connectedness of their political, economic, and spiritual hopes and fears brings a narrative to life that complicates our understanding of the different secularization paths the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany embarked on in the 1950s. During Graham’s altar call in Europe, the contours of a transatlantic revival become visible, even if in the long run it was unable to develop a dynamism that could have sustained this moment in these different national and religious contexts.

Experiencing Religion

At each of Graham’s revival meetings a modern, lived, and transnational community of faith formed, connecting believers to past and future crusades. By following the audience to the meetings themselves, this chapter shows how they experienced the “modern” faith that had featured prominently in the contemporary religious debates discussed in Chapter 1. In the complex interplay between the sacred and the profane in the meetings’ orchestration, this faith became tangible. At the revival meetings, relationships formed within the audiences, and through practices such as singing and praying participants contributed to the charging of the spiritual atmosphere that finally climaxed in the altar call. Several aspects of the revival meetings—the presence of international guests, the awareness of prayers being said around the world for those in attendance, and the translation and accessibility of conversation narratives—enhanced the feeling in audiences that they were part of the transnational community of Billy Graham’s followers.

Reviving Religion

This book uses Graham’s crusades in London, Berlin, and New York as a prism through which to explore the powerful dynamics of the transatlantic revival of the 1950s. It was a movement that affected political discourses, theological debates, and ordinary faith, and witnessed a tremendous exchange of ideas and issues, hopes and fears, people and practices. It produced intense national debates about the future of faith under the threat of secularization. It was shaped by transnational ideological frameworks such as the Cold War and consumerism, and it strengthened the international awareness of German, British, and American Christians within and beyond the evangelical community. These were the dynamics, changes, and processes that came together during Graham’s altar call in Europe. This first chapter embeds Billy Graham’s revival meetings in the religious landscapes of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany in the 1950s, a time characterized by secularization fears and hopes for a religious revival. It introduces the planning process behind Graham’s revival meetings, which was marked by lively transnational exchanges between American, British, and German organizers. In the wake of World War II, the so-called crusades provided a focus for contemporary debates among church officials, theologians, and ordinary Christians about faith, politics and society, and a possible modernization of religious life. The chapter shows how the endorsement and criticism developing around Graham split congregations and denominations, meanwhile allowing an ecumenical community of Graham supporters to emerge. Graham’s revival style challenged the evangelical communities in particular to embrace a more worldly faith.

Altar Call of Cthulhu: Religion and Millennialism in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos

Religion suffuses H.P. Lovecraft’s (1890–1937) short stories—the most famous of which, “The Call of Cthulhu,” has led to a literary subculture and a shared mythos employed by Lovecraft’s successors. Despite this presence of religion in Lovecraft’s work, scholars of religion have paid relatively little attention to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos, with a few notable exceptions. This article offers a close analysis of millennialism within Lovecraft’s thought, especially as expressed in three of his “Cthulhu mythos” stories: “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Dunwich Horror,” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” This article considers Lovecraft’s formative experiences and non-fiction writings so as to contextualize his approach and millennial outlook. Tied to his nativist views of social decline, I argue that Lovecraft expresses in his fiction a peculiar form of millennialism, “anti-millennialism,” which entails the reversal of traditional millennialism, offering no hope in a collective salvation, but rather expectation that the imminent future would bring only decline.

Soteriology at the Altar: Pentecostal Contributions to Salvation as Praxis

The day of Pentecost serves as a central integrative theme for the practices, theological concepts, and biblical narratives nurturing Pentecostal soteriology. The so-called “full gospel” provides the basic contours for ritual reflection among Pentecostals and recognizes salvation as both initial metaphor for Pentecostal theology and principal theological theme. The foundational soteriological plot of Pentecost is appropriated by Pentecostals in diverse contexts through the foundational rite of the altar call and response. A Pentecostal reading of salvation from the biblical account of Pentecost and a subsequent articulation of Pentecostal soteriology cast in the image of Pentecost identifies the Pentecostal contribution to Christian soteriology as a persistent emphasis on salvation as praxis.