Billy James Hargis
Billy James Hargis | |
---|---|
Occupation(s) | Christian evangelist political activist |
Spouse | Betty Jane Secrest Hargis (married 1951) |
Children | Bryan Joseph Hargis (died in infancy) Becky J. Frank Bonnie Jane Choisnard Brenda Jo Epperley Billy James Hargis II (deceased) [1] |
Parent(s) | Jimmie Earsel Hargis and Laura Lucille Hargis |
Billy James Hargis (August 3, 1925 – November 27, 2004) was an American
Biography
Hargis was adopted by a railroad employee, Jimmie Earsel Hargis, and his wife, Laura Lucille Hargis. By the time the boy was ten, his adoptive mother was in poor health and close to death. The boy had been
In 1943, Hargis entered
In 1950, he established an organization called the Christian Crusade. In the mid-1950s, Hargis was closely associated with the evangelist
1966 Hargis founded a congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma called the Church of the Christian Crusade. This was part of a complex of organizations that he founded in Tulsa, including the American Christian College in 1971 and the Christian Crusade monthly newspaper.
Marriage and family
Hargis married Betty Jane Secrest of Sciotoville, Ohio in 1951. They had three daughters and a son, Billy James Hargis II, who died on September 9, 2013, and Bryan Joseph Hargis who died in infancy. His grandson, Billy James Hargis III, was born on May 10, 1989, and currently resides in Houston, Texas.
Career
Hargis' motto was "All I want to do is preach Jesus and save America."[6] Drawing on
Positions and activities
Hargis preached on cultural issues: against
Hargis was a member of the John Birch Society and strongly favored segregation, arguing that desegregation violated the Eighth Commandment by allowing the government to steal from one's property.[9] He also accused Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of being Communist-educated, and published Dr. James D. Bales' anti-King book, The Martin Luther King Story. He opposed the crusades of rival evangelist Billy Graham and endorsed George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election in part because of Republican nominee Richard Nixon's relationship with Graham.[9] Along with his friend Carl McIntire, who was staunchly anti-Catholic,[9] Hargis was one of the most influential people in a movement later known as the "Old Christian Right."[9] However, both Hargis and McIntire lost influence by failing to capitalize on the fact that most American Catholics were staunchly anti-communist.[9]
Hargis addressed audiences with his revival style. He was the author of at least 100 books, including The Far Left, and Why I Fight for a Christian America. In addition, his organization published a pamphlet on sex education, entitled "Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?", by Gordon V. Drake, the Christian Crusade's educational director.[10]
In 1964, Hargis supported
Red Lion case
On November 25, 1964, Hargis attacked a book and an article called “Hate Clubs of the Air" he believed to be written about him in
Founding of institutions
In 1950, Hargis founded the Christian Crusade, an interdenominational movement. In 1964, the Internal Revenue Service alleged that Hargis' involvement in political matters violated the terms of the Internal Revenue Code for religious institutions and withdrew the tax-exempt status of the Christian Crusade. Richard Viguerie a pioneer in using direct mail in the 1970s and 1980s to support conservative movements and their causes began his career working for Hargis. Viguerie developed direct mail databases to solicit small donations in an average of 2000 mailings a day from a wide field of ideological supporters. At the time, Hargis had reported that the average contribution to his movement was $4, from a constituency of 250,000 donors, and it was receiving $1 million annually.[3]
In association with his Christian Crusade Hargis published the monthly Christian Crusade Newspaper, with a circulation of 55,000, and Weekly Crusade.
He founded the David Livingstone Missionary Foundation, which operated hospitals, orphanages, leprosy villages, medical vans, and mission services in South Korea, Hong Kong, India, the Philippines, and Africa.
Hargis founded American Christian College in Tulsa during 1971 to teach Christian principles and provide an alternative to perceived
Concerned with the liberalization of
He also started a television show Billy James Hargis and his All-American Kids. It was sold to independent television stations. Students from the college performed in the musical group.[citation needed]
Scandal
In 1974, when Hargis was nearly fifty, he was forced to resign as president of American Christian College because of allegations that he had seduced college students. Two of his students claimed that they had had sexual relations with Hargis—one was female, one was male. Other students corroborated the story. Hargis denied the sexual allegations until his death, both publicly and in his autobiography, My Great Mistake (1985). The account was reported by
When Hargis stepped down as president of American Christian College, he was succeeded by former vice president David Noebel. In February 1975, Hargis tried to regain control of the college but was rejected by its board. By September, he returned to his other ministries. They were said to welcome him after he repented. As Jess Pedigo, president of the David Livingstone Society, said, "There was a danger of bankruptcy."[16] Hargis did not give the deed to the property to the college for months after leaving, which prevented it from gaining regional accreditation. In addition, he withheld the fundraising lists, which all the organizations had previously shared.[16] With declining enrollment after the scandal became public, the college closed in 1977. In 1985 Hargis told a Tulsa reporter, "I was guilty of sin, but not the sin I was accused of."[3]
About 1976, he eventually retreated to his Missouri farm, where he continued to work, resuming a greatly diminished ministry, issuing daily and weekly radio broadcasts. He continued to publish the monthly newspaper, The Christian Crusade Newspaper, and wrote numerous books.
In his final years, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and a series of heart attacks, Hargis died in a Tulsa nursing home on November 27, 2004, at seventy-nine.[1][3]
Legacy
His son, Billy James Hargis II, continued his ministry until his own death. Hargis' organization and college also established and operated Tulsa radio station KBJH (FM 98.5) in the early 1970s. After the college's closing and the demise of his ministry, the station was sold to Epperson Broadcasting.
Hargis and his church owned and operated a small AM radio station in Port Neches, Texas, from 1980 to the early 1990s. KDLF radio (so named after the David Livingston Foundation) played Southern Gospel Music and religious programming until it was sold around 1993. In the latter days of Hargis' ownership, the radio station had a local marketing agreement to others but was required to play Hargis' hour-long program daily.[citation needed]
Hargis' papers, described as "a goldmine for students of American politics," are held at the special collections department of the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville.[17]
In popular culture
In the late 1970s, the popular WNBC disk jockey Imus in the Morning would occasionally do a segment where he would present himself as a "holy roller" evangelical Christian preacher named "Reverend Billy Sol Hargis". These brief sermons typically promoted a product which would give some form of spiritual benefit to the buyer of the product. One such product was "Sin Soap" which would purify any part of a person's body which had committed an act of sin. "Reverend Billy Sol Hargis" was an intentional satire of Christian ministers who were more interested in financial gain than the spiritual needs of their followers.[third-party source needed]
References
- ^ a b McFadden, Robert D. (November 29, 2004). "Billy James Hargis, 79, Pastor and Anticommunist Crusader, Dies". New York Times. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
- ISBN 0-313-30543-9.
- ^ a b c d e Adam Bernstein, "Evangelist Billy James Hargis Dies; Spread Anti-Communist Message", Washington Post, November 30, 2004.
- ^ Issenberg, Sasha (September 2018). "Barnstorming America". Smithsonian. pp. 40–51.
- ^ a b c d Michael Carlson, "Billy James Hargis. Rightwing preacher laid low by sexual scandal", The Guardian, December 10, 2004.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-57607-212-7.
- ^ "The Strange Love of Dr. Billy James Hargis".
- ^ Sword of the Lord, June 23, 1961, p. 4.
- ^ ISBN 9781412809061.
- ISBN 9780763754952.
- ^ ISBN 9781412809061. Retrieved April 2, 2018 – via Google Books.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
- ^ "Billy James Hargis", The Economist, December 16, 2004, accessed May 26, 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-19-534084-6. Daniel K. Williams. Oxford University Press. 2010.
- ^ a b c "The Sins of Billy James" Time, February 16, 1976.
- ^ "Hargis Papers Document Birth of Religious Right", University of Arkansas Daily Headlines, June 17, 2009. Internet Archive. Retrieved June 10, 2010.
Further reading
- Heather Hendershot, What's Fair on the Air? Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest (University of Chicago Press; 2011) 260 pages;covers H.L. Hunt, Dan Smoot, Carl McIntire, and Billy James Hargis.
- John H. Redekop, The American Far Right: A Case Study of Billy James Hargis and Christian Crusade, William B. Eerdmans, 1968.
External links
- Billy James Hargis Papers (MC 1412), University of Arkansas
- Christian Crusade website
- FBI files on Billy James Hargis and the Christian Crusade, obtained under the FOIA and hosted at the Internet Archive: