A Heartening Report from A Game Show Host
“What’s My Line?” was a popular TV game show in the 1950s and 1960s. The set and the game were simple. The cast was simply a host and four celebrity panelists. The panelists tried to guess the occupations of everyday people who were guests by asking yes-or-no questions, thus the show title, “What’s My Line?” Each week’s show featured one celebrity guest, for whom the panelists were blindfolded.
Over the weekend, Ray showed me a video of an episode from 1960 when the special guest was Dr. Billy Graham.
The celebrities had an opportunity to ask ten questions, but were able to guess the identity of Dr. Graham after only six questions and answers:
- Have you ever studied dentistry? No.
- Does the World Series have anything to do with your being in town? No.
- Do you have anything to do with the world of politics? No.
- Are you a representative of the entertainment business in some way? No.
- Do you work for a non-profit-making organization? Yes.
- Would you happen to be appearing at Madison Square Garden? No.
However, the host clarified that the guest had had a very recent appearance there, after which the celebrity Joey Bishop, who had asked that question, was able to identify Dr. Graham.
South African born John Daly hosted “What’s My Line?” from 1950 to 1967. After Joey Bishop’s correct identification, John Daly told the television audience that Dr. Graham had just completed a three-day crusade in Madison Square Garden. Then Mr. Daly said to Dr. Graham, “It’s wonderful to have you in New York. If memory serves me right, and I think this is a very excellent and apt demonstration of how this world of ours is shrinking, last Sunday, if memory serves me right, you were in Berlin and you spoke in Berlin to 100,000 people, gathered here in the very body politic of Godless Communism — this little island — and I’m sure there’s nothing quite as heartening to us, even as far away as we are, to know that when you go to Berlin there is this outpouring, this rededication of the principles of a God and man’s responsibility to God.”
Dr. Graham told Mr. Daly, “It was very thrilling because the meeting was held right on the line between East and West Berlin. I stood on the steps of the old Reichstag and to preach the Gospel to that many people. And the Communist people had pulled up six tanks and armoured cars in back of us and yet there were hundreds of people lined up on the other side watching and listening as the loudspeakers carried the message over there and about 40% of the audience out before me was from East Germany. Some of them had even come from Poland and Hungary to attend the meeting, and it was really a tremendous thing to see this and a most heartening one, as you just said.” By the way, Berlin was divided into a Communist sector and a free sector after World War II, but the Communists did not build the Berlin Wall until the year following Dr. Graham’s visit there.
Ray was moved to tears as he shared the video with me. Here the host of one of the most popular shows of the day was praising the work of an evangelist who carried a message of God and man’s responsibility to Him to the “very body politic of Godless Communism.” Hearing a television host tell his audience about an evangelistic event in Berlin, express concern about a “Godless” way of life, and compliment the person who took a message about God to Berlin was heartening and powerful. Still, it grieved us both to think how our culture has changed in our lifetimes.
One of the many dangers of living in the world is the tendency to believe that the way things are now is the way things have always been — and worse, that the way things are now is the way things always will be.
The One who made the world sends us into the world, not to be like it, but to salt it boldly and to shine light on it — in His holy Name.
I do not ask You to take them out of the world,
but to keep them from the evil one.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
As You sent Me into the world,
I also have sent them into the world.
For their sakes I sanctify Myself,
that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
John 17:15-19
Beautiful, disheartening yes, but beautiful. This world changes constantly, for the worse. I AM was, is and will be beautiful and wonderful always! What a dependable, gracious God on whom we can depend!
This is so true Charlene! I’ve been pondering this very thing as I’ve read new historical fiction books–it seemed to me that the author was trying to make things seem like the sexual revolution, feminism, and abortion had always been the same as it is in today’s culture (under the guise of anything goes during wartime). Thank you for sharing this great story and how it highlights the vastly different culture that we live in now. May God strengthen His people in these days!