We're continuing to talk about Billy Graham and your memories of him, Pastor John. And the Piper family history is tied up with one particular controversy surrounding Billy Graham. And listeners may not know about this. So can you explain for us a little of what happened between Billy Graham and Bob Jones, and how did that controversy between them impact your father?

In Greenville, South Carolina, where I grew up, there's a university across the highway from where I live called Bob Jones University. It's big. I don't know, four or five thousand students, maybe. I haven't checked more recently. A very strong and very influential fundamentalist institution. That's a word that they love and would use.

My dad was happy to call himself a fundamentalist. Lots of people would call me a fundamentalist. What a fundamentalist is historically is not only someone who embraces all the fundamentals of the faith, but has a doctrine of separation and defense of the faith that is fairly militant. George Dollar wrote a history of fundamentalism one time called "The History of Fundamentalism," and the cover of the book was a Bible with a fist on it.

And the subtitle was "A Militant Defense of the Historic Faith," or something like that. And so that sense of being willing to fight, go to the mat, separate from people who are not truly faithful, that marked historic fundamentalism. And to this day, it does. And frankly, I have a high level of respect for that approach towards Christianity, and would only differ from it probably in some degrees of how we deal with culture and how we handle certain disagreements.

So yes, my father went to school there, was one of those, loved that school, cherished what he got from it. And in 1957, a dispute between Billy Graham and his crusade strategies and methods, and the fundamentalists on the other side, who thought he was compromising the gospel by the way he was supported by liberal people in his crusades.

That controversy came to a head, and my father, who was on the board of Bob Jones, had to make a choice of whether he would remain on the board and side with those who were saying Billy Graham's crusades were sub-Christian or of the devil even some, or whether he would stay with the school he loved.

He felt like he needed to resign, and he did. And so all the rest of my growing up life, I was 11 then, all the rest of my life then was under the shadow of that disagreement. And it broke my dad's heart, and to my great gladness, there was a sweet reconciliation between him and some of the leaders at Bob Jones in his 80s.

And my dad died in a nursing home owned by Bob Jones University. So symbolically, he came full circle. The issue came to a head in 1957 because of the New York crusade. The New York crusade was historic, it was phenomenal. Billy Graham went there, I'm not sure how long he was planning to be there, but he wound up preaching every night for 16 weeks in New York.

That's an unprecedented evangelist. That's four months in Madison Square Garden. Jesus Christ is being lifted up to a full house. The problem is, Billy wanted as many people to say yes and support him as would be willing, and there were people who supported him and even sat on the platform who were clearly liberal, didn't believe the doctrines he believed, and that was felt to be a profound contradiction of faithfulness to the gospel by some.

And Billy always said that he'd go anywhere and preach under any circumstances if he was allowed to say what he wanted to say. So I have really sad memories about that disruption between my father and the school and fundamentalism in general over that issue. But I'm really happy with the decision that my father made.

I think he made the right decision. In other words, I think it's possible to disapprove. My father did disapprove with Bob Jones of some of Billy Graham's strategies. He said to them in correspondence that I've read that he said, "I agree that I would not do it this way, but I can't say that Billy Graham's crusades are of the devil.

I can't write off the work of God. I can't say that God's not moving here. I can't withdraw my support from Billy's gospel efforts for these disagreements." Yeah, so how influential was this episode in your life, this conflict between Billy Graham and Bob Jones and your father's hard decision?

How influential was this in how you personally think through which conferences you will speak at now? You know, I don't know the answer to that, Tony. I don't know the causality of a lot of the convictions that I have, but I think it would be honoring to my father and probably faithful to history to say that what we experienced growing up has really significant, almost subconscious effects that may show themselves 30 years later.

So that I find myself today being very much at home with my father's preaching. In fact, I was listening to my father preach just two days ago. My wife and I were on our anniversary. We did not go to church. We were way up in the mountains at bed and breakfast, and we said, "Let's have our own little church here." And we couldn't get internet, so I couldn't listen to my living favorite preachers.

So I listened to one of my dead favorite preachers, namely my dad, because I have a whole bunch of his sermons on my computer. And as I was listening to him, I said, "I love this guy. I love what he preaches." And so I don't doubt that his approach to this was influential on me and that I can go into a conference, and I might say, "I don't like this music," or, "I don't like some of the slapstick that's happening on the platform.

I don't like all the things that the other speakers are saying." But they're going to let me talk to a lot of people here about the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus, and that's what I'm called to do. And so probably my approach to be willing to lift up my vision of God in places where it might not be completely shared has been influenced by my father's choices.

Yes. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Tomorrow we'll be back to take a look at another season of Billy Graham's ministry that was stirred up in controversy and what we can learn from it. Until then, please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org, and you can visit us online at desiringgod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.