September 15, 2024: Integrity Doesn’t happen by accident
Achieving a life of integrity does not occur by accident but is the result of careful, thoughtful, and intentional planning and Billy Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association earned high marks in this regard. Billy Graham had a reputation for integrity that set the beloved evangelist and his team apart from many other Christian leaders, and the measures they took give an example of what it means for a minister to be above reproach and to take no chances in this regard.
Graham’s commitment to integrity was not an accident, but a conscious decision made by Graham and his associates when they were all young. In 1948, Billy Graham was preaching a revival in Modesto, CA and while there he had a pivotal conversation with three members of his team – Cliff Barrows, George Beverly Shea, and Grady Wilson. These four Christian men had a very earnest discussion about the moral failures which had ruined the ministries of other evangelists. In Graham’s autobiography Just As I Am, he described what happened:
One afternoon during the Modesto meetings, I called the team together to discuss the problem [of ethics in ministry]. Then I asked them to go to their rooms for an hour and list all the problems they could think of that evangelists and evangelism encountered.
When they returned, the lists were remarkably similar, and in a short amount of time, we made a series of resolutions or commitments among ourselves that would guide us in our future evangelistic work. In reality, it was more of an informal understanding among ourselves – a shared commitment to do all we could to uphold the Bible’s standard of absolute integrity and purity for evangelists.[i]
Graham, Barrows, Shea, and Wilson arrived at four major pitfalls which had plagued revivalists: Misuse of money, sexual immorality, exaggeration of results, and criticism of churches or other clergy.
To achieve the goal of integrity, as listed subsequently in the so-called “Modesto Manifesto,” Billy Graham’s team implemented several practical guidelines, three of which are quite remarkable for the time. First, they would submit all financial matters to a board of directors for review, a practice which was then uncommon. For each evangelistic crusade, they had regular audits and kept open books for all to see. Second, the members of the team resolved that they would never be alone with a woman who was not an immediate member of their families. Billy Graham said, “From that day on, I did not travel, meet, or eat alone with a woman other than my wife. We determined that the Apostle Paul’s mandate to the young pastor Timothy would be ours as well: “Flee . . . youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22).”[ii] Third, they determined not to inflate data regarding decisions for Christ or attendance at Graham’s evangelistic meetings. In later years, Cliff Barrows began referring to these guidelines as the Modesto Manifesto, and from his own notes he summarized the four principles as honesty, integrity, purity, and humility.[iii]
Billy Grahan’s life was one of unusual influence and fruitfulness. His lifetime of effective evangelism was the result of robust ethical commitments that established the operating parameters for his evangelistic work. To use a term from the Apostle Paul, Graham was above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2), and he remained above reproach by taking several intentional steps to keep himself and his team from falling into temptation.
As Christians, we can learn from Billy Graham’s example. Have you ever considered creating intentional steps in your own life to ensure integrity? Remember, a life of integrity doesn’t happen by accident but is the result of prudent choices and careful planning.
[i] Billy Graham, Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 128
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] “The Modesto Manifesto,” https://memorial.billygraham.org/ministry-timeline/.