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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 97.73.64.173 (talk) at 14:24, 7 November 2011 (→‎Graham and Harry Truman: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Pneumonia

Graham was hospitalized on May 11th. I'm assuming this is sufficiently notable because it got headline billing on CNN.com and news articles are popping up every minute. Rklawton (talk) 21:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Religious views?

I think there should be a section that discusses his religious views. 68.104.173.148 (talk) 13:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not NPOV?

This article sure has a pro-Christian slant to it.

'According to his staff, more than 3.2 million people have responded to the invitation at Billy Graham Crusades to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, many to the altar call song "Just As I Am".' Doesn't exactly sound neutral to me. How about '...have responded to the invitation to convert to Christianity' or 'have become christians' at Billy Graham Crusades?

203.109.246.72 (talk) 03:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well considering he's probably the most well-known living Christian I'm not surprised that it's pro-Christian. The problem with your suggested changes are that he invites them to accept Jesus as their personal saviour. They may already have faith positions that could be characterized as Christian such as any one of the various forms of Catholicism. So you can't assume that they're not already Christian or that they are becoming Christians. Then on the other side of the coin is the position that they haven't actually become Christians as that involves discipleship. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay then, "have become 'born again' Christians at Graham's behest" or "have become Baptised (according to whatever convention he preaches) as a result of his works." There's more than one way to skin a cat. It may not be surprising it has a pro-Christian slant, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be fixed so it doesn't. "...have responded to the invitation to accept Jesus as their personal saviour" seems subtly to suggest that he actually is their saviour and these people have come to accept that 'fact' when it hasn't been established as such. It just occurs to me that it could be said better, preferably by someone other than me, who knew nothing about Graham until he stumbled on this article last night. Also, Billy Graham better known than Pope Ratzinger, Barach Obama and Queen Elizabeth II? I doubt it, somehow. 60.226.45.225 (talk) 08:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Odd

It is odd that Graham could not remember a conversation with a President. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 14:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See note 43. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. Many conversations, limited storage for memory. Only the unusual would stand out. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:31, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Award and honors

Section "Award and honors" is a result of random edits of random editors. It should be improved. "Congressional Gold Medal" is mentioned twice in different paragraphs, but according to you it is correct. Some sentences are wrongly referenced. For instance this one:

"He has received the Congressional Gold Medal from the United States Congress and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Reagan, America's highest civilian honors."

It is referenced to this site, but there is nothing about these two medals. It needs correct references. Why you do not want to improve this article? There are plenty of dead links. With regards. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 21:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't hide discussions about articles on the talk pages of individual editors. I have no problems with fixing the article, so I'll go clean-up the mess you made and maybe you can stop thinking your edits are perfect.
OK Now that I've read everything you've said I can only conclude you're not familiar with the Internet or the technologies around web pages. The previous reference wasn't duplicated. An anonymous editor just added it and you mangled it even worse minutes later. I reverted all of it. Then you added your edit back. The reference you were looking for was on the second page. http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/07/The-Billy-Pulpit.aspx?p=2.
As for dead links, I'm not sure what you're talking about? I just ran it through a tool that checks for them and it didn't find any.
So now I get to ask you: do you want to improve the article or just push your POV? I'm reverting to where it was 12 hours ago. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did not read this page carefully, I was only looking for word "medal" (only 30 seconds), but there are more important things. Perhaps you can add more references, there are some unreferenced paragraphs. The lead should be expanded (every article longer than 30k should have at least three paragraphs. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 23:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't see the big "Continued on Page 2" when you reached the bottom?
Where did you pull that stat about ledes from? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, in that case I did not see it, and I do not know why. Sometimes I use much more advanced Internet technologies, you can see that in my manuscript articles. Wikipedia:LEAD#Length - basic wikipedia standards. Are you unfamiliar with wikipedia standards? I know it happens. Leszek Jańczuk (talk) 09:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have never seen that section of that MOS page, but I have seen "Continued on Page X" multiple times. You use more advanced Internet technologies? Perhaps you should stick to browsers that render the page correctly. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scottish descent

Billy Graham is also a Scottish American on both sides of his family. His mother was a Bell and his father a Graham (both surnames of Scottish origin) and his geneology can be seen on this site [1] his ancestor Matthew Stewart, born 1720 in Scotland as were his ancestors with other Scottish surnames like Harris and Stewart.Uthican (talk) 14:18, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The URL provided does not work. Rklawton (talk) 14:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
okay thats strange as it worked just as I searched for it, how about this book "Billy Graham, the preacher James E. Kilgore Exposition Press, 1968 - Biography & Autobiography" states his father was of Scottish descent. "Narratives of the religious self in early-modern Scotland
By David George Mullan p27 Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2010" states Graham was born in 1918 near Charlotte, North Carolina of Scottish descent. Are they ok? As I have yet to find his ancestry os of English or Irish I'll remove those until someone finds an article to wiki standards and re-edit the Scottish descent in.Uthican (talk) 14:32, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed the URL. It's not a reliable source. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My real concern is how many generations back do we go? I don't know of a policy, but I would argue that two generations (grand-parents) would be the maximum.
Basing genealogy simply on family name is not sufficient. Country of origin may not be sufficient as a person's heritage and descent may be involved in more than names, particularly when it comes to Americans.
I would also argue that any geological category that does not have support in the article should be removed. Perhaps we should have someone from the appropriate project(s) advise on the subject. Those projects would be Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy. Perhaps someone watching the various nationality categories: Category:American people of English descent, Category:American people of Irish descent, and Category:American people of Scottish descent. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The word "geological" seems to be a mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 11:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is. How about I spell genealogical and not let my spell checker "fix" it for me. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Graham and Harry Truman

The article incorrectly referred to Plain Speaking as Harry Truman's "autobiography". That is not true. Plain Speaking is allegedly an oral biography of Truman written and edited by Merle Miller. Unfortunately, the book is notoriously inaccurate (for instance, the "account" of Truman's meeting with MacArthur at Wake Island is markedly different from eyewitness accounts of the event). In fact, I believe members of Truman's own family have said that the book contains distortions. Thus, there is reason to question the accuracy of Truman's "comments" about Billy Graham. It's quite possible that Miller simply made it up.97.73.64.173 (talk) 14:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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