Forty years before churches were articulating “vision and values,” there was the Modesto Manifesto. This statement, drafted by the Billy Graham team
in 1948, set a standard for ethics and integrity that guided and protected the ministry of Graham’s profoundly influential organization.
Here’s the story, as told in Billy’s book, Just As I Am:
“Sinclair Lewis’s fictional character Elmer Gantry had given traveling evangelists a bad name. To our sorrow, we knew that some evangelists were not much better than Lewis’s scornful caricature.
“One afternoon during the Modesto meetings, I called the team together to discuss the problem. 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 we soon made a series of resolutions that would guide us in our future work.”
There were four points:
- Money. “Nearly all evangelists at that time—including us—were supported by love offerings taken at the meetings. The temptation to wring as much money as possible out of an audience, often with strong emotional appeals, was too great for some evangelists. In addition, there was little or no accountability for finances. It was a system that was easy to abuse—and led to the charge that evangelists were in it only for the money.”I had been drawing a salary from Youth for Christ and turning all offerings from YFC meetings over to YFC committees, but my new independent efforts in citywide campaigns required separate finances. In Modesto we determined to do all we could to avoid financial abuses, to downplay the offering and depend as much as possible on money raised by the local committees in advance.”
- Sexual temptations. “We all knew of evangelists who had fallen into immorality while separated from their families by travel. We pledged among ourselves to avoid any situation that would have even the appearance of compromise or suspicion. From that day on, I did not travel, meet, or eat alone with a woman other than my wife. We determined that Paul’s mandate to the young pastor Timothy would be ours as well: ‘Flee … youthful lusts’ (2 Tim. 2:22, KJV).”
- Local churches. “We had observed the tendency of many evangelists to work apart from the local church, even to criticize local pastors and churches openly and scathingly. We were convinced, however, that this was not only counterproductive but also wrong from the Bible’s standpoint. We were determined to cooperate with all who would cooperate with us in the public proclamation of the gospel, and to avoid an antichurch or anticlergy attitude.”
- Publicity. “The tendency among some evangelists was to exaggerate their successes or to claim higher attendance numbers than they really had. This likewise discredited evangelism and brought the whole enterprise under suspicion. It often made the press so suspicious of evangelists that they refused to take notice of their work. In Modesto we committed ourselves to integrity in our publicity and reporting.”So much for the Modesto Manifesto, as Cliff Barrows called it in later years. In reality, it did not mark a radical departure for us; we had always held these principles. It did, however, settle in our hearts and minds, once and for all, the determination that integrity would be the hallmark of our lives and our ministry.”Countless churches and ministries, including the one that publishes Leadership have benefited from this model of living integrity set by the Graham team.
As you’ll notice in this issue, many of our writers will be speaking at the National Pastors Convention. Visit www.nationalpastorsconvention.com for details. We would enjoy seeing you there and continuing this conversation about what it takes to carry on a faithful and effective ministry.
Marshall Shelley is editor of Leadership.
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