Billy James Hargis (August 3, 1925 – November 27, 2004) was an American Christian evangelist. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, his Christian Crusade ministry was broadcast on over 500 radio stations and 250 television stations. He promoted an anti-Communist, segregationist message as well as evangelizing, and founded a radio station, monthly newspaper, and a college in Tulsa, Oklahoma to support his ministries. In 1974, several students at his American Christian College accused Hargis of sexual misconduct; however, the Tulsa district attorney found no evidence of wrongdoing. Hargis went into partial retirement, and the college closed in 1977. He continued to publish his newspaper and write books.
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 baptized, and had few pleasures other than the family's daily Bible readings because his family was too poor during the Great Depression to own a radio. When his mother was hospitalized, Hargis promised to devote himself to God if she was spared from death. She recovered and, at age 17, Hargis was ordained in the Disciples of Christ denomination, even before completing Bible college. After a few years, he left his pastorate for a ministry of radio preaching.
In 1943, Hargis entered Ozark Bible College in Bentonville, Arkansas, and studied there for one year. By 1947, when he became concerned about Communism, he was pastor of the First Christian Church in Sapulpa, a city west of Tulsa. He later received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Pikes Peak Bible Seminary in 1957 and a theology degree from Burton College and Seminary in Colorado in 1958.
In 1950, he established an organization called the Christian Crusade. In the mid-1950s, Hargis was closely associated with the evangelist Carl McIntire and in the early 1960s Hargis had developed a close relationship with the resigned United States Army Major General Edwin Walker, but he increasingly went his own way in preaching anti-Communism. His targets included government and popular singers. In 1957, the Disciples of Christ denomination withdrew his ordination because he attacked other churches in his anti-Communist crusade. Still, by then, Hargis' radio program was bringing in $1 million annually, and he had established a degree of financial and theological independence. In 1960, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated Hargis, suspecting him of being linked to recent bombing attacks on Little Rock public schools and of planning to bomb Philander Smith College. No evidence was found and no charges were filed. On May 31, 1961, Bob Jones University honored Hargis with an honorary Doctor of Laws.
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." Drawing on premillennialist theology, Hargis believed national and world events were part of a cosmic struggle, where the ultimate actors were Christ and Satan. To him communism represented the latter, the United States represented the former. He used this as justification for why the United States should return to what he believed were its founding Christian ideals.
Positions and activities
Hargis preached on cultural issues: against sex education and Communism, and for the return of prayer and Bible reading to public schools, long before the rise of the late 20th century Religious Right. His belief in conspiracy theories led to a belief that the government, the media, and pop culture figures were promoting "communism" in the late 1960s. Hargis' subordinate, Rev. David Noebel, wrote the short work, "Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles" (1965), which he expanded into "Rhythm, Riots and Revolution" the following year. Both pamphlets were published by the Christian Crusade. Hargis claimed to have written a speech for the infamous anti-communist Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.