begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people,
or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their
sakes... therefore agapemakes no distinction between friend and
enemy; it is directed toward both.”
So Billy showed love, even to his most savage critics and to
those who had hurt him the most. He was moved by compassion
for those who suffer or have no hope, his love extending to Chris-
tian, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic, or atheist. That’s what agape
required of him.
Billy believed education and legislation were important but
inadequate. In light of the world’s atrocities, he wrote in The Secret
of Happiness, “Government and civil laws are like the cages in a
zoo—they can restrain evil, but they cannot change the basic
nature of the human heart. Art and education may refine the
taste, but they cannot purify the heart. The Holocaust was carried
out by educated people, some brilliantly so.”
When he and Ruth visited the Nazi death camp of
Auschwitz, they were deeply moved. “We saw the barbed wire,
the instruments of torture, the airless punishment cells, the gas
chambers and crematorium. Every square foot of that terrible
place was a stark and vivid witness to man’s inhumanity to man.
We laid a memorial wreath and then knelt to pray at a wall in
the midst of the camp where 20,000 people had been shot.
When I got up and turned around to say a few remarks to those
who had gathered with us, my eyes blurred with tears and I
almost could not speak. How could such a terrible thing
happen — planned and carried out by people who were often
highly educated?”
Billy’s commitment to love and mercy clashed prodigiously
with obvious evil. “I would rather have a world filled with igno-
rant savages,” he said, “than with civilized sophisticates without
morality.”
When we talked to John Akers about Billy’s visits to
Auschwitz and Treblinka, and his visiting refugees in India and
elsewhere, we asked how that fit with his intense focus on his
mission. “Simply this—he’s a compassionate person,” John said.
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham