Billy James Hargis
Encyclopedia
Billy James Hargis was a fundamentalist Protestant Christian evangelist
. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, his Christian Crusade ministry was broadcast on more than 500 radio stations and 250 television stations. He promoted an anti-Communist message as well as evangelization, 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 or wrongdoing. Hargis went into early retirement and the college closed in 1977. He continued to publish his newspaper and to write books.
readings as 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 were saved. She recovered, and at age 17, Hargis was ordained in the Disciples of Christ denomination, before completing Bible college. After a few years, he left his pastorate for a ministry of radio preaching.
In 1943, Hargis entered the unaccredited 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, Oklahoma
, a small town outside 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, for which he gained tax exemption as a religious institution. In the mid-1950s, Hargis was closely associated with the evangelist Carl McIntire
and former Major General Edwin Walker
of the John Birch Society, but he increasingly went his own way in preaching anti-Communism. His targets included government and popular singers. In 1957, the Disciples Of Christ withdrew his ordination because he was attacking other churches in his anti-Communist crusade, but by then Hargis' radio program was bringing in $1 million annually and he had established independence.
In 1966 Hargis founded his own congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma
, called the Church of the Christian Crusade. This was part of a complex of organizations which he founded in Tulsa, including the American Christian College in 1971, and the Christian Crusade monthly newspaper.
. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, he said in 1994 that communism "is making a dramatic, secret comeback". The historians Glenn H. Utter and John H. Storey noted that Hargis' belief was "More an article of faith than a product of empirical observation," and "such a view of history remained unaltered by empirical evidence." His propensity for conspiracy theories distinguished Hargis and a group of like-minded preachers from what was later to emerge as the Christian right.
Drawing on premillenialist theology, Hargis saw national and world events as part of a cosmic struggle, where the ultimate actors were Christ and Satan. While Communism represented the latter, the United States was the object of God's love and should return to what he believed were its founding Christian ideals. He had a "simplistic conception of Americanism consisting of a vague notion of Protestant Fundamentalism
and an idealization of the virtues of republicanism
".
and Communism, and urging the return of prayer
and Bible
reading to public schools, long before the rise of the late 20th century Religious Right. He accused the government, media and pop culture figures, among whom he included the Beatles
in the 1960s, of promoting Communism. (HIs 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 Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, notable for his anti-Communist crusade.
Hargis alleged that John F. Kennedy
was killed by a Communist conspiracy, which gained him some notoriety in the immediate post-assassination
media furor. He was a member of the John Birch Society
. Hargis favored segregation
, accused Martin Luther King Jr. of being Communist-educated, and published James D. Bales
's anti-King book, The Martin Luther King Story. He said that the United States should leave the United Nations
. Hargis urged his listeners to write to their Representatives and Senators, and was one of the first fundamentalist Christian figures to urge his audiences to become politically involved. Successors also adopted this tactic.
Hargis addressed rural audiences with his revival style. He created publicity stunts, such as his 1953 scheme to release 100,000 balloon
s with Biblical quotations attached to them, to float across the Iron Curtain
into Communist countries. 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 an influential pamphlet on sex education, entitled "Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?
", by Gordon V. Drake, who worked closely with him on his educational mission.
In 1964, Hargis supported Republican
Senator Barry Goldwater
in that year's presidential race. On his radio program, Hargis presented a false work history about the journalist Fred J. Cook
, who had written a book critical of Goldwater's policies. When Cook requested air time to deliver a rebuttal, the broadcaster Red Lion refused. The journalist took his case to court, and eventually it was heard by the Supreme Court. In 1969, the high court upheld the FCC's
"equal-time provision" in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission
, codifying what became known as the Fairness Doctrine. Hargis also supported the late conservative Democratic
Louisiana State Senator
, Harold Montgomery
of Doyline
, whom he often mentioned on his programs.
for religious institutions and withdrew the tax-exempt status of the Christian Crusade. 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. He was the publisher of the monthly Christian Crusade Newspaper, with a circulation of 55,000, and Weekly Crusade.
He founded the David Livingstone Missionary Foundation, which operated hospitals, orphanage
s, leprosy
villages, medical vans and mission services in South Korea
, Hong Kong
, India
, the Philippines
and Africa. The direct mail entrepreneur Richard Viguerie
began his career working for Hargis.
Concerned with the liberalization of abortion law
s, in 1971 Hargis organized Americans for Life. That same year, he founded American Christian College in Tulsa, to teach fundamentalist Christian principles and provide an alternative to perceived left-wing and counterculture
influences. When asked what was taught there, Hargis said, "anti-communism, anti-socialism, anti-welfare state, anti-Russia, anti-China, a literal interpretation of the Bible and states' rights."
He also started a television show devoted to gospel music, called Billy James Hargis and his All-American Kids. It was sold to independent television stations. Students from the college performed in the musical group.
Hargis stepped down as president of American Christian College, where 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, and because his name was an irreplaceable money-raising asset. As Jess Pedigo, president of the David Livingstone Society said, "There was a danger of bankruptcy." 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 previously all the organizations had shared. With declining enrollment after the scandal became public, the college closed in 1977.
Hargis denied the sexual allegations until his death, both publicly and in his autobiography, My Great Mistake (1985). After his book was published, in 1985 he told a Tulsa reporter, "I was guilty of sin, but not the sin I was accused of." He eventually retreated to his farm in Neosho
, Missouri
, where he continued to work, 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, he suffered from Alzheimer's disease
, and died in 2004 at the age of seventy-nine in Tulsa.
. Hargis' organization and college also started the radio station KBJH (FM 98.5) in Tulsa 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
up until 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 was independently managed but was required to play Hargis' hour-long program daily.
His papers, described as "a goldmine for students of American politics," are stored at the special collections department of the University of Arkansas
Libraries in Fayetteville.
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, his Christian Crusade ministry was broadcast on more than 500 radio stations and 250 television stations. He promoted an anti-Communist message as well as evangelization, and founded a radio station, monthly newspaper and a college in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
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 or wrongdoing. Hargis went into early retirement and the college closed in 1977. He continued to publish his newspaper and to write books.
Biography
Hargis was adopted by a railroad employee, Billy James Hargis, and his wife; by the time the boy was 10, 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 BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
readings as his family was too poor during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
to own a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
. When his mother was hospitalized, Hargis promised to devote himself to God if she were saved. She recovered, and at age 17, Hargis was ordained in the Disciples of Christ denomination, before completing Bible college. After a few years, he left his pastorate for a ministry of radio preaching.
In 1943, Hargis entered the unaccredited Ozark Bible College in Bentonville
Bentonville, Arkansas
Bentonville, Arkansas is a city in Northwest Bahamas, and county seat of Benton County, Arkansas, United States The population was 35,301 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers, AR-MO Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, 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, Oklahoma
Sapulpa, Oklahoma
Sapulpa is a city in Creek and Tulsa counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 20,544 at the 2010 United States census, compared to 19,166 at the 2000 census...
, a small town outside Tulsa. He later received his Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
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, for which he gained tax exemption as a religious institution. In the mid-1950s, Hargis was closely associated with the evangelist Carl McIntire
Carl McIntire
Carl McIntire was a founder of, and minister in, the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long president of the and the American Council of Christian Churches, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.-Youth and education:Born in Ypsilanti,...
and former Major General Edwin Walker
Edwin Walker
Major General Edwin Anderson Walker was a United States Army officer known for his conservative political views and for being an attempted assassination target of Lee Harvey Oswald.-Early life and military career:...
of the John Birch Society, but he increasingly went his own way in preaching anti-Communism. His targets included government and popular singers. In 1957, the Disciples Of Christ withdrew his ordination because he was attacking other churches in his anti-Communist crusade, but by then Hargis' radio program was bringing in $1 million annually and he had established independence.
In 1966 Hargis founded his own congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
, called the Church of the Christian Crusade. This was part of a complex of organizations which 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 in 1952. They had three daughters and a son, Billy James Hargis II.Career
Hargis' motto was "All I want to do is preach Jesus and save America." He believed that there was a conspiracy behind the threats he perceived for the United States, which he identified with CommunismCommunism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, he said in 1994 that communism "is making a dramatic, secret comeback". The historians Glenn H. Utter and John H. Storey noted that Hargis' belief was "More an article of faith than a product of empirical observation," and "such a view of history remained unaltered by empirical evidence." His propensity for conspiracy theories distinguished Hargis and a group of like-minded preachers from what was later to emerge as the Christian right.
Drawing on premillenialist theology, Hargis saw national and world events as part of a cosmic struggle, where the ultimate actors were Christ and Satan. While Communism represented the latter, the United States was the object of God's love and should return to what he believed were its founding Christian ideals. He had a "simplistic conception of Americanism consisting of a vague notion of Protestant Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
and an idealization of the virtues of republicanism
Republicanism
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...
".
Positions and activities
Hargis preached on cultural issues: contending the evils of sex educationSex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...
and Communism, and urging the return of prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
and Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
reading to public schools, long before the rise of the late 20th century Religious Right. He accused the government, media and pop culture figures, among whom he included the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
in the 1960s, of promoting Communism. (HIs 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 Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, notable for his anti-Communist crusade.
Hargis alleged that John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
was killed by a Communist conspiracy, which gained him some notoriety in the immediate post-assassination
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
media furor. He was a member of the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
. Hargis favored segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, accused Martin Luther King Jr. of being Communist-educated, and published James D. Bales
James D. Bales
James David Bales was an influential Bible professor and administrator at Harding University for almost 40 years...
's anti-King book, The Martin Luther King Story. He said that the United States should leave the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. Hargis urged his listeners to write to their Representatives and Senators, and was one of the first fundamentalist Christian figures to urge his audiences to become politically involved. Successors also adopted this tactic.
Hargis addressed rural audiences with his revival style. He created publicity stunts, such as his 1953 scheme to release 100,000 balloon
Balloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
s with Biblical quotations attached to them, to float across the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
into Communist countries. 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 an influential pamphlet on sex education, entitled "Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?
Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?
Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex? was a pamphlet written in 1968 by Gordon V. Drake and published by Billy James Hargis's Christian Crusade...
", by Gordon V. Drake, who worked closely with him on his educational mission.
In 1964, Hargis supported Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Senator Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
in that year's presidential race. On his radio program, Hargis presented a false work history about the journalist Fred J. Cook
Fred J. Cook
Fred James Cook was an investigative journalist whose prime years of reporting spanned from the 1950s to the late 1970s...
, who had written a book critical of Goldwater's policies. When Cook requested air time to deliver a rebuttal, the broadcaster Red Lion refused. The journalist took his case to court, and eventually it was heard by the Supreme Court. In 1969, the high court upheld the FCC's
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
"equal-time provision" in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission
Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission
Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 395 U.S. 367 , established the doctrine that broadcast television stations are full First Amendment speakers whose editorial speech could not be regulated absent good reason...
, codifying what became known as the Fairness Doctrine. Hargis also supported the late conservative Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Louisiana State Senator
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...
, Harold Montgomery
Harold Montgomery
A. Harold Montgomery, Sr. , was an agricultural businessman and a Louisiana state senator, who is remembered as an outspoken conservative within his state's dominant Democratic Party...
of Doyline
Doyline, Louisiana
Doyline is a village in southwestern Webster Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 841 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Minden Micropolitan Statistical Area....
, whom he often mentioned on his programs.
Founding of institutions
Hargis founded the Christian Crusade in 1950, an interdenominational movement designed as a "Christian weapon against Communism and its godless allies." In 1964 the IRS found that Hargis' involvement in political matters violated the terms of the Internal Revenue CodeInternal Revenue Code
The Internal Revenue Code is the domestic portion of Federal statutory tax law in the United States, published in various volumes of the United States Statutes at Large, and separately as Title 26 of the United States Code...
for religious institutions and withdrew the tax-exempt status of the Christian Crusade. 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. He was the publisher of the monthly Christian Crusade Newspaper, with a circulation of 55,000, and Weekly Crusade.
He founded the David Livingstone Missionary Foundation, which operated hospitals, orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
s, leprosy
Leprosy
Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...
villages, medical vans and mission services in South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Africa. The direct mail entrepreneur Richard Viguerie
Richard Viguerie
Richard Art Viguerie is a conservative figure, pioneer of political direct mail and writer on American politics...
began his career working for Hargis.
Concerned with the liberalization of abortion law
Abortion law
Abortion law is legislation and common law which pertains to the provision of abortion. Abortion has been a controversial subject in many societies through history because of the moral, ethical, practical, and political power issues that surround it. It has been banned frequently and otherwise...
s, in 1971 Hargis organized Americans for Life. That same year, he founded American Christian College in Tulsa, to teach fundamentalist Christian principles and provide an alternative to perceived left-wing and counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
influences. When asked what was taught there, Hargis said, "anti-communism, anti-socialism, anti-welfare state, anti-Russia, anti-China, a literal interpretation of the Bible and states' rights."
He also started a television show devoted to gospel music, called Billy James Hargis and his All-American Kids. It was sold to independent television stations. Students from the college performed in the musical group.
Scandal
In 1974, when Hargis was nearly 50, he was forced to resign from the presidency of American Christian College, and many of his activities due to a sexual scandal. Several students at the American Christian College, of which Hargis was president, claimed that Hargis had had sex with them over a period of three years: four males and one female. One couple, whom he had married, claimed to have discovered on their wedding night that each lost virginity with him. These events had taken place at the college, his farm in the Ozarks, and while the "All American Kids" were touring. Time Magazine covered the scandal in early 1976. The local newspapers, the Tulsa Daily World and the Tulsa Tribune, declined to publish the accusations. The Tulsa district attorney investigated but never brought charges against Hargis.Hargis stepped down as president of American Christian College, where 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, and because his name was an irreplaceable money-raising asset. As Jess Pedigo, president of the David Livingstone Society said, "There was a danger of bankruptcy." 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 previously all the organizations had shared. With declining enrollment after the scandal became public, the college closed in 1977.
Hargis denied the sexual allegations until his death, both publicly and in his autobiography, My Great Mistake (1985). After his book was published, in 1985 he told a Tulsa reporter, "I was guilty of sin, but not the sin I was accused of." He eventually retreated to his farm in Neosho
Neosho, Missouri
Neosho is the most populous city in and the county seat of Newton County, Missouri, United States. Neosho is an integral part of the Joplin, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area....
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, where he continued to work, 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, he suffered from Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
, and died in 2004 at the age of seventy-nine in Tulsa.
Legacy
His son, Billy James Hargis II, continues his ministryChristian ministry
In Christianity, ministry is an activity carried out by Christians to express or spread their faith. 2003's Encyclopedia of Christianity defines it as "carrying forth Christ's mission in the world", indicating that it is "conferred on each Christian in baptism." It is performed by all Christians...
. Hargis' organization and college also started the radio station KBJH (FM 98.5) in Tulsa 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
Port Neches, Texas
Port Neches is a city in Jefferson County, Texas, United States. The population was 13,601 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area.- History :...
up until the early 1990s. KDLF
KBPO
KBPO is a radio station that is licensed to Port Neches, Texas, USA. The station is on the air broadcasting spanish chrisitan format and to serves the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. The station is currently owned by Vision Latina Broadcasting. -History:...
radio (so named after the David Livingston Foundation) played Southern Gospel Music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
and religious programming until it was sold around 1993. In the latter days of Hargis' ownership, the radio station was independently managed but was required to play Hargis' hour-long program daily.
His papers, described as "a goldmine for students of American politics," are stored at the special collections department of the University of Arkansas
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...
Libraries in Fayetteville.
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