Applause, Once Rare, Seen as Expression of Exuberance : Congregations Taking a Hand in Services

Throughout his long career as an evangelist, Billy Graham has been finishing his crusade sermons with an invitation for people to come forward to make “commitments to Christ.”

The well-practiced routine calls for the moment to have a reverential, quiet tone. The organist plays softly and the evangelist himself is silent, except for remarks such as: “There’s a tremendous moving of the spirit of God here.”

But virtually every night of the the 10-day Southern California crusade, which ended Sunday, portions of the crowds, which averaged more than 50,000 each session, periodically broke into applause as people moved onto the field in response to Graham’s call.

Graham Taken Aback

Both Graham and his aides said he was taken aback by the phenomenon and did not quite know how to handle it. “We’ve never had people applaud at this point in the service. They don’t do that anywhere in the world,” he told the crowd last Saturday night. “But then they do things here (in Southern California) they don’t do anywhere else.”

Indeed, there is some indication that applause during religious services--traditionally frowned upon in church--is becoming more common in Southern California congregations.

C. Peter Wagner, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, agreed with a general opinion that applause has become acceptable in some charismatic churches where exuberance is part of the celebratory mood of worship. But Wagner said hand-clapping can be heard in non-charismatic churches as well.

“I notice we do a lot more applauding in my church, the Lake Avenue Congregational Church, at the Sunday morning church service,” he said. “It’s not common, but neither is it unusual for the congregation to break out into applause after a moving solo or choir number or to welcome someone. This is different, I think, from the way it was in the 1970s.”

‘Part of a New Mood’

Applause is condoned as well at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. The Rev. Herman J. Ridder, chief co-pastor to the Rev. Robert Schuller, said, “It’s part of a new mood which I find exhilarating. I find it is congruent with joy, which I think ought to be the prime mood in any worship service.”

Arguments against applause in churches include the contention that it could produce bad feelings if the congregation withheld its applause from some soloists or choir performances. “Applause for one group and not another would focus on their performances,” one clergyman said. “It’s a matter of keeping the order and the ardor in balance in a service.”

But Ridder said the Crystal Cathedral congregation usually applauds as an expression of its feeling, not as an assessment of the performance. A hymn with rather solemn overtones does not get applause because of the mood it sets, he said.

The Rev. John A. Huffman Jr., senior pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, said that the Sunday worshipers in his church who are most demonstrative in clapping tend to be those at the 10:15 a.m. service, a mix of old and young churchgoers. “My generation, the 40-to-60 age bracket, is mostly at our 8:30 a.m. service and this generation tends to hold back more on emotion,” Huffman said.

The New ‘Hallelujah’

Applause at worship services “may be a new way of saying ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘amen’ for some people, Huffman said.

“I know (Graham) was stunned the first night it happened at the crusade,” said Huffman, one of the crusade’s organizers. “I think he didn’t want to squelch this natural enthusiasm but he had ambivalent feelings about it.”

Graham admitted in an interview Sunday morning that “it bothered me a great deal until I began to think about it. If the angels can rejoice in heaven (over religious conversions), then maybe people have a right to also.”

Nevertheless, Graham pointedly asked for “complete silence” at the close of the service on the final night. Huffman said, “I think that was the key to where he really was.”