The Billy Graham Way

How is it that Billy Graham has steered clear of even the slightest taint of scandal over his long ministry life? The Modesto Manifesto:

Evangelist Billy Graham knew many leaders who succumbed to temptation on the preaching circuit. That's why in 1948, Graham met with his evangelistic team in Modesto, California, and discussed how to protect themselves against smearing the gospel of Christ. They brainstormed the particular temptations faced by traveling evangelists and identified wealth, prestige, slander, and sex...The so-called Modesto Manifesto protected the men against their ignoble impulses and helped rehabilitate the image of gospel preachers.

Among the points they agreed on was that the Graham team would avoid even any appearance of financial abuse, exercise extreme care to avoid even the appearance of any sexual impropriety, to cooperate with any local churches that were willing to participate in united evangelism effort, and to be honest and reliable in their publicity and reporting of results.

Here are the rules:

1. Never exaggerate attendance figures at their meetings.
2. Accept only fixed salaries from their organization, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, rather than a percentage of the offerings.
3. Agreed not to criticize fellow members of the clergy.
4. Never meet, travel, or eat alone with any woman but their wives.

It's worked pretty well.