CONTEMPLATING the news and the various reports of the death of Billy Graham, I was taken back to the Billy Graham Rally I attended in the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow when I was 12 years old.

This marked the beginnings of my disillusion with religion because, rather than inspire me, the experience disturbed me despite (or perhaps because of) my tender age.

At that age I had experienced the normal kind of west of Scotland conventional brainwashed Christian upbringing in the Boys’ Brigade and the local gospel meeting hall across the street from my tenement home.

When I say brainwashed, what I mean is that religions have this very handy and effective trick of convincing you that questioning or doubting is the ultimate sin for which you will be condemned to eternal hellfire, and so you are socialised to accept Christian teaching uncritically and to regard their clergy and people like Billy Graham as good people by definition. That is why so many religious people get away with some of the most heinous behaviour imaginable for so long.

What I saw at the Billy Graham rally made me suspect that I was being conned by a master, although at 12 I could not articulate that way, I just had a feeling that it was wrong, and that the man was a fraud. My doubts began immediately on arrival at the hall. We were greeted by young smiling “counsellors” who showed us to our seats, and to my young mind they were just too nice.

During the rally, Graham was supported by a mass choir who raised or lowered the pitch of their backing as the emotions conveyed by his preaching varied. I found this very effective and began concentrating on this aspect of the rally rather than what Graham was actually saying, because I found it rather inspiring but also understood that this was the object of the exercise. This was accompanied by numerous “praise the Lords” and “hallelujahs”.

At the end of his service Graham had what he called an altar call; he invited the audience to proceed to the front of the stage where they could pledge their lives to the Lord. I was seated near the back of the hall where the “counsellors” had stationed themselves, and when this altar call was issued I was quite shocked to realise that one of the principal roles of the counsellors was to act as Judas goats and lead the parade to the front of the hall and encourage others in the audience to do the same. It was a stage-managed performance Hollywood would have been proud of, accompanied by the choir who came in on cue with rousing and inspiring songs of praise.

I was left with an overwhelming feeling of being manipulated and that the whole experience was empty and rather sinister. Even at the age of 12 I realised that what I was witnessing was a business, religion as a money-making enterprise. I was glad to get out of the Kelvin Hall that night, and forever after distrusted Billy Graham and similar evangelicals. It is testament to the effect that this rally had on me that I still remember it quite vividly after all these years.

This is a personal reflection and is not meant to be anything other than that. I am sure that for many people Graham had a positive and uplifting effect, and I understand that “being saved” has literally saved people’s lives. If religion works for some people then good for them, but over the years my experience with Christians only confirmed my childhood suspicions of holy men and I realised that Christianity, in common with all other religions, is represented by some of the most unscrupulous gangsters and fraudsters on the planet.

But my retreat from religion had its genesis (no pun intended) that night at a performance by a con-artist that left a 12-year-old boy very suspicious that he had just witnessed a masterpiece in fraud.

Peter Kerr
Kilmarnock