The Rhetorical Leadership of Fulton J Sheen Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham in the Age of Extremes

the long version

Fulton J. Sheen, Norman Vincent Peale, and Billy Graham were America's most popular religious leaders during the mid-twentieth-century period known as the golden years of the Age of Extremes. It was an era that encompassed polemic contrasts of good and evil on the world stage in political philosophies and international relations. Sheen was the voice of reason who spoke against those conflicting ideologies which were hostile to religious faith and democracy; Peale preached the gospel of reassurance, self-assurance, and success despite ominous global threats; and Graham was the heroic model of faith whose message of conversion provided Americans an identity and direction opposite to atheistic communism. The study looks at how and why their rhetorical leadership, both separately and together, contributed to the climate of an extreme era and influenced a national religious revival. -- from back cover.