God’s Marketeer

This article deals with the reception of Billy Graham and modern evangelicalism in the fragmented society of the Netherlands in 1954. It takes its departure from the stream of newspaper articles published between February and June in response to the Greater London Crusade and Graham’s first large scale rally in Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium. The analysis of the reports in different newspapers, which represent the different social groups (catholic, protestant, socialist and liberal) in Dutch society, reveals a significant shift in the way Billy Graham was perceived: from initial scepticism to mild appreciation. This change in press coverage, it is concluded, is mainly due to the different way in which Billy Graham presented himself compared with the large-scale publicity which surrounded his campaign.